Again, that's the point: You are modifying other company's software without clearly telling the user that this probably doesn't comply with 99% of the developer's licenses he agreed on previously!

"....shall not itself nor permits or facilitate its employees, agents or any third party to copy, publicly display, transmit, decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer or make any adaptation or modification of the Software. The Licensee shall not remove or permit to be removed any copyright notice on the Software and (if applicable) the License terms nor any statement of ownership which may be affixed thereto."

Now, show me only one software license from a commercial plug-in development house which doesn't mention this point in great clarity!

PS: I don't care about Auganizer. But I care about the integrity of my software on other ppl's machines. From my perspective, you are recommending something that could be understood as a "light-weight" hacking and manipulation tool. This can be very, very problematic in certain countries such as Germany (and probably more) where it is clearly forbidden to offer tools aimed to manipulate other people's software.


About code-signing: In my world, both the contents of a ".component" and the package itself are signed. Any later manipulation of the plist breaks this signature (a local copy doesn't make it better). This is all what these signatures are about, they guarantee that the software is in original state. This IS user security, no matter if you care or not.

I agree this is the DAW's job. But the plist is clearly other people's territory!

Ok, we get it. Thanks. Can we move on now please.

Absolutely. Take a look at MOTU DP8: fully customizable user plugin organization, with folders and subfolders, plugins can appear in multiple folders, etc.

Actually, as a plugin developer, I don't think we should move on.

The idea that this organizer is messing with things in my plist is a bit...disturbing. I don't want another program messing with the bundles that I deliver. That's not OK. The fact that the developer is not explaining the "back end tricks" is also disturbing.

Fabien is bringing up some valid points, that shouldn't be dismissed.

Careful you may get accused of being defamatory, and probably get banned in the process.

As a user....I don't care....maybe you can talk among yourselves.

This software seemed to me to upset a few of my plugins including yours, so I won't use it, and having just read yours and FabienTDR's points I completely see your point, If I was a developer I would not want anything to mess my stuff, and I also think Apple may not be so happy about it either.

What is going to happen to your beloved plist files do you think?

As a potential user... I care... Please carry on.

Or, maybe not!

Do you even know what a .plist file is?

Here's a snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>AudioComponents</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>description</key>
<string>A reverb inspired by being a sweetheart on forums</string>
<key>factoryFunction</key>
<string>ValhallaVintageVerbAUFactory</string>
<key>manufacturer</key>

I've wanted what AUganizer does for a long time now, and even using it in its messy beta state I find it really improves the workflow. And I DON'T understand what the "plist" is except in the vaguest way.

But I have the greatest respect for TDR labs and for Valhalla--I use some of their excellent plugs regularly--and if they are telling me this is problematic than I want to hear more, and maybe, sadly, give up on Auganizer, which Iw as using in earnest good faith.

Welcome to my ignore list.

Guys, pls understand that I am well aware that my criticism can be understood as an impolite move. And in fact, it's probably a PR fail for me as a developer.

I do not question your need for a solution and would be happy to help improve the situation wherever possible. But the proposed solution doesn't feel very mature to me. Seriously, what about the next logic update? (probably just a matter of time).

Apart from the manipulation thing, plug-in management is a great idea (version management and similar). There is huge demand for an Auganizer (not just mac/AU) and I highly respect any dev team working on real world products (really!). But can't you just restrict yourself to "on/off" switches and version drop-downs? this would allow you to be far less dependant on Apple's stupidity and enlarge your audience to all plugin users (maybe more than just audio plugins).

How were you able to take time away from the Algonquin Round Table to create such a fine work of art?

If you don't care about the points being raised, fine. Just skip the posts. However, plugin developers care about this sort of thing.

Quite frankly, Audio Units are built on a foundation of a thousand matchsticks as is, and Apple likes to change things around on a whim. Anything that messes with files in the .component might have unexpected changes for other hosts, or might affect things negatively in the future.

That is very disrespectful for sure, and totally undeserved.

Seems to me, you´re just taking the piss at auganizer for some obscure reason. Instead of working with the developer.

As per my original post - Its not in our interest to explain how EVERYTHING in the software does in our part, why would we want to do that?

As I mentioned earlier, if as a company wishes to opt out of being compatible with Auganizer, we will indeed put that message in the program when someone tries to organise your Audio Units the way they want. But as I said before - Waves, NI, SKnote, Plugin Alliance, Sugar Bytes, Cycling 74, Motu, Sonalksis, Tritone Digital and PACE amongst many others are FULLY on board and donating NFR's to get 100% compatibility.

The executable of plugins ARE NOT TOUCHED - e.g. the signed, confidential code. If you want plists and other erroneous system files to be "uneditable" then its best you don't release software for a UNIX platform. I'm disappointed that fellow developers do not understand that his doesn't affected their signing, security or plugin in anyway, and to suggest it is "hacking" or "reverse engineering" in anyway is baffling. Its akin to telling someone who uses php that editing the php.ini file is "hacking the software".

But really, we don't have much further to say about this - if you really don't your plugins being compatible with Auganizer as a host, please e-mail [email protected] and we'll ensure our mutual users can't organise them.

Please stop this Chris D, there are some of us that like to know what is actually going on with the software we use, if you don't want to know then just come back later, The two people you are putting down are very well respected developers and have earned the right to have an opinion.

I just don't understand your attitude Danny, I mean this with all good intentions, I really think on a personal level you could handle things a lot better, anyway I don't want to make anything worse so I won't say anymore, I will just stay out of it from now on.

My suggestion is to open another thread for the developer discussion. It myght be of interest for some, why not give it it's own place without messing up another discussion? You can point to it from here...

I think, I get TDR (Fabien) and Valhalla (Sean) 's point, that it's a general concern, cause Auganizer might use methods to achive a gernerally desireable thing, that otherwise could be used to achieve undesireable things (hope I dont express myself too complicated ).
I have not too much knowledge in that area, but I respect all mentioned developers, their opinion and their work (including Auganizer's Team).

From a user point of view: This seems like a solution for a problem, people have had for a long time. Many asked apple for it, but it seems like there is no hope for a solution from apple. Since it looks like nobody's actually doing any harm to anybody, couldn't you just let it be for a moment ("benefit of the doubt"), point out the concerns (maybe also as a sidenote on Auganizers homepage) and stick your heads together? Maybe there's a solution for the problem or it turns out to be less of a problem than you thought. You are great devs with great ideas and i think all of you are somehow in the same boat (small team (if not a one man show) bringing cool stuff to musicians to make their work better...). You dont seem to be rivals in any area, as far as i know.

If the current method proves to be touching stuff it's not allowed to, maybe the solution could be a plugin wrapper? Or maybe it could be leaving everything as it is, because it turns out nobody is being harmed and people are made happyer instead...

PS: I actually purchased Auganizer last night and the same day, i read about TDR proximity plugin on logic pro expert and downloaded it. I was looking forward to have them work together, actually :D

I'm going to buy it for sure. As I did with Vintage verb.

If no harm is done, then I am OK with whatever makes people happy. I just don't want to be getting support requests for unintended consequences of whatever Auganizer is doing.

To this end, I just sent NFRs to Auganizer, as well as the latest betas. Hopefully this will help in creating a robust product.

Tcb ;-)

THAT sounds good (to me as a user, at least). I really hope and think there is a "everbody can feel good" solution.

And btw: From what I read in this thread, people didn't blame any plugin devs for issues with Auganizer, so far (and they shouldnt). They only asked Auganizer (dannys) for working it out. And that's why they (and I ) gave him some money. I agree that it would be a nice turn if Auganizer said something like "if you experience issues, please don't blame the plugin devs" as an official statement. But i think, people get that themselves.

If itunes would mess up my music library, i wouldn't blame the Chili Peppers for a bad mp3

PS: Looking forward to the announced update, danny!

I'd be happy with the ability to reverse stuff in Auganizer, if it isn't already there. Whatever changes happen to the plist or .component, it would be nice to run an uninstaller (or "deorganizer") and have everything go back to the way it was - same plists, same .components, original installation folders.

This isn't meant to disparage the work of the Auganizer team, so much as to reflect the reality of Audio Units as the work of Apple. Apple tends to change things according to their own whims, and might change things with Logic, OSX or AUval that would break the functionality of Auganizer, & the plugins it has organized. It's APPLE that I am worried about, not Auganizer. The ability to reverse the Auganizer component/directory reorganization would help future proof for any changes from Apple.

There is such a function, already. Sounds like it's exactly doing what u re asking for.

If it really technically is doing what you said can better be answerded by danny or somebody else with more knowledge of AUs and programming.

Cool!

Don't want to sound rude but I have to ask, do you really think your end users read this stuff? We're musicians and audio guys, not lawyers!

Now back on the actual topic .. How far away is this update?