In deadline 5 we used to be able to change the colors of the UI, is it going to be added again.
Cause for example the active color is really hard to distinct from the queued job.
Currently, no, and while we would like to support this again, we might not have time to get this into 6.0.
Maybe we can make the queued jobs white, since the slave idle color is also white, so that matches them up well.
That means we need a different color for completed jobs. Maybe the purple color we used to use for archived jobs?
** The reason the archived job color is on the table is because we are working on a new archived job feature for D6. The archiving system will be changed to an exporting system, where the job files will be exported and zipped up and saved somewhere on disk. They can then be imported later. So since the archived jobs will no longer be in the system, they won’t be shown in the Monitor until they are imported again.
A side benefit of the export system is that it would be possible to export a job from one repository and import it into another. We will like this for support because if someone is having problems with a job, they can export it and send us the zip file. I’m sure studios will find other uses for this as well. 
Will the export to another disk feature support saving to a non-local disk? UNC path / external cloud storage for archive?
Will the feature be able to verify that the data move was successful?
Well i wont go into each specific color for tasks and jobs.
But my own suggestion would be that the completed job color should be grey and the suspended job white.
As for the active one i already talked about it in a previous post.
Now i still thinks that it would be nice to get this feature back.
We want to match them up to the slave states though. Also, from a UI perspective, grayed out typically means something is unavailable, so using the same color for suspended jobs or offline slaves seems to fit. Here is the current coloring we’re thinking of using. We’re trying to maintain some sort of consistency between the lists for what states the colors are representing. For example, white represents a “not in use” state, so it’s used for queued jobs/tasks, idle slaves, unused limits, etc. Green represents “in use”, so it’s used for active/rendering jobs/tasks, rendering slaves, limits that are in use but not maxed out, etc.
Job/Task List:
queued: white
active/rendering: green
completed: purple (not all out purple, but more like the color we used for archived jobs in v5)
suspended: grey
failed: red
pending: orange
corrupted: yellow
Slave List:
idle: white
active/rendering: green
offline: grey
stalled: red
disabled: yellow
Pulse List:
idle: white
offline: grey
stalled: red
Limit List:
unused: white
in use: green
maxed out: red
Report List:
log: white
error: red
requeue: orange
Hey guys,
We just got going with our first version of the deadline 6 beta, and one of the first reactions from all ex-deadline users was:
“why are the colors all wrong, and where are the icons? we probably got an old beta, or missed a library installation, or a path is set up wrong and the icons were not found”
I realize that this is a WIP, but i think one very important, almost crucial part of introducing a whole new architecture is making sure that it feels familiar, and users who have used the old version for years won’t feel alienated. If i open the GUI of the new deadline monitor, currently it feels wrong. The colors have mostly changed for the worse (i really can’t come up with any valid reasoning why the monitor’s notification colors had to be changed, its the interface that users look at 99% of their ‘deadline-time’, and now they have to relearn what information the colors represent, even if only partially).
We have been using assfreezer (argh) here, and most users who come from a deadline background have modified the assfreezer color scheme to match deadline5’s. But with deadline6, they can’t even do that… 
We believe changing the colors was a necessity. The biggest issue with the old color scheme was that queued and active jobs were both green. In Deadline 5 and earlier, we used a bold font to separate the two, but with the auto-updating in Deadline 6, the changing of the font was a big distraction. It felt like data was jumping around when it wasn’t. It also didn’t allow you to tell the difference between active and queued jobs at a glance when using the graph view. Finally, it wasn’t consistent with the other lists, where idle or “not in use” was represented by white. We think consistency is very important, for both old and new Deadline users.
So as a result, we changed two colors:
- Idle jobs were now white instead of green.
- Complete jobs were now light blue instead of white.
So with the removal of the text bolding, I don’t think we can ever go back to the old color scheme. We will still like to add the ability to customize the colors at some point, but we don’t know when that will be.
We definitely understand there will be a bit of a learning curve for old Deadline users, but I think it’s for the greater good.
I hope the reasons listed above help explain our reasoning for the changes. Regardless though, we would really like to hear why you think it’s worse than it was before.
Cheers,
- Ryan
It’s worth pointing out that trying to avoid change for the sake of users used to an old version can be one of the biggest hindrances to a major overhaul like this, and often leads to unfortunate “halfling” updates. At some point, the cycle has to be broken, so to speak. Yes, it’s going to be unfamiliar to a lot of people, but those people don’t get paid to never have to learn or adapt to anything new.
Yeah, i understand that, and in case the changes are for the better, that’s a valid point. I am not yet convinced they are, thats why i posted.
But to clarify, i am just voicing my (and others here) initial reaction. Since our rollout currently is limited to tech folks who have used deadline for years, its a common theme, but it will change as people get used to the new workflow. The current version’s lack of customizability might hurt us a little when trying to convince non-deadline users that we switched over for something better, as most “users” could care less about the backend, all they look at is the monitor. So as long as thats “pretty” they are impressed & happy.
That makes sense, thanks for the explanation Ryan.
Since those other lists are rarely actively looked at (the main display for most folks is the job view in the monitor), i tend to favour changing those as opposed to the monitor colors.
Changing what white means from complete to idle will definitely be confusing, as that was the most common color (other than green) in the monitor. At least for previous users of deadline anyway.
That’s a fair point regarding people coming from a D5 mindset, but my feeling is that ultimately, the UI actually turns out to be much more customizable once the possibilities are more or less laid out, since you can now easily create and switch between many arbitrary layouts. I agree that allowing the status colors to be edited is something that should definitely be added, though at this point I don’t feel particularly strongly that it’s a must-have for the 6.0 release.