Any option to group installed plug-ins?

[ppw1]

Because this

plugins.png (46 KiB) Viewed 4391 times

is sheer insanity.

[Gale Andrews]

No, but there is a disabled method to categorise plug-ins that is disabled because it was very unpopular (it buried common effects too far inside the category).

Can you compile Audacity?


Gale

[steve]

I've moved this to the "Adding Features" section of the forum.

During the 1.3.x beta series, effect categories were tried, but (perhaps due to how it was implemented) it was overwhelmingly unpopular.
Do you have any suggestions of how you would like this to be implemented?

[Gale Andrews]

@Peter - I already made a note of the vote for this.


Gale

[ppw1]

By "option to group installed plug-ins" I meant exactly that - custom grouping. I create groups and put the plug-ins I want there. The groups would either show up in the "Generate", "Effect" or "Analyze" menus as sub-menus. No sub-groups would be allowed to encourage the user to keep it simple.

[Gale Andrews]

So if you can compile Audacity you can enable the disabled feature (in Experimental.h).

The exact grouping was forced on the user in the disabled method - another reason why it was disabled.

Do you like the idea of the user managing the groups by creating subfolders in the Audacity plug-ins folder? Bear in mind that naive users would find that hard. Other suggestions?


Gale

[ppw1]

So if you can compile Audacity you can enable the disabled feature (in Experimental.h).

I probably could compile it, but that's what I have you guys for

The exact grouping was forced on the user in the disabled method - another reason why it was disabled.

I can see why any grouping that would be forced on the user would be unpopular.

Do you like the idea of the user managing the groups by creating subfolders in the Audacity plug-ins folder?

I love it. I *love* it.

Bear in mind that naive users would find that hard. Other suggestions?

"Edit" > "Preferences" > "Effects" > "Create Groups..." > dialog box opens with all of the installed plugins on the left hand side, an empty box on the right hand side, with "New Group...", "Delete Group", "Rename Group", "OK", "Cancel" buttons below, and arrows ">>" and "<<" in the middle, to put the wanted plugin from the left into a new group on the right and vice versa.

[billw58]

"Edit" > "Preferences" > "Effects" > "Create Groups..." > dialog box opens with all of the installed plugins on the left hand side, an empty box on the right hand side, with "New Group...", "Delete Group", "Rename Group", "OK", "Cancel" buttons below, and arrows ">>" and "<<" in the middle, to put the wanted plugin from the left into a new group on the right and vice versa.

+1
-- Bill

[solanus]

Because this

plugins.png

is sheer insanity.

This is my biggest GUI issue with Audacity, but I have given up expecting it to be addressed. Yes, I do think it is insanity. Audacity is one of the very few applications that I've seen that finds the endless scroll of effects to be acceptable. Every other creative program that I use that uses effects (GIMP, Inkscape, Reaper, LMMS, etc, etc) use categorization to prevent this behavior. Actually, I can't think of any well-designed application that runs its menus offscreen like this.
I do realize that this is specifically an Windows issue. On Linux, if the list of effects runs offscreen, it automatically creates generically named submenus that allow you to mouse over them and open them horizontally, so at least you can see the effects on screen with a simple mouseover and click instead of scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll.
However, even if most of the developers work exclusively on Linux, Windows is still the most ubiquitous OS in the world, and I expect that there are at least as many (if not more) users running Audacity on Windows.
I'm not an experienced coder, but I am an experienced user who loves this application, and feels frustrated at this one glaring flaw in it.
I know that this is on the Feature Request page. I take issue with this statement there: Categorisation has a penalty in more difficult navigation.
If that were true, no other app would use categorization. Quite the opposite, categories are used to make navigation easier, it's a pretty basic rule of GUI.
Many moons ago, an attempt at categorizing was made, and certain people got irate at it and complained loudly, not because it was a bad idea, but because it was not implemented ideally. Not surprising for a first attempt. I suspect that even if categories were done optimally, you still would get a small group of people that complain.
- People in general resist change, even positive change, if they are comfortable with the old inefficient system.
- People are far more likely to complain than to compliment, so I suspect that you will always have a vocal disgruntled minority and a silent satisfied majority with categories.
I really wish the Audacity developers would take this seriously.

[waxcylinder]

As one of the people who voted against the original test implementation of tiered categorizations of effects, I would like to reverse my vote - at that time it was to reduce the clicking required to get to any favourite effect. Now that we have the ability to bind favourite effects to keyboard shortcuts the number of clicks in a tiered menu is not relevant.

There is a Proposal in the Audacity wiki regarding this: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Propo ... ffect_Menu
And that proposal motes that this (effects categorization) is one of the highest rated Feature Requests in the Wiki

So for me it is:

1) +1 for effects categorization
2) +1 for the ability for the user to switch between categorized effects and the long linear list (I personally would still opt for the latter)
3) +0.5 for a user-customizable "Favourites" category (For me this issue is dealt with via customizable keyboard shortcuts)

Peter.