Cable Colour Key module

Plugins & Modules
21

I downloaded the windows version and tested a bit.

Setup is far from ideal - the very things you don’t want to do like menu items to edit and save color schemes and key mappings would be very helpful.

But once I got everything setup, the UI for selecting cable colors is a significant improvement. Selecting a color by pressing a key while creating a cable is a minor improvement. Using the VCV menu to do the same is a tiny bit less convenient. But it is a major improvement to be able to click and hold a cable port and press the color key and instantly change the color of an existing cable :smiley:

The Count Modula pallette, and the Submarine Wire Manager both work well, but having to go to the module to select a color can be problematic with large patches.

1 Like
22

I can confirm that it works well here on Windows. Just an issue. The colors in the RYGBP and VXYBC… presets are not in the right place for me. R is white, B is red, etc. I have 32 colors custom organized in setting.json. Some suggestion :smiling_face: *I think that the latch button would be great to be clickable on the GUI or even better on another key (Tilda or slash)

  • if we have more colors in settings, with two keys to offset the position of the colors picked with 1-9. <3 Anyway, it is gonna be in my workflow and I am happy with that. Thank you.
1 Like
23

Thanks for testing it.

Yeah, I don’t disagree that they would be helpful. I guess I’m just trying to avoid clutter, and the extra time that I would need to spend working on a module that already does everything that I personally need. :joy: I was kind of hoping that if enough users like this way of working that it might end up being added to Rack. It’s certainly an easier and more comfortable way of working with the colours for me.

24

Perhaps this is a little confusing, but the presets simply load keys that index the colours in your settings file. So, the “R” key, in the RYGBP mapping, maps to the first item/colour (no matter what colour it is), and the “Y” to the second, etc.

I’m curious to know how you’re using 32 custom colours.

Funny you should mention this - I had initially thought of adding the tilde key as a mapping to toggle the latch function.

1 Like
25

I used this link Visually Distinct Colors Generator to make a distinct 32 color table. I picked 10 colors as the first colors in my list. those are used somehow like ASMVCV uses his palette. The others are flowing in the best distinction distribution (I guess). Your tool works great for me in this manner. The first 10 mapped on the numbers with latch (or hopefully a toggle key for latch) for all around connections (gate, trigger,clock,v/oct, etc) and the others are used if I have multiple voices (like mini different palettes with good distinction). I am fairly new to VCV realm so I came to this idea. For now it is working well. With your device, I feel it is in the right direction.

1 Like
26

Cable Palette has user assignable hot keys that can be used to select the colour rather than clicking the colour button on the module and there is an option for them to be made global so you only need the module in your patch to use them.

4 Likes
27

After all this time - I never realized the global setting was what I was looking for. That makes a world of difference. Thanks!

But did I miss a mechanism to change the color of an existing cable? I had figured out how to use Wire Manager for that, but not Palette.

28

Good day/evening Your Highness! Greetings from the heart of Transylvania. Cable Palette is super cool but for me, it works only from 1 to 7 in global mode.Something cool about this module (cable colour key) is the fact that is so easy to click on an existing cable and switch the colour. I am missing something?It is doable in Cable palette? Thank you. Your modules are Majestic.

29

Colour Palette doesn’t do that I’m afraid.

30

I don’t want to derail Nicks thread but if you’re using more than 7 colours that is quite possible, I’ve not really tested it with more colours than 7 even though it can render buttons for 15 colours.

1 Like
31

Thanks for releasing the Cable Color Key module. It works and the workflow is great. If there are more than 16 colors, the color indicators are pushed beyond the top edge of the module, maybe a limit to 16 colors would make sense. All in all hats off, a great module!

1 Like
32

Addition to the key2color assignment:

The factory preset ‘VXYBCGTRSAMLU’ does not match the original ASMVCV palette and therefore delivers wrong colors if the color codes are written in original order into settings.json. The original color sequence is:

VCV Cable Colors
VCV Cable Colors597×1400 146 KB

Corresponding entry in Settings.json:

  "cableColors": [
    "#e6e6e6",
    "#ca1646",
    "#d07711",
    "#d01183",
    "#d5c10b",
    "#d50bd5",
    "#8db30f",
    "#7d10c1",
    "#109319",
    "#1359ae",
    "#0fb382",
    "#1098c1",
    "#0bced5"
  ],

The matching preset ‘UAMSLRVTXGYCB’ is therefore:

{
  "plugin": "Inklen CableColourKey",
  "model": "CableColourKey",
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "params": [],
  "data": {
    "keyMappings": [
85,
65,
77,
83,
76,
82,
86,
84,
88,
71,
89,
67,
66
    ]
  }
}

Attention: For non-English keyboard layouts, the scancodes must be adjusted, e.g. Y (#89) <=> Z (#90) for German layout, the preset then must be:

{
  "plugin": "Inklen CableColourKey",
  "model": "CableColourKey",
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "params": [],
  "data": {
    "keyMappings": [
85,
65,
77,
83,
76,
82,
86,
84,
88,
71,
90,
67,
66
    ]
  }
}

It might therefore be a good idea to do the definition directly by letters instead of scancodes or provide a decent editor for this purpose.

1 Like
33

@CountModula Since you mention the number 7, I tried Cable Palette but was only able to select the first 7 colors with a pc keyboard press. However, all keys were assigned, as can also be seen in CountModula.json:

{
  "DefaultTheme": 0,
  "lightStripDefaultColor": [
    0.0399999991,
    0.0399999991,
    0.0399999991
  ],
  "paletteGlobalHotKeys": false,
  "paletteLockHotKey": 92,
  "paletteLockModifier": 0,
  "paletteHotKeyMap": [
    85,
    65,
    77,
    83,
    76,
    82,
    86,
    84,
    88,
    71,
    90,
    67,
    66,
    -1,
    -1
  ],
  "paletteModifierMap": [
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0,
    0
  ]
}

Sorry, slightly offtopic, I know. :flushed:

34

Thanks - I’ll have a look into this. I thought that I had put a hard limit in there, but perhaps not.

Yeah, I figured that it wouldn’t - it was mostly just to get those keycode in. I’ll switch the order, and think about possibly adding a second mapping list with the actual character values, if it’s not too difficult to map.

1 Like
35

I see that your plugins are opensource. I could see if I can quickly add this functionality and send through a pull request, if you would like it added.

36

I’ve made a few changes:

  • Presets can now use an alternative “characterMapping” array to map characters.
  • The keyboard shortcut key “~” toggles the latch state (only works when dragging cables).
  • Fixed cable positioning issues when more than 16 colours are mapped.

[old links removed, new versions can be found in later posts]

You can use lower case characters to map shortcut keys that will work on alternate keyboard layouts. The old “keyMappings” work as well. For example, the “RYBGP” preset is now:

{
  "plugin": "Inklen-CableColourKey",
  "model": "CableColourKey",
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "params": [],
  "data": {
    "characterMappings": [
      "r",
      "y",
      "g",
      "b",
      "p"
    ]
  }
}
2 Likes
37

Almost perfect for me, maybe you can change the color of the LED to make it match better the color indicator (at least with Light Bloom = 0).

inklen1

The latch switchover with ‘~’ doesn’t work for me, maybe that has something to do with my keyboard layout (DE). It would be helpful to allow this character to be editable as well.

Thanks a lot!

38

Would more readable to add a led to each cable

39

I thought of that too, but that probably contradicts the concept of an interface as tidy as possible.

1 Like
40

maybe lightning up the plug or the tip of the plug?