New Sonar - how about... some Browser enhancement

[Shaan]

These days pretty much most software, apps and plugins comes with the way of tagging things on their Browsers as 'Favorites' and this certainly help with the workflow.

1. Give us an ability to easily and intuitively tag plugins, instruments and etc in the Sonar Browser to create a 'Favorites" list and an easy access to display them.

This will be an awesome addition to the Browser.

 

2. Other DAWs already displays plugin images, which we don't have in Sonar.  But that is another way to easily identify the plugins especially when plugins are named creatively and/or at times in bizarre  ?  naming convention with new plugin manufacturers, it helps to identify them faster. 

A picture is worth a thousand words !

 

 

Edited April 8 by Shaan

[user 905133]

57 minutes ago, Shaan said:

These days pretty much most software, apps and plugins comes with the way of tagging things on their Browsers as 'Favorites' and this certainly help with the workflow.

1. Give us an ability to easily and intuitively tag plugins, instruments and etc in the Sonar Browser to create a 'Favorites" list and an easy access to display them.

This will be an awesome addition to the Browser.

I don't use it, but I have played with the category assignment features.  There's also the Cakewalk Plug-in Manager. 

We can Sort by Category and choose to assign plug-ins to categories of our own choice--even one called FAVORITES.  For example we can search the list for plug-ins by name and assign each to an existing category or use one of our own.

Even though I now prefer remembering my favorites either by Manufacturer or by Type, I found the features we have been given to be flexible and easy to use.  

UPDATE:  I found a few Instruments were listed as Uncategorized.  As a test, I changed two to Favorites.  Then I found two that were categorized as Synths and added Favorites to them (probably what you would call tagging?). So now those last two are still in the Synth Category, but also in my Favorites List.  

Edited April 9 by User 905133
to add an update; changed "your" to "our"

[Jacques Boileau]

I do the same but call the category ".Favorites". That way it appears at the top of the list.

[petemus]

While we're at it:

Please put the keyboard focus into the search field, when opening the Browser! It would be nice at least when opening the Browser with the keyboard.

It's been a few times I've typed B to open the Browser and then immediately started to write a search term. But, since the focus is not in the search field, all kinds of weird s*it happens because of Cake interpreting the keystrokes as command shortcuts. ?

I use the keyboard as much as possible, so this would be a nice fix.

[Brandon Bowles]

Yes. I think browser enhancement is long overdue.  I remember some years back it was announced that the browser was about to get a major update/overhaul and then that plan got pushed to the back burner for some reason and was never mentioned again.

[user 905133]

• So far the specific Browser enhancements mentioned are:
  • A system of stars (or hearts or whatever) to have a one-click setting of "Favorites."
  • Images of plug-ins, presumably in the browser lists/menus instead of icons to designate the plug-in formats (VST, VST3, DXi).
  • Putting the search field in focus when opening the Browser buttons (Instruments, Audio FX, etc.).

Not agreeing or disagreeing right now, but I think if there are to be requests for enhancements it would be good to be specific.