I found a way to easily organize/sort plugin ‘user categories’

[Strlck]

A while back I was searching for a way to organize my plugins since sometimes, I can’t remember what a plugin is by just the name especially if it’s something cryptic. Looking through the forums I saw that they can be organized within ‘User Categories’. Great, but now the folders aren’t organized in the order I want, and I couldn’t figure out a way to move them around besides the recommendation of having a temp folder but that seemed like way too much work to be worth it.

I happened to be reading another post where someone mentioned cleaning up a folder within the Library preferences folder >com.motu.MotuAudioSystem. While in that folder I noticed a file named ‘EffectCategories.xml’. I opened it up in TextEdit and it’s the database for ‘User Categories’. Each category has a ‘sub’ number (sub0, sub1, sub2 etc.) which determines the order the folder shows up in DP. As an experiment I renumbered some of the ‘subs’, but didn’t move any of the other lines of code and restarted DP. The user category folders where now in the new order.

Closing DP and going back to the file and I found that the code had been rearranged by DP to be in the order I wanted.

The xml file structure is basically the sub#, the list of plugins, and then the name of the category at the bottom. For example:

<XSET name="Sub1">
<TEXT name="Type">Category</TEXT>
.
.
.
<TEXT name="Name">Reverbs</TEXT>
<SINT name="Expanded" value="0"/>
<SINT name="NumSub" value="0"/>

With a little planning you can easily organize your categories in the order you want. Not sure what happens if you use the same number twice, but I don't think there is an issue if you skip numbers.

Hope this helps someone. It has certainly helped my workflow now that my plugins are organized.

[HCMarkus]

Thanks for posting, and Welcome to MOTUNation Strick!

[bayswater]

Good stuff. I gave up on user categories because they were so poorly implemented. Maybe this will make it worth the effort.

[dewdman42]

Nice!!! Thanks for figuring that out and sharing....

[monkey man]

Awesome Strick; thank you and welcome mate!

[Irimi Nage]

Great tip, thank you!

I use categories a lot, I’ve always kept them organized by being careful about where I place them from the get go but it’s not flexible at all.

[tbenson]

Excellent! Thanks!