Change in behaviour in plugin menus

[Skelm]

Hi,

When browsing plugin menus, clicking on (e.g) a manufacturer's name in the menu used to open the next layer of the menu (that manufacturer's plugins in this example). I tested this in Cakewalk by Bandlab and I am sure it always used to work like this in older versions as well, but in the new Sonar, clicking here dismisses the menu - you have to hover the pointer and wait for the menu to open. This is messing with years of muscle memory - I keep clicking to open the next level of menus and end up accidentally dismissing the entire thing.

If it is intentional, can we please have the old way as an option? It is certainly not a better way, you can just move your mouse away to dismiss the menu. 

[Bristol_Jonesey]

That's not happening here. I have to click on a manufacturer to expand the list of their plugins

Hovering over a manufacturer name for several seconds does nothing.

Are you doing this from the Browser?

[Skelm]

Hi,

No, this is from right-clicking in the FX bin and choosing insert effect. It also does this when inserting an instrument from the main menu (insert/Soft Synth). Apologies, I see this wasn't clear in my original post. 

[user905133]

22 hours ago, Skelm said:

When browsing plugin menus [inserting effects in FX bins and adding Soft Synths in tracks], clicking on (e.g) a manufacturer's name in the menu used to open the next layer of the menu . . . .

Thanks for the clarifications. I tried this yesterday and again today on my main audio PC and now, my older computer. On both of my PCs, hovering over the manufacturer's name causes the available plugin names menu to fly out.  Clicking on the manufacturer's name doesn't do anything.

Not sure if there is a DAW-based setting or a Windows / Mouse setting that would change the behavior. Not sure if this makes a difference but both my mice are wired.

21 hours ago, Bristol_Jonesey said:

I have to click on a manufacturer to expand the list of their plugins

Hovering over a manufacturer name for several seconds does nothing.

Are you doing this from the Browser?

On both my PCs, clicking on the > displays the manufacturer's plugins. Double clicking on the manufacturer displays the plugins. Single clicking highlights the manufacturer's name, but then I still needed to double click that to get the list of plugins.

Again, not sure if there are mouse driver settings or Windows settings that control the mouse's behaviors.

22 hours ago, Skelm said:

. . . you can just move your mouse away to dismiss the menu. 

I never paid any attention to what I do to get rid of the plugin menu.  My brain tells my hand what to do and I assume my eyes provide my brain with feedback if it doesn't happen so my brain will then tell my hand to move left instead of right.**  I just tried to figure out what goes on intuitively, but its so automatic, I can't slow it down.  I haven't reinstalled OBS on my recently re-constructed C Drive, but when I do, I can OBS it and take a look. 

**I tried moving my mouse "away" (as you suggest) but the result seems to vary based on several different factors, which direction my hand moves the mouse, where the plugin submenu is with respect to the other UI elements, how many plugins there are, and who know what else.  I just let the eye-brain-hand mechanism do its thing. 

ADDENDUM: On my main PC, CbB exhibits the same behaviors (insert menus and Browser), except that when using the Browser (docked and floated), the > button is a + inside a folder icon button.

Edited yesterday at 02:12 PM by user905133
Addendum added re CbB; added missing words

[Skelm]

18 hours ago, user905133 said:

Thanks for the clarifications. I tried this yesterday and again today on my main audio PC and now, my older computer. On both of my PCs, hovering over the manufacturer's name causes the available plugin names menu to fly out.  Clicking on the manufacturer's name doesn't do anything.

Not sure if there is a DAW-based setting or a Windows / Mouse setting that would change the behavior. Not sure if this makes a difference but both my mice are wired.

 

Hi, 

Thanks for checking this - that screen shot looks like it is from the browser, though - the issue appears when you right-click in the FX bin and insert Audio FX, or insert soft synth from the main menu. The menus look like this:

The browser behaves as expected - the behaviour in the above menus has changed since CbB, at least for me.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

When I right click the Fx Bin and choose insert Fx, I get this.

Simply hovering over the arrows expands the list fully. Is this what you're seeing?

[user905133]

5 hours ago, Skelm said:

Thanks for checking this - that screen shot looks like it is from the browser, though - the issue appears when you right-click in the FX bin and insert Audio FX, or insert soft synth from the main menu.

To be clear, my first comment was about "inserting effects in FX bins and adding Soft Synths in tracks."

On 9/12/2025 at 11:13 AM, Skelm said:

When browsing plugin menus [inserting effects in FX bins and adding Soft Synths in tracks], clicking on (e.g) a manufacturer's name in the menu used to open the next layer of the menu . . . .  [emphasis added to show I knew that what you were about]. 

On 9/13/2025 at 9:56 AM, user905133 said:

Thanks for the clarifications. I tried this yesterday and again today on my main audio PC and now, my older computer. On both of my PCs, hovering over the manufacturer's name causes the available plugin names menu to fly out.  Clicking on the manufacturer's name doesn't do anything.

Not sure if there is a DAW-based setting or a Windows / Mouse setting that would change the behavior. Not sure if this makes a difference but both my mice are wired.

After that I started addressing the question @Bristol_Jonesey asked you:

On 9/12/2025 at 12:25 PM, Bristol_Jonesey said:

That's not happening here. I have to click on a manufacturer to expand the list of their plugins

Hovering over a manufacturer name for several seconds does nothing.

Are you doing this from the Browser?

He asked if your problem came from using the Browser because your original post just referred to plugin menus:

On 9/12/2025 at 11:13 AM, Skelm said:

When browsing plugin menus, clicking on (e.g) a manufacturer's name in the menu used to open the next layer of the menu (that manufacturer's plugins in this example). [emphasis added to show why it was unclear if the OP was talking about the Browser]

So thanks for clarifying that.

In the final section of my reply I (1) paid respect to the "muscle memory" issue you raised and (2) addressed methods of "dismissing the menu."  

On 9/12/2025 at 11:13 AM, Skelm said:

When browsing plugin menus, clicking on (e.g) a manufacturer's name in the menu used to open the next layer of the menu (that manufacturer's plugins in this example). I tested this in Cakewalk by Bandlab and I am sure it always used to work like this in older versions as well, but in the new Sonar, clicking here dismisses the menu - you have to hover the pointer and wait for the menu to open. This is messing with years of muscle memory - I keep clicking to open the next level of menus and end up accidentally dismissing the entire thing.

If it is intentional, can we please have the old way as an option? It is certainly not a better way, you can just move your mouse away to dismiss the menu. 

On 9/13/2025 at 9:56 AM, user905133 said:

I never paid any attention to what I do to get rid of the plugin menu.  My brain tells my hand what to do and I assume my eyes provide my brain with feedback if it doesn't happen so my brain will then tell my hand to move left instead of right.**  I just tried to figure out what goes on intuitively, but its so automatic, I can't slow it down.  I haven't reinstalled OBS on my recently re-constructed C Drive, but when I do, I can OBS it and take a look. 

**I tried moving my mouse "away" (as you suggest) but the result seems to vary based on several different factors, which direction my hand moves the mouse, where the plugin submenu is with respect to the other UI elements, how many plugins there are, and who know what else.  I just let the eye-brain-hand mechanism do its thing. 

ADDENDUM: On my main PC, CbB exhibits the same behaviors (insert menus and Browser), except that when using the Browser (docked and floated), the > button is a + inside a folder icon button.

Now that we are collectively closer to knowing what each of us is seeing, perhaps possible reasons why people might be "seeing" different mouse-related behaviors can be addressed.  As for me, I will leave it up to the Cakewalk Team in acting on the feature request (an option to have "the old way" available) to decide if they have control over the different mouse-related behaviors different users experience. 

Edited 7 hours ago by user905133
made several grammatical corrections

[user905133]

• Footnotes:
  • Although we have been discussing behaviors when the Sort by Manufacturer mode has been chosen, I get the same behaviors with Sort by Category and Sort by Type modes--hovering over a menu item causes a sub-menu to flyout showing the respective plugins (and the same with any sub-sub-menus, such as the VST2, VST3, and DX types).
  • Just a suggestion, if anyone needs to retrain his or her eye-brain-hand memory, rather than doing the retraining with one sort mode (e.g., Sort by Manufacturer), try doing it with a different, less preferred mode (e.g., Sort by Type.)  It might take fewer iterations. YMMV

[Max Arwood]

This seems to be a new behavior in the Plugin menu. It makes it very difficult for me to select a proper plug-in because it self selects columns. I’ll try to make a video, but I like it better having to click on the columns to open them up. I’ve been thinking about this, but haven’t had time to post my disapproval of this new behavior till today. I would prefer reverting back to the old way of clicking on the columns.  

 

Edit added

I use a custom plug-in menu, not manufacturers listing. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Max Arwood
Addef

[user905133]

55 minutes ago, Max Arwood said:

Edit added

I use a custom plug-in menu, not manufacturers listing. 

Thanks for adding this; in my comparisons, I didn't check custom plugin layouts.  While I recognized yesterday that those might behave differently, (1) I rarely intentionally use them any more (since before CbB came out), (2) I didn't have time to create new layouts, and (3) to me it seemed that the OP was referring to the Sort by Manufacturer mode. 

Edited 6 hours ago by user905133
added clarifications