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Settings

The settings are one panel of the workspace - the one docked on the right in the shipped arrangement (see Panels). They control the language, the appearance and two preferences of the application, and every one of them applies immediately - no dialog, no restart. Every change is stored for the next start, and every setting has its own reset next to it plus one "reset all" at the bottom of the panel. Below the settings, the same panel carries the shortcut editor, which is customised the same way. The settings persist in the application's config directory (settings.json, written by the desktop shell); a plain browser build falls back to the browser's local storage. The payload is versioned and migrated on load: a setting that was stored by an older build is carried over, a malformed one falls back to its default, and a payload from a newer build is read as the defaults instead of being guessed at.

One thing of this chapter is deliberately not a setting: the colours of the tracks and clips. They belong to the project and travel with its file, so their section sits at the end of this chapter and says so.

Language

Switches the user interface between English and Deutsch. The change applies at once, without a restart: labels, menus, dialogs, the in-app manual and the release notes all follow immediately. The language is remembered for the next start; on the very first start MusicStation uses the system language. The same setting also sits in the About dialog, so the release notes can be read in the other language without leaving it (see About and What's New).

Theme

Selects the colour theme of the interface. Three themes ship, in this order:

  • Dark - the default: a near-black background, a slightly lighter raised surface and a blue accent.
  • Light - the same arrangement on a white surface with dark text and a deeper accent.
  • High contrast - the theme for maximum legibility: pure black surfaces, white text, clearly visible mid-grey borders and a saturated amber accent that cannot be mistaken for text. It exists for working in a very bright room, on a projector or with reduced vision, where the softer contrast of the two other themes stops being comfortable.

A theme is a complete set of design tokens, so the change applies at once to the whole window, without a reload, and it is remembered for the next start. It covers more than the background: text, muted text, borders, the accent colour, the focus rings and the track colour palette all come from the theme. An accent colour of your own can be laid over any of the three themes (see Accent colour); Reset theme returns to Dark. Switching the theme changes nothing about your music: the session, the clips and the transport keep running while the colours change underneath them.

Accent colour

The accent colour paints the highlighted controls of the interface - the engaged transport button, the focused ring, the selected entries. The section offers two ways to pick it:

  • Swatches - a row of six colours: Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Red and Violet. Click a swatch to apply it; the active one is announced as pressed and marked with a ring.
  • Custom colour - type a hex colour with a leading hash, either three or six digits (#2f6fd0 or #abc, upper or lower case; at most seven characters). Enter or leaving the field commits it, Escape discards the draft. Text that is not a hex colour is rejected: the draft stays in the field so you can correct it, and the hint Enter a hex colour with a leading hash and three or six digits, for example 2f6fd0. appears below it. A value that was applied appears in the field.

The default is no accent of your own: the interface then uses the accent colour the theme brings, which is what Reset accent colour restores as well. The colour is applied at once to the whole window and is remembered for the next start.

UI scale

Scales the whole interface, in percent. The range is 75 % to 200 % and the default is 100 %. Type a value and commit it with Enter or by leaving the field (Escape discards the draft), or step the value with the arrow keys: Up/Down by 5 percent, with Shift by 50 percent. Double-click resets the field to 100 %. Values are rounded to whole percent and clamped to the range. The scale multiplies the root font size, so every size, spacing and control of the window follows; the setting is remembered for the next start and does not interrupt playback.

Reset theme

Puts the theme back to Dark, the documented default. All other settings stay as they are. The reset is applied and stored immediately; it is available regardless of the current value.

Reset accent colour

Removes a custom accent colour and returns to the accent the current theme brings. The theme, the UI scale and the language stay untouched. The reset is applied and stored immediately; it is available regardless of the current value.

Reset UI scale

Returns the UI scale to 100 %. The other settings stay as they are. The reset is applied and stored immediately; it is available regardless of the current value.

Reset language

Puts the interface language back to the documented default: the language of the system, or English when the system reports none of the two shipped languages. It is the reset next to the language select and has the same effect as picking that entry there. The theme, the accent colour, the UI scale and the two preferences stay untouched. The reset is applied and stored immediately.

Snapshot on save

The preference that decides whether saving a project also stores a snapshot in the version history of that project. It is a switch: it is engaged by default, click it to switch the preference off and click it again to switch it back on. The state is stored with the other settings and is remembered for the next start; the preferences are shared by every project, they are not kept per project.

With the preference engaged, every save the engine carries out records the document it just wrote as an automatic version of the project, labelled Snapshot on save; the version history lists it as its newest entry right after the save, and it derives from nothing, so it is exactly the document that was written. A save the engine refuses writes nothing and records nothing either, so no Snapshot on save entry appears for it - a failed save leaves the list exactly as it was (the refusals are named in Save). With the preference off, a save writes the file and records no version at all - a project whose history you want to keep should be saved with the switch on, or receive a named snapshot by hand. The setting controls the automatic entry only; it never deletes a version that already exists.

The preference has no equivalent on the iPad remote - the remote neither saves nor versions a project. Neither does Reset all to defaults touch the version history: it resets the switch, not the stored versions.

Check for updates in the About dialog

The privacy preference that decides whether the About dialog looks up a newer release. It is a switch and it is off by default: MusicStation does not contact any release source unless you ask for it. The state is stored with the other settings and is remembered for the next start.

With the preference on, opening the About dialog asks the release feed the build was made with - once per session - and shows the answer as a status line with a Open download page or a Retry button (see Update check). With the preference off, that line does not exist and no request leaves the machine; the check is never part of the start-up path, so nothing is contacted at start-up either way. The iPad remote has no equivalent: its own updates come from the App Store.

Reset snapshot on save

Puts Snapshot on save back to its documented default, which is on. The other settings stay as they are. The reset is applied and stored immediately; it is available regardless of the current value.

Reset update check

Puts Check for updates in the About dialog back to its documented default, which is off - the privacy-first value. The other settings stay as they are. The reset is applied and stored immediately; it is available regardless of the current value.

Reset all to defaults

Puts every setting of the column back to its documented default: theme Dark, no accent colour of your own (the theme's accent), UI scale 100 %, Snapshot on save on, Check for updates in the About dialog off, and the language of the system (English when the system reports neither of the two shipped languages). The reset is applied and stored immediately. It also forgets which release notes you have already been shown, so the "What's New" dialog appears again on the next start of MusicStation (see About and What's New).

"Reset all to defaults" resets the settings. It does not touch the keyboard: the shortcut map of the shortcut editor has its own reset, Reset all shortcuts.

Track and clip colours

The colours of the tracks are not application settings: they belong to the project, are stored with it and are shared with nobody else - keep this section apart from the settings around it. Each of the 16 tracks carries a palette id or no colour at all, and each of the 16 by 16 clips renders the colour of its track (a slim bar in the cell, the swatch in the Browser row). You set a track's colour with the swatch in the header of its column in the session grid or with the Track colour row of the Inspector; the palette offers Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Red, Violet and Neutral, and the entry Default clears the colour again - it is the reset of that one track (see Track colour).

The colours themselves come from the active theme, so the three themes ship three palettes and a theme switch swaps the colours underneath your choices without changing the choices. The settings store never holds a colour value: what is stored with the project is the palette id (blue, neutral, …) or "no colour", which is why an older project keeps its colours under a newer theme. Neither Reset all to defaults nor any other reset here touches them - the Default entry of the palette is the reset of a track colour.

Remote

The iPad remote has no equivalent of this section: it does not change the appearance of the desktop application, and its own texts come from its own language resources (see iPad remote). Track colours are desktop project data as well: the remote's grid paints its own slot tokens.

Workflow: set up the interface

  1. Pick your Language (see Language).
  2. Choose the Theme (see Theme).
  3. Pick an Accent colour, or keep the theme's (see Accent colour).
  4. Set the UI scale so that the window fits your display (see UI scale).
  5. Decide the two preferences: whether saving a project also stores a Snapshot on save (see Snapshot on save) and whether Check for updates in the About dialog may ask the release feed (see Check for updates in the About dialog).
  6. If you want to start over, use one of the resets next to the setting or Reset all to defaults (see Reset all to defaults). The keyboard is reset separately, in the shortcut editor, and the workspace in the workspace manager.
  7. Finally, give the tracks of the project their colours - they are project data and are set in the session grid or the Inspector, not here (see Track colour).