More on the simplified panels…
I may be sounding defensive. Spending a lot of time on a subject like this often points to some defensiveness or hidden insecurity. In my case, probably insecurity. Ha ha ha. 
I’m dwelling on this not to refute others’ opinions, but rather to explore my own reasoning. It’s quite possible that I made a bad call by simplifying the panel designs. Maybe it would have been better to continue to evolve the more detailed panels since most people were fond of them.
The impetus was certainly Cardinal’s inability to port over my collection gracefully. But there was more to it.
At the same time, I was inspired by a YouTube channel called “Continuous Delivery” where Dave Farley suggested that good software is software that works, and that’s easy to change.
The ability to change software easily, safely and with confidence is a marker of its quality.
This idea of “easy to change” really resonates with me. It’s something that I’ve loved about the rack fundamental modules: They’re so simply written and easy to understand! I wanted to make my collection more like that.
The panel work for modules was quite time consuming. Creating a new front panel (both light and dark versions) took about a full day of work. That might not sound like much, but it adds up. Making modifications was also time consuming.
So I decided to simplify the panel designs.
In addition, I spent a few days modifying the widget placement code so that I could simply move elements on the front panel, and the corresponding widgets would move accordingly.
Finally – I’m thinking ahead to when AI will be doing a lot of this work for me. By streamlining my code and panel creation, it should be easier for AI to share more of the work.
Anyhow, thanks for listening. 