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Old 11-25-2021, 02:56 AM
Pete Gates Pete Gates is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 1,353
Default Re: New PT Prefs helper

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Hi Pete

I'm a fan of your plugin version checking feature (thanks again for adding that back), but I wonder how many people even notice it's there.

One thing that might have been handy in the past would be reporting the binary content of a plugin, i.e. i386 and/or x86_64. I think we've talked about this before, simple/trivia for many plugins (system("/user/bin/file")), but more complicated for some others that use wrappers or dynamic libraries. But now with a transition to arm64 I expect this will become even more useful.

I also keep noticing folks getting themselves into problems with their plugins. I wonder if a "plugin
health report" might help some folks. Maybe starting with a find all .aaxplugin bundles not in the plugin or unused folders. And maybe reporting RTAS or TDM plugins in the AAX folder, or "unusable AAX plugins" e.g. i386 only .aaxplugins in the AAX plugin folder if it looks like Pro Tools >11 is installed, or x86_64 only plugins if it looks like only Pro Tools 10 is installed, etc.

The meaning of display "Active" Y/N in the current plugin report page may not be obvious to users... something in the UI should explain that Active=N just means the plugin is in the Unused folder.

And a few anal-retentive UI things: I like how for folder buttons listed on the right hand panel opens the folder in the finder. But clicking on the actual pref buttons has a more immediate/risky action of deleting prefs, without pressing the trash selected button, which OK you have to warn/ask about. And the big "Trash selected" button without the round corners may not look like a button to some users. Seems a little UI overloading there. Maybe making the trash selected look more like a button and coloring the trash item buttons differently than the open directory buttons might help. I'm also just looking for some way to show the full path to a file to help in troubleshooting. Maybe a roll over?? ALso wondering if "show last log file"... and open it in an editor would help. Another thing that might be nice is to dim/disable all the buttons for items to trash if those items or the folders are not there. That's going to take an explanation in the UI.

DM/email me if you want to get into the weeds on stuff. Thanks again for making PT Prefs available.
Yes, I basically agree on the UI, it "grew" rather than was "designed". It's scary at first for people and not intuitive. I'm thinking how to best simplify it, I'm not sure the buttons are needed at all tbh, just the checkboxes then the trash button. It also doesn't really need the scrolling log file at the bottom, that's off-putting to people that aren't used to a command line. I think the best thing is to save log files and have a button to take you to the log files for more technically minded people like you.

Plugin version checking... yup, agree with this. Some of it is going to be harder than other bits though. I'll investigate.

Cheers,
Pete
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