Assign track color to mixer automatically.

[Gabrielxd195]

Summary of improvements

Assign the track color to the mixer channel automatically.

Justification

Currently you can assign a track to a channel of the mixer, the channel will be created automatically, but the color of the track is not assigned to the channel and you have to manually select the color of the channel, which is a bit cumbersome and impractical.

Sketch

Here is an image of the problem.

The track has a color assigned but the channel it was assigned to does not.

[ryuukumar]

As I implemented the color feature, I'd like to see if I can fix this sometime in the near future, if nobody objects :)

[Spekular]

I think we ought to be careful about automatically coloring mixer channels. #1214 for example would conflict with this, so clearly different users want to use the colors for different things. Choosing them automatically like this would be an annoyance to anyone who prefers a different system.

[musikBear]

@Spekular But for 1214 would the instruments in songeditor not be color-coded in the same way?

Anywitch, it would only be a question about adding one new 'rule' in setup:
Use song-editors track-colors as mixer-colors on/off (default on)
Then lmms can do both regimes

[DomClark]

I think we ought to be careful about automatically coloring mixer channels. #1214 for example would conflict with this, so clearly different users want to use the colors for different things. Choosing them automatically like this would be an annoyance to anyone who prefers a different system.

If someone wants a different system, they need to change the colour themselves anyway, right? This is only an annoyance to people who want to send a coloured track to a non-coloured mixer channel.

[IanCaio]

I'm a bit over the fence about how it should behave tbh. I'm fine having the "Assign to new FX channel" create a channel with the Track's color: even if that's not my intention it's not an unexpectable behavior and just a minor annoyance. Personally, I envisioned having the Track's follow the color of the mixer, not the other way around. But I can see how people can prefer other coloring schemes. As long as the behavior doesn't enforce one on the other and doesn't make too much of a hassle to use a different one I think it's fine. The changes made by the PR doesn't seem to really create much trouble on that matter IMHO.

[ryuukumar]

#1214 in general conflicts with the idea of custom mixer colors, so having it in its original form (as coloring tracks) will probably not make much sense. If it is instead changed to showing an icon, that is something that can have all of these three PRs work together.

Regarding whether this behavior should be used, I think that most people who will use color coding in the tracks, will probably want to use it in the mixer as well. Since this specific option (Assign to new FX channel) is for creating the track's own channel, it would probably make sense to have it be colored like that track (if #1214 is implemented, it would also make sense to have the color in sync too). @musikBear's idea of having a setting seems like a bit of a hassle, but probably the best way to accommodate both opinions.

Edit: Another point I forgot to mention; we already copy over the name of the track into the new mixer channel that is made. Afaik there's no setting for that at all. Since we're already copying a track characteristic over, why not this one too? It takes one click (technically two) to remove the color, but a few more to set it, let alone if you use something other than the 48 colors that are inbuilt.

[Spekular]

Looking at the way this is implemented in the PR I'm not opposed. From the original bug report I thought the idea might be that existing mixer channels would take the color of tracks sent to them.

[musikBear]

existing mixer channels would take the color of tracks send to them.

Oah.. The plot thickens..
That would be a third absolutely logical and useful behaviour 🤓
In summery

• Decorative use
• Structured use (all pads same color aso.
• Mixer-logic

more?

[ryuukumar]

This seems to be beyond what my PR is currently doing. Linking colors of existing tracks and mixer channels is a whole another debate (one I personally am against, but some seem to be in support of it). As of now, my PR (and what I assume this issue asks for too) is just the behavior of new mixer channels when they are made with that option. It appears that most people at the very least aren't troubled by the changes in the PR, so unless someone explicitly rejects this, I'll merge it tomorrow.

[musikBear]

@russiankumar I think you should make this as you intended. Anything fancy can eventually come later, or not. Getting user-colors on chanels and tracks was the wish -Everything after that is creap-features

[ryuukumar]

@musikBear sorry, didn’t see your message until I merged this. I’ll leave the remaining of track-mixer color syncing to some other devs, if they want it. Might make a good first issue, even :)

[spechtstatt]

This may be related to issue #1215 and my current draft pull request #6407.

It is about an linking of tracks to mixer channels and syncing the color and the description automatically.

It is controllable by a context menu switch for each mixer channel and there should also be a kind of button on the mixer itself to enable/disable the feature on the fly.