New in 2.3: Add hotcue colors post

pages/news/2020-08-25-new-in-2-3-hotcue-colors.html

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+title: New in 2.3: Color your Hotcues
+author: Holzhaus
+date: 2020-08-25 12:00:00
+
+{% extends "post.html" %}
+
+{% block post %}
+
+{% load markup %}
+{% filter markdown:"extra" %}
+
+Hotcues are a neat thing and one of the major benefits of digital DJing.
+On analogue vinyl decks, you had had to put stickers to mark the different sections of a song and physically pick up, move and drop the needle to move to it.
+With the move to digital DJ setups, a new way to navigate tracks emerged: Hotcues now allow you to "bookmark" different spots in a track and quickly move to these positions in the blink of an eye, even while track is playing on the PA.
+
+Mixxx has supported them for more than 10 years now:
+Initial support for numbered hotcues has been added in 2009.
+
+However, it can be challenging to remember the correct number in the heat of the moment.
+Accidently pressing the wrong hotcue pad is not something you or your audience want to hear.
+
+## Better Hotcue Labels
+
+In 2015, support for hotcue labels was added to mitigate this problem.
+These can be arbitrary text that is shown on the waveforms.
+However, these were only shown on the scrolling waveforms, so you could not see them unless the track was close to that position.
+Also, it was cumbersome to edit labels because this was buried in the track Properties dialog that was only accessible from the library.
+
+In Mixxx 2.3, we overhauled the way you can interact with hotcues using the mouse:
+It's now possible to see the labels on the overview waveforms.
+You can edit them directly from the waveform by right clicking.
+
+If you have long, descriptive labels on hotcues that are close together, Mixxx will elide the labels so they don't overlap.
+You can still see the full label by hovering your mouse over an elided label.
+Mixxx will hide any other labels this would be drawn over so the text is legible.
+
+![Hotcue labels on overview waveforms]({% static "/images/news/hotcue-colors-labels.png" %})
+
+## Color your Hotcues
+
+But Mixxx 2.3 has yet another next major improvement for hotcues in the pipeline:
+Hotcues can now have individual colors to make them visually distinguishable.
+
+How you color code your hotcues is up to you - one example would be to set red cues 16 beats before the drop or chorus, yellow 8 beats before it and color the start of vocals blue.
+
+![Hotcue buttons and color picker]({% static "/images/news/hotcue-colors-picker.png" %})
+
+## Pick the colors YOU like
+
+By default, you can pick a color from the Mixxx Hotcue Color palette.
+That palette contains 9 colors that are easy to distinguish.
+
+Personal preferences differ though, and it's probably impossible to suit everyones taste.
+This is why - unlike most other DJ software - you are not restricted to the single predefined color palette we picked.
+
+If you previously used Serato DJ Pro, Rekordbox, Traktor or VirtualDJ and like their color palettes better ours, we've got you covered.
+You can also use one of their palettes instead.
+
+![Hotcue color palette selection]({% static "/images/news/hotcue-colors-palette-combobox.png" %})
+
+But it doesn't stop there:
+We also added a powerful color palette editor that can be used to rearrange and customize these palettes and even design *your own palette* using any RGB colors you like.
+
+![Hotcue color palette editor]({% static "/images/news/hotcue-colors-palette-editor.png" %})
+
+## Automatic Coloring
+
+When setting a hotcue, a single default color is assigned that you can select in the preferences.
+You can then go ahead and change the color to your liking.
+
+While assigning a custom color to cue points after you set them is a nice feature, coloring all your cue points this way can be tedious and a lot of extra work.
+If you want, Mixxx 2.3 can color new hotcues automatically for you - based on the hotcue number.
+
+A small example:
+Say you want to set a cue point before the main vocal part, and you want it colored "blue".
+You can configure Mixxx to always assign "blue" to the hotcues number 5, and then just set hotcue number 5 at the desired position - done.
+
+If you do this, that also means that a hotcue of the same type (e.g. "before main vocals") does not only have the same color but is also assigned to the same hotcue pad.
+Hence, the possibility of getting confused during a gig is reduced even more than when just using colors as visual aid.
+
+## Bulk replace old hotcue colors
+
+At some point, you might feel like your current scheme for color code hotcues lacking and unintuitive.
+Maybe you simply don't like the colors anymore and would like to switch to a different palette.
+Or you realize that you find the colorful hotcue buttons actually distracting and want to get rid of them.
+If that happens, you may want to bulk replace the colors of existing hotcue in your library.
+
+We're not aware that any of our competitors in the DJ software market have such an option - Mixxx 2.3 has.
+You can find a dialog for replacing colors on the "Colors" page in the preferences window.
+
+It allows bulk replacing hotcue colors for hotcues in your library and can be used to
+
+  - replace colors by hotcue number ("Set the color of all hotcues with number 5 to blue"),
+  - replace colors by current color ("Set the color of all red hotcues to blue"),
+  - combine the two conditions ("Set the color of all red hotcues with index 5 to blue"),
+  - negate them ("Set the color of all hotcues that are red but don't have number 5 to blue")  or
+  - just replace all hotcue colors in your library unconditionally ("Set the color of all hotcues to blue").
+
+![Hotcue color replace dialog]({% static "/images/news/hotcue-colors-replace.png" %})
+
+## Support for colored hotcues on controllers
+
+You're a controller mapping creator and wondered how to make use of hotcue colors on your controller?
+Then don't worry - we designed this feature with controller support in mind.
+
+When it comes to hotcue buttons, there are 4 types of controllers:
+
+  1. Controllers without hotcue buttons
+  2. Controllers with uncolored buttons
+  3. Controllers with colored hotcue buttons that allow setting an arbitrary RGB color
+  4. Controllers with colored hotcue buttons that only allow setting certain, predefined colors
+
+For controllers of types 1 and 2, nothing changes (obviously).
+
+For type 3, we made the RGB color of a hotcue accessible in controller scripts, so you can go ahead and implement support for it.
+If your controller mapping uses our JavaScript Components library, this is quite simple:
+You only need to implement the `HotcueButton::sendRGB(color)` method, that sends the 3-byte RGB color value to the controller (e.g. via a MIDI-SysEx message, depending on your hardware).
+
+What about type 4?
+Controllers that only allow choosing from a predefined color set were probably designed that way because they were sold with a software that does not allow assigned arbitrary colors to hotcues.
+You can think of these predefined colors as a list, and usually you can set the pad color of these controllers by sending the color's index in that list as MIDI value.
+For example, red could be color 1, blue is color 2, yellow is color 3, green is color 4 and so on.
+
+We added a `ColorMapper` class that you can use to establish a mapping between these IDs and can be used to get the appropriate MIDI value for a given color.
+
+But what happens if you set a hotcue to a color that isn't supported by the controller?
+Obviously, it's not possible to show the exact same color on your controller if the hardware simply doesn't support it - but don't worry, we've got you covered.
+
+In this case, `ColorMapper` returns the ID of the color that is *most similar* to the color you put in.
+As an example, the hotcue color in Mixxx could be a darker shade of blue - ColorMapper will simply return the color for the regular blue color in this case, because it's the best match.
+
+![Hotcue colors on a controller]({% static "/images/news/hotcue-colors-controller.gif" %}){: style="width: 100%" }
+
+Seems complicated?
+It doesn't have to be.
+If your mapping already uses our JavaScript Components library, you can just create a `ColorMapper` object, and it to the `HotcueButton` and your colored hotcue pads should start working!
+
+We also added [controls](https://mixxx.org/wiki/doku.php/mixxxcontrols) to to make it possible assign a different color to an existing hotcue from your controller - for example, the mapping for the Roland DJ-505 uses the PARAMETER -/+ buttons next to the hotcue pads to cycle through the color palette for most recently activated hotcue.
+
+Refer to our wiki if you want to integrate it into your controller mapping and check out the video below:
+
+{% endfilter %}
+{% endblock %}