What features would you like to see in a plugin-manager?

[Justin1524]

We all love, love, love plugins don't we? So much so that now, many of us, have literally 1,000, 1,500 or more. How on earth do we even remember the plugins we have and what they're for? We need software tools to help. It's great that in Pro Tools you can sort by Manufacturer, Plugin type or both but what about some additional options. Here are some ideas I have...

1.) Custom Plugin Groups - You pick your list, organize it how you want and put your favorites in there. You could even make this project based or name your groups. And when you toggle a setting, only your custom group loads, the rest are held in an off state.

2.) Comments meta data next to plugin - can't remember what you did with it, how it's handy, what knob you forgot to turn. A comments field.

3.) Print out your plugins - ok I know paper is old school, but a way to print out all the plugins you own easily could be super handy. I also think it would be super cool to have an automatic process that exports a screen shot of every plugin with the ability to put it all into one, big organized PDF.

4.) Additional sortable, meta data fields - link to vendor/manf., version, date (with the ability to see plugins by their creation date easily), CPU draw (how taxing is plugin on CPU and sort this way so you can learn which ones are), authorization field (does it use iLok, iLok cloud or some other authorization).

It just seems to me if Pro Tools or Studio One gain these features, folks who are plugin junkies would love em. Who else thinks so?

[Eric Lambert]

The bulk of the managing I do, when it comes to plugins, is discovering that updates exist. In my opinion, any true management software would need to include some system of fishing amongst the developers to know when updates are produced, notifying users via the management software, and, ideally, providing a link to the download.

I know that's a Herculean task, considering the terrible communication within the plugin business, and that others have tried and failed, but it's the one and only thing I'm really hoping to see. Given how much more automated the net has become, it should be easier to get everyone (i.e. plugin developers) onboard with this idea.

That aside, yes, the Comments idea is strong. Notes re: what I like about certain plugins. That kind of thing. My company keeps an Evernote document for such things, and we can all see and contribute to it, but it's not the perfect platform for this.

[albee1952]

For the most part, I am just used to what we have(as clucky as it can be), but...as for #1, we sort of have that right now. By Ctrl-clicking on any plugin, it gets added to the top of the main Plugin menu as a "favorite". The only drawback to this(and I may be missing a trick here) is that trashing prefs will blank the list. As for the rest of it, I mostly just wish that waves would allow me to remove plugins from bundles as there are several that will just never use(like the Q eq plugins). The dropdown list has gotten so long that I am thankful for the search option and rarely open the sub-menus anymore(but yes, I would welcome anything that gives us more control over our plugins)

[Ben Jenssen]

I'd like it to have a fullscreeen browser, with large previews of the interface of plugins, to manage, insert, or re-order etc. One icon, one shortcut, and you can browse thru your plugins, viewing their interfaces in detail, or by columns, drag'ndrop to insert, or manage.
I am dreaming.

[smurfyou]

A way to enable and disable plugins. Not just hide them but prevent them from loading WITHOUT uninstalling them or moving them to "Unused Plugins" folder.

It would trim down the plugin list, speed up loading, and maybe hide some of those Waves plugins never in use. Until you get a session using one, then you could enable it.

Other DAWs do this.

And we definitely need a plugin report feauture like you say to print out the plugins installed along with version # etc. Anything to manage multiple machines easier.

[massivekerry]

Hey, making custom lists would be a big one.

I know how I use plugins, and I really don't need to be stuck with how manufacturers categorize them in Avid's narrow categories.

For starters, I'd separate Amp modelers from "Saturation", console strips from "EQ and Dynamics", and have my own "Mastering Processors" category.

Update info would be cool, but I expect that, in implementation, it'd be unwieldy

[noiseboyuk]

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Originally Posted by albee1952

For the most part, I am just used to what we have(as clucky as it can be), but...as for #1, we sort of have that right now. By Ctrl-clicking on any plugin, it gets added to the top of the main Plugin menu as a "favorite".

It's certainly a useful feature that I use, but it doesn't really go any way to mitigating the need for a plugin manager, with the hugely unweildy long lists of plugins that sometimes don't even fit on a screen (depending on desktop layout of multiple screens).

Cubase's system is very good here - you can have any number of sets of plugins, and drag anything in or out of them, sorted by custom folders. One trick you can do here is that you can have, say, a Dynamics folder which has the 3 or 4 you always reach for, then a subfolder of all the others.

At a bare minimum, the ability to hide plugins would be welcome.

[thin ice]

1 When I realise that I no longer use a plugin, it goes to the unused folder to slim down the menus. It would be good if that plugin could automatically be retrieved if an old session is opened with it.

2 Updates being scanned for and have the option of allow an installation. It is very time consuming to check each developer for the latest version.

[Actionmusic]

on the update side - check macupdater (pro version) - https://www.corecode.io/macupdater/

was recommended on here and the pro version scans all AAX etc has been quite revealing on my systems

re: plug-in manager - remembering back to the Sugarbytes TRANSVST plugin controversy of old (discontinued due to bending of AAX rules) , I think I remember that it created it's own folder that appeared in the plugin list as "TRANSVST" - so presumably there is a way for 3rd parties to do that, unless that was one of the bendings of the rules.

[Carl Lie]

I like a lot of the ideas here. Plugin version updates and being able to move plugs in/out the folder sound great!

C