Feature suggestion: organize plugins by folder tree

[Rodrigo Elesbao]

Just to thank you by Cakewalk, which I find it wonderful and powerful; and to suggest you a feature: just mirroring the plugins folder tree structure in Plugins TAB, as in Windows Explorer. Oftenly, we want to organize our - usually many - thirdy party plugins by ourselves, and this is a very fast way to do that. I used to use that feature in my ancient Synapse Orion (below) and that make things pretty simple. Thats just a suggestion, I know how hard things could be. Thank you for this nice piece of software.
 

[scook]

This was the default layout for VST2 plug-ins until August 2016 when the new Sort by Category/Manufacturer/Type layouts were introduced. Prior to August 2016 DX plug-ins were sorted by manufacturer and VST3 were sorted by Category.

It is still possible to create a custom layout to mimic the OS directory tree using the plug-in manager but custom layouts do not get automatically updated when changes are made to the plug-in directories.

 

[Rodrigo Elesbao]

Yeah, but I find that Category/Manufacturer/Type sort layout so... insufficient, often a sort of rework to do. "Oh, I need a Manufacturer's plugin!". My thoughts are more like "What about a distortion? Ok, it's gonna be Distortion X, where did I put it?" As I did say in another forum, those layouts actually organizes the plugins in a huge one list. It's like take all kind of gadgets, tag them by categories, and so put them in just ONE drawer in a cabinet. All the DAWs actually do that for some reason. Why would I need to pass by a reverb when I want a distortion?

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Rodrigo Elesbao
wrong image attached

[scook]

Category tags are a VST3 feature. When the default changed in August 2016, Cakewalk created a database of category tags for its DX/VST2 plug-ins and many 9rd party plug-ins. Still there are quite a few plug-ins that do not have categories setup in the database.

Regardless of the plug-in format, users may create and change the categories as they see fit. A plug-in may have multiple tags or no tags (in which case the fall into the Uncategorized folder).

If one cannot remember where a plug-in is located in a layout, there is a search option just above the layout tree. Partial name searches can be very effective.

 

 

[scook]

Losing the original "Default - All Plug-ins" layout in August 2016 was a big problem for me and I did let Cakewalk know about it. I would not mind if Noel added it back. My VST2 folder tree is ready for it to be restored.

The VST3 folder tree can be a mess as many manufacturers dump their files in the root C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 and provide no way short of manually moving the files after installation. I suppose they are relying on DAWs using category tags. At least CbB supports modifying the tags.

[scook]

6 minutes ago, pwalpwal said:

code-wise folder tree is the easiest thing to use/offer once you've scanned it

Code-wise using existing features is the easiest. Re-integrating old code or adding a new sort option is not the easiest thing to do.

[vst power user]

?It was there many months back by using the mouse's right click in a track fx pane to select the changeable option..?NOW IT IS GONE! THEY REMOVED IT COMPLETELY!!  Gibson! Bandlab!!? DON'T DO THIS TO US!!.... ... .. . .Please bring back the folder tree...?

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

Another thing that makes the category stuff unintuitive to use is the fact that you can add a plugin to multiple categories, but not to a sub category. This becomes messy fast, as the Plugin Manager starts creating multiple categories which you can't delete by the way.

[SonusProject]

For me I setup categories for VST3 and then others.  Looks like this.

and this

It at least narrows down the choices for me.  If you are ambitious you could breakout DirectX.

Regards,

Lance

[Maestro]

2 hours ago, SonusProject said:

For me I setup categories for VST3 and then others.  Looks like this.

and this

It at least narrows down the choices for me.  If you are ambitious you could breakout DirectX.

Regards,

Lance

Lol...  Why?

VST2 and 3 are distinguished from each other in the browser both by their icon (DirectX, VST, and VST3 all have different icons) as well as their Text Color.

That's a lot of extra work for nothing, especially given VST3 are often automatically sorted into categories, so you're literally moving them all out to a different category... instead of just creating them for the VST2 which often show up as "Uncategorized" - assuming they aren't automatically hidden because the VST3 is also installed (happens for a lot of my Plugins i.e. all of IK Multimedia's plugins and instruments, and is SONAR/Cakewalk's default setting).

Edited December 19, 2020 by Maestro

[SonusProject]

Plenty of uncategorized occurs.  I, for one, don’t like visual noise.  

If you use Native Instruments, how many versions of Kontakt do you see?

Extra work for nothing is based on one’s perception of value.  Possibly before you making light of another’s choice of organization you should consider how your life is organized.