Importing from SWS

SWS Auto Color is a feature of the SWS extension for REAPER. Like AutoColor, it colours tracks, regions and markers by name, and it can set track icons. Import from SWS converts the rules you set up in SWS Auto Color into AutoColor rules, so you do not have to recreate them by hand.

Importing the SWS rules lets you switch SWS Auto Color off and continue with AutoColor.

Importing

1. Open Options and find the Config file section.
2. Click Import from SWS.
3. AutoColor reads the SWS rules and shows what it found: the number of rules, how many go to each tab, how many will arrive switched off, and how many lines it could not read.
4. Click Yes to import the rules. Click No to cancel. Cancelling changes nothing.

The import only adds rules. It places the SWS rules below the rules already on each tab, and it never changes or removes existing rules. While the AutoColor window stays open, Undo reverses the import.

To replace your current rules with the SWS rules, click Remove Rules first, and then import.

The import changes only the rules. The colours in the project change the next time the rules are applied, for example when you click Apply now.

Where the imported rules go

SWS Auto Color has separate rules for tracks, markers and regions. Each SWS rule goes to the matching tab in AutoColor:

SWS rule	AutoColor tab
Track rule	Tracks
Marker rule	Markers
Region rule	Regions
Icon of a track rule	Icons

SWS Auto Color has no rules for items, so the import adds nothing to the Items tab.

In SWS, a single track rule can set both a colour and an icon. AutoColor keeps colours and icons on separate tabs. A track rule with an icon therefore becomes two rules: a colour rule on the Tracks tab, and an icon rule with the same name and filter on the Icons tab. The icon rules keep the same order as the SWS rules.

What it reads

The import reads the file sws-autocoloricon.ini in the REAPER resource folder. AutoColor finds the file automatically. If the file does not exist, for example because SWS has never been installed, the import shows a message and imports nothing.

SWS keeps the start and end colours of its gradient in REAPER’s reaper.ini file, so the import reads them from there. If no gradient colours are set, the import uses the SWS default, which runs from black to white.

The import only reads these two files. It does not change or remove anything in your SWS setup.

What comes across unchanged

SWS Auto Color matches a rule when the rule’s text appears anywhere in the name, ignoring upper and lower case. For each object, the first matching rule decides the colour. AutoColor’s contains mode with Aa (ignore case) on works in the same way, and AutoColor also checks its rules from top to bottom. An ordinary SWS rule therefore colours exactly the same objects in AutoColor.

In SWS	In AutoColor
A name filter, such as Kick	A contains rule with the same text, with case ignored
(any)	A rule with no pattern and no filter, which matches everything
(unnamed), (folder), (children), (instrument), (MIDI input), (receive)	A rule with no pattern and the equivalent filter: has no name, is a folder track, is inside a folder, has an instrument, has a MIDI input, has receives
A colour	The same colour
Gradient	A gradient with the start and end colours set in SWS, spread across all matches, as in SWS
The icon of a track rule	An icon rule on the Icons tab
The order of the rules	The same order

What arrives switched off

Some SWS features have no equivalent in AutoColor. Rules that use them are still imported, so that you can see what your SWS setup contained. They arrive switched off, and the reason is added to the end of the rule’s name, for example Drums [SWS: random colours are not supported].

In SWS	Why it is not supported
Random colours	AutoColor assigns only colours that a rule specifies.
Custom colours, which cycle through REAPER’s colour palette	AutoColor assigns only colours that a rule specifies.
Parent colour	In AutoColor, the rule that colours a folder track decides whether the tracks inside the folder receive its colour, with its Children setting. The rules for the tracks inside the folder have no colour choice for this. See Folders.
None	AutoColor has no rule that removes a colour. To remove colours, use Clear… on the action bar, or turn on Reset to the default colour when no rule matches.
Ignore	See the warning below.
A rule with an empty filter	The SWS rule has no filter text, so there is nothing to convert into a pattern. The rule arrives named (no filter).
(master)	REAPER does not show a custom colour on the master track, so this filter had no visible effect in SWS either.
(record armed), (audio input), (audio output), (MIDI output), (vca master)	AutoColor has no equivalent filter.

A rule with an unsupported filter, such as (record armed), keeps the SWS keyword as its pattern. AutoColor matches that pattern as plain text in the name. Check such a rule before you switch it on: the pattern (record armed) matches only tracks whose name contains the text (record armed), not tracks that are armed for recording.

Ignore rules change more than themselves

In SWS, an Ignore rule left the matching tracks unchanged, and it also stopped every rule below it from colouring those tracks. AutoColor cannot reproduce that blocking. After the import, the rules that were below an Ignore rule in SWS can colour tracks that they never coloured in SWS.

An icon rule is switched off only when its filter cannot be imported. SWS decides the colour and the icon separately, so a colour that cannot be imported does not affect the icon. For example, a track rule with a Random colour and an icon arrives as a switched-off colour rule and a working icon rule.

SWS Auto Color can also set track layouts for the track control panel (TCP) and the mixer (MCP). AutoColor does not set layouts, so the import ignores them.

After importing

The import does not switch SWS Auto Color off. Switch it off yourself; see Colours keep changing back.

Before you apply the imported rules, check them:

• Look for rules that arrived switched off. The reason is at the end of each rule’s name.
• An SWS (any) rule matches every object on its tab. The import places it below your existing rules, so it colours every object that your existing rules do not match.
• Check the Hits column to see how many objects each rule colours in the current project. See The Hits column.

Each imported rule also records the original SWS line in its note field in the config file. The note is not shown in the window, but you can read it in the file to compare a rule with its SWS source.