It'd be super great if the DLLs for every plugin displayed the plugin version in their Properties dlg, as seen in Windows Explorer. It's handy not to have to boot up a DAW just to find that out. My guess (not a plugin dev at this point), is that including that info is a simple build step. I'm talking about Windows DLLs here, but I expect something similar exists for Mac and probably Linux too.
Very few plugins do this for some reason. Superior Drummer and EZ Drummer do, for instance, but most plugin DLLs don't. Most actual programs do.
So, in spite of having no right to ask for anything, this is a Call To Action for all plugin devs. Please, do this simple thing to make life better for everyone.
</soapbox>
Feature request for most plugin developers
-
- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1063 posts since 28 Dec, 2012 from Boston area
What I do for the projects I work on (not plugins; I am a programmer, just not a VST one, yet), is create two properties files:
- product.properties contains the version info I control manually, i.e. name and MajorVersion.MinorVersion, all but the build number
- build.properties contains only the build number, which gets incremented by the build script
The version string embedded in the built app is the concatenation of those two, MajorVersion.MinorVersion.BuildNumber.
Yes you need to maintain MajorVersion.MinorVersion yourself, but you need to do other things when you're releasing an update too, including updating that same info on your site, in the read_me, etc, it just goes on that checklist. And yes you need to set this stuff up in the first place, but only once.
While I'm talking about this, it'd also be great if installers had the version number in their name. Once the above infrastructure is in place, that too is just one-time setup in your build script. Same with the version number in the read_me, just embed a token that gets replaced by the build script, say '$version$' (that's what I actually use).
The result is what I 'd call a more professional product, which also makes life easier for users.
Just to be clear, I don't mean to disrespect any plugin developers, not at all, quite the opposite, they do wonderful work. Just suggesting an aspect of the process and the end result that could be improved.
- product.properties contains the version info I control manually, i.e. name and MajorVersion.MinorVersion, all but the build number
- build.properties contains only the build number, which gets incremented by the build script
The version string embedded in the built app is the concatenation of those two, MajorVersion.MinorVersion.BuildNumber.
Yes you need to maintain MajorVersion.MinorVersion yourself, but you need to do other things when you're releasing an update too, including updating that same info on your site, in the read_me, etc, it just goes on that checklist. And yes you need to set this stuff up in the first place, but only once.
While I'm talking about this, it'd also be great if installers had the version number in their name. Once the above infrastructure is in place, that too is just one-time setup in your build script. Same with the version number in the read_me, just embed a token that gets replaced by the build script, say '$version$' (that's what I actually use).
The result is what I 'd call a more professional product, which also makes life easier for users.
Just to be clear, I don't mean to disrespect any plugin developers, not at all, quite the opposite, they do wonderful work. Just suggesting an aspect of the process and the end result that could be improved.
-
- KVRAF
- 21348 posts since 26 Jul, 2005 from Gone
Quite honestly though, I don't think the vast majority of users care about this. I can't think of one occasion when it has ever come up in the past.dwozzle wrote:The result is what I 'd call a more professional product, which also makes life easier for users.
If it's useful to you then of course it would be good if developers did this, but I doubt it's going to make its way to the top of their to do lists.
