Free (possibly useful) App - Plug Tools v1.0

[trombino]

Hi Everyone,

I have made a new version of Plug Tools available that can automatically detect out of date plug-ins!

There is a small catch though.... I chose to create a database of plug-ins that Plug Tools can reference rather than using the Digidesign compatibility page. Digi's page is incomplete, as users have mentioned in this thread, and the names it uses for the plug-ins doesn't necessarily correlate to the actual names of the plug-ins as they appear on your hard drive. For example, sometimes it lists plug-in bundles without actually naming the plug-ins that make up that bundle... this posed problems for me when trying to parse the page to get meaningful data from it.

Making my own database poses a problem of it's own though - it needs to be maintained. What I would like to see eventually is for Plug Tools to be able to not only pull information from the database, but to be able to edit the database directly. Say, for example, if a user has a newer plug-in on their system than Plug Tools knows about, it would update the database with the new plug-in information. (It would be even cooler if plug-in developers would update the database themselves whenever they released a new version of one of their plug-ins...) But for now, though, I have to rely on myself and Plug Tools users to update the database manually.

At the moment, the database only has accurate information on the plug-ins I have on my own system. In order for Plug Tools to be useful, that database needs to be more complete, and the only way for that to happen at this point is for users to get involved.

I encourage everyone to checkout the new version of Plug Tools, and if they have a plug-in on their system that it doesn't recognize, then to go ahead and add that plug-in to the database using the simple web form I have created. There is no authentication required, I'm using the honor system at this point, so there is nothing stopping anyone from deleting all the plug-ins if they wanted to. I didn't want to bother with authenticating though as I see this as a temporary measure until I can get Plug Tools to read/write MySQL directly. Please be kind. This could turn out to be a disaster but I didn't know of any other way to complete the database.

Download Plug Tools here.

View/edit the plug-in database here.
(Plug-ins that need to be updated do not have a "filename" listed. This is name of the plug-in as it appears on your drive and needs to include the ".dpm" file extension.)



What’s new in version 1.3:

• User can edit reference plugins. File stored locally.
• User can "update" reference plugins from the net, replacing local plugs with those from server.
• preference to "update" reference plugs on startup.
• If not internet enabled, will use local reference file instead of getting new.
• updated server backend to MySQL rather than a plain HTML table. Plugin page is now dynamically created.
• (for now) users can add/edit/delete plugins on server via web interface.
• Main window redesigned. Web page now shares a tab view with the reference plugins table.
• Plug Tools now downloads plug-in list from server.
• Plug Tools can mark out of date plug-ins automatically.
• No longer necessary to specify where Pro Tools is installed.
• No longer necessary to specify out of date plug in folder.
• Plug-In table is sortable.
• Plug-in table colum order, width is persistent.
• You can activate/deactivate plug-ins via a checkbox in the Plug-in Table (moves them to Unused folder)
• clickable links to download plug-ins appear in Plug-In Table

[aux]

Brilliant. I'm going to try it out immediately.

[MIKEROPHONICS]

Hi Trombino

Many thanks for this - great app and does what I could never get the Digidesign one to do, give me the version numbers!

I am sorry but I can't offer any help with the HTML thing as my skillset is fader bashing and coding is a bit off piste for me - but your kindness and skill is what makes the DUC sing!

kind thanks and warm regards

[suicune]

Possibly useful? It's seriously useful! Thanks to your app I found 2 upgrades I didn't know existed, and now I have an easy way of moving plugins which I know are potentially problematic but still need to use at present.

It's unfortunate that digidesign's compatibility grid is so poor. I was amazed at how many very popular plugins aren't there - Vienna, Steve Massey and some versions of melodyne (new editor and bridge) don't appear in there at all, and that's just the ones from my list.

I hope digidesign will take note of this and help you develop it further, even if just by improving their grid!

[aux]

The first I notice is that the window can't be resized. On my studio screen it is too small and on my laptop way too big :)

The green button top left is not present and the window itself can't be made bigger/smaller.

[aux]

Originally Posted by suicune

It's unfortunate that digidesign's compatibility grid is so poor. I was amazed at how many very popular plugins aren't there

Indeed! And besides that, some plugins are listed, but with older versions (Speakerphone, Altiverb)

But: great work on this app!

[nod25]

Freakin unreal man.

Kudos to you.

I'd even pay for this. Easy.

I wish I had the smarts that you possess.

Nice and well done.

[andreªs]

Great!!! Thanks!

Absolutely worth to make it a sticky!

[pmklein]

Make it for Windows!

[25ghosts]

Wonderful idea.

Gonna save me a bunch of time after reinstall.

Put up a donation button on your site. Stuff like that
should get rewarded with a few $ for the coffee & Red Wine pot.

Thanks & Great Initiative.


Digi - Put a sticky to this one.....