<p>
- The <dfn>Plugin Manager</dfn> serves two purposes. Primarily it is used to
- control the display status of plugins. It can also be used to find and insert
- plugins into the
- <a href="@@processor-box">Processor Box</a>. It is
- displayed either by a double-click in the <dfn>Processor Box</dfn> or by
- choosing <kbd class="menu">New Plugin > Plugin Manager…</kbd> from the
- <dfn>Processor Box</dfn> context menu.
+ The <dfn>Plugin Manager</dfn> provides a convenient interface to various
+ operations on plugins and is the primary troubleshooting tool when something
+ goes wrong with plugins. It works on both plugin files and the plugins index.
</p>
+<figure class=center>
+<img src="/images/plugin-manager.png" alt="The Plugin Manager window" width="100%" />
+<figcaption class=center>The Plugin Manager window</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<h2>What is a plugins index?</h2>
+
<p>
- Displayed for each plugin is the status (normal, favorite, hidden),
- name, type, category, creator (author), and the number of audio and MIDI
- connections. The plugins can be sorted by clicking on a column header.
+ For each type of a plugin (e.g. VST3 or AU) there are pre-configured paths
+ where these plugins are located. Every time Ardour runs, it re-scans plugins
+ in these paths and recreates an index — a kind of inventory of available
+ plugins. Whenever you open the <a href="@@plugin-selector">Plugin Selector</a>
+ dialog, Ardour reads the list of available plugins from that index and
+ displays them for you to pick.
</p>
-<figure class=center>
-<img src="/images/plugin-manager.png" alt="Plugin Manager window"/>
-<figcaption class=center>The Plugin Manager window.</figcaption>
-</figure>
+<p>
+ Re-scanning paths is important because it's common for plugins to change on
+ the disk (e.g. when you installed a newer version) or get removed (when you
+ don't need a plugin anymore). Sometimes plugins get corrupted due to
+ a hardware failure. Indexing them often helps identifying issues early on,
+ and the Plugin Manager helps reviewing the general state of affairs with
+ plugins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ Ardour also treats LV2 plugins slightly differently and scans them on startup
+ unconditionally. You can disable the scanning of VST2, VST3, and AU plugins
+ entirely in the <kbd class="menu">Preferences</kbd> dialog.
+</p>
-<h2>Plugin Display Status</h2>
+<h2>Plugins info</h2>
+
+The main part of the Plugin Manager window is the table where all plugins known
+to Ardour are listed. You can use it to both view information about a plugin and
+control some of its aspects:
+
+<table class="dl">
+ <tr>
+ <th>Status</th>
+ <td>Ardour will displays the status of every plug-in file. See below
+ for more information</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Ign</th>
+ <td>Do not load this plugin file at all</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Fav</th>
+ <td>Set or unset the Favorite status for a plugin</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Hide</th>
+ <td>Load this plugin file, but do not show it in the Plugin Selector</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Type</th>
+ <td>The name of the API this plugin has been built with:
+ VST2, VST3, AU, LADSPA, LV2</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>File/ID</th>
+ <td>Displays the file name for LADSPA, VST2, and VST3, as well as
+ the ID for LV2 and AU</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Name</th>
+ <td>User-visible name of the plugin</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Creator</th>
+ <td>Developer of team of developers who created the plugin</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Tags</th>
+ <td>Metadata that classifies the plugin by type,
+ e.g. 'instrument|synth' or 'analyzer'</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
<p>
- Click on a Fav(orite) or Hide radio button to change a plugin's display status.
- Clicking on an already selected radio button will cancel it, returning the
- plugin to the normal display status. Plugins marked as a favorite show up in
- the <dfn>Processor Box</dfn> context menu under
- <kbd class="menu">New Plugin > Favorites</kbd>. Setting the hide
- radio button on a plugin will keep the plugin from showing in the
- <dfn>Processor Box</dfn> context menus
- <kbd class="menu">New Plugin > By Creator</kbd> or
- <kbd class="menu">New Plugin > By Category</kbd>.
+ The Status field specifically has the following options:
</p>
-<h2>Filtering Listed Plugins</h2>
+<table class="dl">
+ <tr>
+ <th>OK</th>
+ <td>The plugin file has loaded without any issues and the information
+ in the cache about it is up to date</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>New</th>
+ <td>The plugin file has just been discovered and successfully loaded
+ for the first time</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Updated</th>
+ <td>The plugin file changed on the disk, the plugin cache has been updated
+ accordingly, the plugin file loaded successfully</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Concealed</th>
+ <td>A VST2 plugin will be hidden from Plugin Selector, if a corresponding
+ VST3 plugin exists. The same applies to LV1 (LADSPA) and LV2</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Error</th>
+ <td>There was a problem loading the plugin file</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Stale</th>
+ <td>A plugin changed on the disk but hasn't been re-scanned
+ by Ardour yet</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Incompatible</th>
+ <td>Scan the plugin failed. Typical reasons are 32/64-bit mismatch,
+ attempt to load a .dll on Linux or a .dylib on Windows</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
<p>
- The bottom left part of the <dfn>Plugin Manager</dfn> is used to filter the listed
- plugins. Typing into the text-box will filter the plugins based on the filter
- mode selected by drop-down box. Clicking <kbd class="menu">Clear</kbd>
- empties the text-box.
+ The <kbd class="menu">Plugin Count</kbd> section in the sidebar provides
+ basic information on available plugins: how many plugins of every supported
+ type are available through Ardour in total, how many failed to load, and
+ how many are missing.
</p>
-<h2>Inserting Plugins in the Processor Box</h2>
+<h2>Searching</h2>
<p>
- The right part of the plugin manager shows plugins that have been selected
- for insertion into the <dfn>Processor Box</dfn>. A plugin can be added by
- either double clicking the plugin entry in the top left part, or, if already
- selected in top left part, by clicking <kbd class="menu">Add</kbd>.
+ You can search for a specific plugin or a group of plugins. Simply place the
+ cursor inside the input text box in the upper left corner and type. Ardour
+ will search in the index
+</p>
+
<p>
+ By default, Ardour will search through plugin names, makers, and file names.
+ Additionally, you can search through Type, Tags, and Paths.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Scan actions</h2>
<p>
- Plugins can be removed from the right part with a double click, or, if
- already selected, by clicking <kbd class="menu">Remove</kbd>.
+ This section of the sidebar contains commands that operate
+ on the plugins index.
</p>
+<table class="dl">
+ <tr>
+ <th>Discover New/Updated</th>
+ <td>This will run a full scan on all known paths to plugin of all supported types</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Update Index Only</th>
+ <td>This will check which plugins were updated without scanning them</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Re-scan Selected</th>
+ <td>This will re-scan plugin files selected in the main part of the window</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Re-scan Faulty</th>
+ <td>This will only re-scan plugins that previously failed to load</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Re-scan All</th>
+ <td>This will re-scan all currently known plugins</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th>Clear Staled Scan Log</th>
+ <td>This will remove all entries from the index on plugins that changed
+ on the disk but haven't been re-scanned</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2>Preferences</h2>
+
+<p>
+ This section of the sidebar allows settings paths to VST2 and VST3 plugins,
+ as well as quickly open the <kbd class="menu">Preferences</kbd> dialog
+ on the <kbd class="menu">Plugins</kbd> page where you can set various options
+ for scanning plugins and controlling their default behavior.
+</p>
projects / ardour-manual / blobdiff