3 The <dfn>Plugin Manager</dfn> provides a convenient interface to various
4 operations on plugins and is the primary troubleshooting tools when something
5 goes wrong with plugins. It works on both plugin files and the plugins index.
9 <img src="/images/plugin-manager.png" alt="The Plugin Manager window" width="100%" />
10 <figcaption class=center>The Plugin Manager window</figcaption>
13 <h2>What is a plugins index?</h2>
16 For each type of a plugin (e.g. VST3 or AU) there are pre-configured paths
17 where these plugins are located. Every time Ardour runs, it re-scans plugins
18 in these paths and recreates an index — a kind of inventory of available
19 plugins. Whenever you open the <a href="@@plugin-selector">Plugin Selector</a>
20 dialog, Ardour reads the list of available plugins from that index and
21 displays them for you to pick.
25 Re-scanning paths is important because it's common for plugins to change on
26 the disk (e.g. when you installed a newer version) or get removed (when you
27 don't need a plugin anymore). Sometimes plugins get corrupted due to
28 a hardware failure. Indexing them often helps identifying issues early on,
29 and the Plugin Manager helps reviewing the general state of affairs with
34 Ardour also treats LV2 plugins slightly differently and scans them on startup
35 unconditionally. You can disable the scanning of VST2, VST3, and AU plugins
36 entirely in the <kbd class="menu">Preferences</kbd> dialog.
41 The main part of the Plugin Manager window is the table where all plugins known
42 to Ardour are listed. You can use it to both view information about a plugin and
43 control some of its aspects:
48 <td>Ardour will displays the status of every plug-in file. See below
49 for more information</td>
53 <td>Do not load this plugin file at all</td>
57 <td>Set or unset the Favorite status for a plugin</td>
61 <td>Load this plugin file, but do not show it in the Plugin Selector</td>
65 <td>The name of the API this plugin has been built with:
66 VST2, VST3, AU, LADSPA, LV2</td>
70 <td>Displays the file name for LADSPA, VST2, and VST3, as well as
71 the ID for LV2 and AU</td>
75 <td>User-visible name of the plugin</td>
79 <td>Developer of team of developers who created the plugin</td>
83 <td>Metadata that classifies the plugin by type,
84 e.g. 'instrument|synth' or 'analyser'</td>
89 The Status field specifically has the following options:
95 <td>The plugin file has loaded without any issues and the information
96 in the cache about it is up to date</td>
100 <td>The plugin file has just been discovered and successfully loaded
101 for the first time</td>
105 <td>The plugin file changed on the disk, the plugin cache has been updated
106 accordingly, the plugin file loaded successfully</td>
110 <td>A VST2 plugin will be hidden from Plugin Selector, if a corresponding
111 VST3 plugin exists. The same applies to LV1 (LADSPA) and LV2</td>
115 <td>There was a problem loading the plugin file</td>
119 <td>A plugin changed on the disk but hasn't been re-scanned
123 <th>Incompatible</th>
124 <td>Scan the plugin failed. Typical reasons are 32/64-bit mismatch,
125 attempt to load a .dll on Linux or a .dylib on Windows</td>
130 The <kbd class="menu">Plugin Count</kbd> section in the sidebar provides
131 basic information on available plugins: how many plugins of every supported
132 type are available through Ardour in total, how many failed to load, and
133 how many are missing.
139 You can search for a specific plugin or a group of plugins. Simply place the
140 cursor inside the input text box in the upper left corner and type. Ardour
141 will search in the index
145 By default, Ardour will search through plugin names, makers, and file names.
146 Additionally, you can search through Type, Tags, and Paths.
149 <h2>Scan actions</h2>
152 This section of the sidebar contains commands that operate
153 on the plugins index.
158 <th>Discover New/Updated</th>
159 <td>This will run a full scan on all known paths to plugin of all supported types</td>
162 <th>Update Index Only</th>
163 <td>This will check which plugins were updated without scanning them</td>
166 <th>Re-scan Selected</th>
167 <td>This will re-scan plugin files selected in the main part of the window</td>
170 <th>Re-scan Faulty</th>
171 <td>This will only re-scan plugins that previously failed to load</td>
175 <td>This will re-scan all currently known plugins</td>
178 <th>Clear Staled Scan Log</th>
179 <td>This will remove all entries from the index on plugins that changed
180 on the disk but haven't been re-scanned</td>
187 This section of the sidebar allows settings paths to VST2 and VST3 plugins,
188 as well as quickly open the <kbd class="menu">Preferences</kbd> dialog
189 on the <kbd class="menu">Plugins</kbd> page where you can set various options
190 for scanning plugins and controlling their default behavior.