Problems with "Plug-in Sync" dialog during startup [fixed]

[wmountney]

Hello,

I just wanted to report several different bugs related the following dialog that pops up when first starting the program:

MenuMagic works better when the plug-in system synchronization is turned on.
Unless you are sure of your reason it is recommended that you leave this setting switched on.

Are you sure that want to turn Plug-in Sync off?

1. The dialog seems to pop up every time when staring the program. I would think it should remember the selection, and then if it needs to be changed it would be done in the settings.
2. It is asking if I'm sure that I want to turn Plug-in Sync off, when I didn't even select anything that indicated that I want to turn it off.
3. It recommends answering "No", to not turn it off, but "Yes" is the default button
4. Most importantly, the dialog pops up BEHIND the program splash screen each time, and there's no way to bring it to the front, so I have to grab the edge of it and move it out from behind in order to click the buttons.
5. It should say "Are you sure that YOU want to turn Plug-in Sync off"
[/quote]

By the way, I really love the program, and it has finally made it easy to keep my SONAR plug-in menus both organized and up-to-date. After using the program for two days, I have the following wish list for a future version:

- I wish I could resize the window to make it bigger in all of the modes, not just the plug-in list. Since I have a larger monitor, the small window size makes me feel like I'm looking through a key hole, and I just want to open the whole door.
- I would like there to be sub-categories, since the SONAR menu system supports subfolders. Even one additional sub-level would probably be sufficient.
- It would be useful if a plug-in could be assigned to multiple categories. Again, the SONAR menu system does allow this, and there are certain types of plug-ins that fit into multiple categories.
- It would be handy if there was a single quick update button that would save the session and write out a menu that you have designated as your default menu.

Thanks,

Bill

P.S. I'm planning to join the group buy as soon as it's active!

[TheSteven]

Bill,

Sorry I missed seeing your post yesterday.

I'll check out the issues you reported and get back to you (and respond to your wishlist) as soon as I can find some coffee and kick start my brain.

Thanks,

...Steven

[TheSteven]

Hello,

I just wanted to report several different bugs related the following dialog that pops up when first starting the program:

MenuMagic works better when the plug-in system synchronization is turned on.
Unless you are sure of your reason it is recommended that you leave this setting switched on.

Are you sure that want to turn Plug-in Sync off?

1. The dialog seems to pop up every time when staring the program. I would think it should remember the selection, and then if it needs to be changed it would be done in the settings.
2. It is asking if I'm sure that I want to turn Plug-in Sync off, when I didn't even select anything that indicated that I want to turn it off.
3. It recommends answering "No", to not turn it off, but "Yes" is the default button
4. Most importantly, the dialog pops up BEHIND the program splash screen each time, and there's no way to bring it to the front, so I have to grab the edge of it and move it out from behind in order to click the buttons.
5. It should say "Are you sure that YOU want to turn Plug-in Sync off"

Hi Bill,

Couple of quick questions to help in my trying to reproduce this.

If you change any of the settings within MenuMagic (for example turning off the VST Adapter support in Settings / Options tab) do those changes stick?

Where is MenuMagic installed? (e.g. C:\Program Files\MenuMagic or D:\MenuMagic)

What OS are you using?

Are you logged in as a user with admin rights?

I wish I could resize the window to make it bigger in all of the modes, not just the plug-in list. Since I have a larger monitor, the small window size makes me feel like I'm looking through a key hole, and I just want to open the whole door.

Making everything in MenuMagic resizable is on the to-do list.
How soon it actually happens depends on a couple of things.
Aside from any bug fixes, the next thing on my todo list is to finish adding support for JBridge. The issue I am dealing with JBridge in not supporting it but where in the program to add the feature so that it makes sense. If I have to break the current program layout then I will handle resizing with the new design. Honestly I'm hoping that I don't have to redesign the layout right now because it means updating the program documentation, help, etc.. a big job. But if it has to be done, it will be.

I would like there to be sub-categories, since the SONAR menu system supports subfolders. Even one additional sub-level would probably be sufficient.

You can create as many sub-categories (subfolders) as you want by doing this:
1) Create a new category (this will be the subcategory)
2) Populate that category with the items you desire.
3) Click on the create Menu Creation tab to render your plug-in layout menu tree.
Note: if you have already rendered the layout menu during this session of MenuMagic you may need to hit the Category Resync button (upper left) to refresh the menu tree.
4) In the working layout area - open/expand the parent category that will contain your new sub-category.
5) Click on the sub-category and drag it into the parent.
You have now created a sub-category.

So if for example you wanted to create a sub-category called "Amp-Sims" under the "Distortions" category you would:
1) Create a new category called Amp-Sims
2) Add/move any plug-ins that you wanted included into Amp-Sims to the Amp-Sims category.
3) Click on the create Menu Creation tab to render the plug-in layout menu tree.
4) Open the "Distortions" folder
5) Click on "Amp-Sims" folder then drag and drop it on top of the first plug-in within the Distortions folder. Quick video demonstration

It would be useful if a plug-in could be assigned to multiple categories. Again, the SONAR menu system does allow this, and there are certain types of plug-ins that fit into multiple categories.

Agreed - I'll put it on the todo list.

It would be handy if there was a single quick update button that would save the session and write out a menu that you have designated as your default menu.

Good idea - I need to consider what's the best way to do this.
With the current layout I don't have a good spot to put another button or check box and adding an option under Settings/Options "Save Session When Saving Sonar Menus" (or whatever the caption would be) wouldn't be an intuitive spot to find it (if you didn't know the feature existed). I could make the Save Layout button use 'shift-click' as the trigger... Something to ponder on.

regards,
...Steven

[TheSteven]

Bill,

I've just finished fixing

3. It recommends answering "No", to not turn it off, but "Yes" is the default button
4. Most importantly, the dialog pops up BEHIND the program splash screen each time, and there's no way to bring it to the front, so I have to grab the edge of it and move it out from behind in order to click the buttons.
5. It should say "Are you sure that YOU want to turn Plug-in Sync off"

the fixes will appear in the next build. Still trying to track down why you're having the other issues.

Get back to me when you have chance.

...Steven

[wmountney]

Couple of quick questions to help in my trying to reproduce this.

If you change any of the settings within MenuMagic (for example turning off the VST Adapter support in Settings / Options tab) do those changes stick?

Where is MenuMagic installed? (e.g. C:\Program Files\MenuMagic or D:\MenuMagic)

What OS are you using?

Are you logged in as a user with admin rights?

Steven,

The settings seem to be getting saved, with the exception of "Enable Scanning for VST Plug-ins on DAW startup" which seems to keep getting turned off again. (It is saving it, which I confirmed in the registry, but on the next run it seems to get set back to off.) I am running as an administrator on Vista 32-bit. However, I had an additional thought about "Plug-in Sync" prompt problem. I currently don't have any traces of either the old VST adapter or Project5 installed, so those options are grayed out, and maybe it's not handling that case correctly, because there are no other layers to actually sync?

You can create as many sub-categories (subfolders) as you want by doing this:
1) Create a new category (this will be the subcategory)
2) Populate that category with the items you desire.
3) Click on the create Menu Creation tab to render your plug-in layout menu tree.
Note: if you have already rendered the layout menu during this session of MenuMagic you may need to hit the Category Resync button (upper left) to refresh the menu tree.
4) In the working layout area - open/expand the parent category that will contain your new sub-category.
5) Click on the sub-category and drag it into the parent.
You have now created a sub-category.

I see that I can rearrange the menu after it is created, but the automatic updating seems to undo those changes when it re-syncs again later. I'm trying to have just one global menu that always gets updated as automatically as possible, and the automatic menu creation works very well for that, so it would be nice if that system would remember which ones have been assigned as subcategories. Also, there is the case where there would be subcategories where you would want to have identical names, like "Synths\Subtractive\Polyphonic" and "Synths\FM\Polyphonic", so it would be useful if you do that and see the actual hierarchy the Categorization drop-down, so you could easily see which "Polyphonic" category you wish to select in that case.

Anyway, for now I'm just reducing my levels of categorization a bit, and where I really feel I need subcategories I'm just creating multiple top-level categories like "Synths: FM" and "Synths: Subtractive", and that's working pretty well. I rarely would use more than one additional level of subcategories anyway, because pop-out menus start getting annoying when you have to go through too many levels.

One other idea I just had for an improvement is in the "Name Fixes" section. It would be nice if it could filter the list of plug-ins by category, just like in the category assignment screen. That way, for example, if I only wanted to add a prefix to the newly added or uncategorized plug-ins, I could easily select those as batch instead of scrolling through the whole list and highlighting them one at a time.

But, in any case, the program is already extremely useful just as it is right now, so those are just some things that could make it even more flexible in the future.

Bill

[TheSteven]

Bill,

Found the problem. It was related to having both the VST Adapter and Project5 not installed. When there is only one plug-in system available the sync option is supposed to be disabled - when the program was unchecking the checkbox the click event was being fired and the warning message was triggered. So you were getting the warning every time you ran the program.

The problem is fixed. I need to double check a couple of things to make sure the previous change I made with the dialog box functionality doesn't have any side effects then I'll rebuild the install sets.

Thanks for the suggestions, keep 'em coming.
Sometime in the next couple of days I'll create a new thread on planned features/program suggestions.

...Steven

edit:
Install sets have been rebuilt and posted.
Release v1.4.1.1