vmw
The plugin manager has become like the staff view, which are two areas suffering neglect. (This BTW is not to start an argument on the staff view).

I agree this is meat and potatoes functionality. But not the only areas suffering neglect. Drum maps UI, take lanes (can't see what you are playing when looping, indicators when auditioning take lanes need improvement, various bugs), audio snap UI, file cleanup (just look at the UI), step sequencer (trivial for me as there are better third party solutions just like staff view has). Please note where I am careful to say UI specifically.
 
And there's a whole load of stuff that could be done with piano roll. Please bakers concentrate on all of this.
Meat and potatoes...
Oh and a hovercar will be nice, they have been promising for ages but haven't seen it yet. I think they may be lying to us, typical!

>>Please bakers concentrate on all of this.
And what does any of this have to do with this thread? We concentrate on things that we prioritize as needing attention to most users, not one users point of view.

scook
I don't know of a case since X3 where a plug-in needs to be forced to a synth. The plug-in options screen which has the option is available in the VST2/3 drop down in the plug-in header.
Aside from layouts, excluding plug-ins is the only time I use the plug-in manager. I know some use it to rename plug-ins but I avoid using that function.

Correct the only reason force as synth is available is for backwards compat with earlier SONAR versions (since PM is a shared component)

Kylotan
The plugin manager does need some love - full drag and drop of plugins across the whole window would be helpful, and showing more details in the list rather than just a name would also be beneficial. But for me the main issue I have is that of tracking new plugins - I can't see at a glance which plugins aren't included in the current menu configuration, which means that when Sonar discovers new plugins (as it often seems to do these days after an update), I have no idea what they are or how to get them into my menus. FL Studio has/had a solution to the latter - after a scan finds new plugins, they show up as red in the list for the rest of that session, so you know they're new. But there are potential other alternatives - be able to list plugins by when they were first found, or last updated, have an 'all other plugins' option on a layout that shows any that aren't already in the layout, etc.

Yeah I agree that the ability to see newly discovered plugins and those not already in layouts would be handy. We have those as FR's I think. These days however PIM is largely redundant besides the ability to do layout editing. The desired workflow is to do everything inside the plugin browser and SONAR. The OP was clubbing scanning with plugin manager when they are two completely independent things, hence my original reply. Scanning itself is pretty efficient and as scook says it take only seconds to scan through hundreds of plugins in the recommended use case with BG scan enabled.

vmw
The plugin manager has become like the staff view, which are two areas suffering neglect. (This BTW is not to start an argument on the staff view).

Doktor Avanche
I agree this is meat and potatoes functionality. But not the only areas suffering neglect. Drum maps UI, take lanes (can't see what you are playing when looping, indicators when auditioning take lanes need improvement, various bugs), audio snap UI, file cleanup (just look at the UI), step sequencer (trivial for me as there are better third party solutions just like staff view has). Please note where I am careful to say UI specifically.

And there's a whole load of stuff that could be done with piano roll. Please bakers concentrate on all of this.
Meat and potatoes...
Oh and a hovercar will be nice, they have been promising for ages but haven't seen it yet. I think they may be lying to us, typical!

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
And what does any of this have to do with this thread? We concentrate on things that we prioritize as needing attention to most users, not one users point of view.

If you have a look at my post again you will see it is a response to a quote. The idea that this is all just based on MY opinion is ludicrus if you read other peoples posts in these forums. Of course people will have other opinions as well though.

Please accept my apologises though for giving my own opinion though (that obviously does not count here) or making a polite request,or having a sense of humour. Guilty as charged.

Well since I have completed a full reinstall the plugin manager's speed has increased. However, it still scans Native Instruments Kontakt 5 as Kontakt 5, Kontakt 5, Kontakt 5, which means you need to use the plugin manager to see the Kontakt path so you can manually rename Kontakt 5, Kontakt 5 8, Kontakt 5 16. Now I could be wrong about this but I have a vague memory that at one stage in the past it actually did differentiate the 3 versions.

X2a introduced a variable controlling VST plug-in naming called VSTPlugInNameFormat stored in Cakewalk.ini. To use the old name format, set the variable to 1. Read about the variable here http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=INI_Files.4.html. The variable is set in Preferences > File > Initialization File. "Initialization File" is an advanced setting. To see the advanced settings make sure the Advanced radio button is selected at the bottom of the Preferences dialog. Alternately use a custom plug-in layout to rename the plug-ins or rename the plug-ins in the Plug-in Manager. The former being the preferred method when using the default VSTPlugInNameFormat.

vmw
The plugin manager has become like the staff view, which are two areas suffering neglect. (This BTW is not to start an argument on the staff view)
The plugin manager needs refining to make it scan faster and the GUI needs some thought as well, it has been the same for multiple editions going back years. It is all well and good supplying new plugins and content through the membership model; but it would be far more appreciated if you looked at something as basic as the plugin manager and its performance.

Dear VMW,
Thanks for bringing the topic of the Plugin Manager up. The GUI is very much a "late DOS" or  "early Windows" type so it is well worth asking if there is anything that can be done to improve it.  Setting aside the speed of scanning which, as Craig points out, is a separate but related issue, what do you think would make the Plugin Manager work better?
 
In my case it is typically a set-and-forget part of Sonar.  My main struggle is that over the years my plugins have become too dispersed on my computer.   I am now working to consolidate them using MS File Explorer but maybe this is something a new version of the Plugin manager could help me with.
 
Aside to the Dr.  I agree with you that Drum Map Manager should be a higher priority based upon my experience, however, it may be that VMW will persuade us otherwise when we see his/her list of suggested improvements.
 
Thanks again to CW Programmers for all the latest improvements,
R

scook
X2a introduced a variable controlling VST plug-in naming called VSTPlugInNameFormat stored in Cakewalk.ini. To use the old name format, set the variable to 1. Read about the variable here http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR&language=3&help=INI_Files.4.html. The variable is set in Preferences > File > Initialization File. "Initialization File" is an advanced setting. To see the advanced settings make sure the Advanced radio button is selected at the bottom of the Preferences dialog. Alternately use a custom plug-in layout to rename the plug-ins or rename the plug-ins in the Plug-in Manager. The former being the preferred method when using the default VSTPlugInNameFormat.

Yes, but... :-)
 
SONAR uses the name given in the middle pane of the PIM, so if you only rename in the custom menu, you don't get the plug-in's name in the FX bin in SONAR reflecting the change.  That is...sub-optimal, or a complete PITA depending on the plug-in's name.  For example, I recently did a rescan for various reasons and have 3 plug-ins with default names of FLP3, FLP4 and FLP5.  Cunningly, none of these letters appear in the actual plug-ins' names, nor the vendor's name, nor their dll's, and I don't know where 3, 4 and 5 came from...without being able to rename them meaningfully and globally and have that persist in all views, their utility drops significantly (there's also a bug in SONAR's display of plug-in names anyway, where - for example - "Reverb (Sonitus)" and "Reverb (Project5)" display as - from memory - "Sonitus)" and "Project5)" - "stemming" isn't handled correctly).
 
The other significant problem - lessened significantly by the Platinum update model - is that the scanner isn't backwards compatible, yet is a shared component.  Suppose you have a plug-in that works perfectly in SONAR 8.5; you update to SONAR Platinum and receive a shiny new VST scanner.  It can happen that the plug-in is no longer valid from Platinum's scanner's perspective (which may indeed be down to a bug in the plug-in that the new scanner deals with in order to "protect" SONAR); as soon as you rescan within 8.5, that plug-in is unavailable and you can no longer make full use of a project with it inserted.
 
The scanner needs to be tightly coupled with each version of SONAR, so I always know I can open a project created in version X without a risk that installing version Y prevents this.

I'm reading you all's writing, but I hope if the PIM get's changed, it's not changed much! I'm tired of having to find things all over again because some change moved them. For example, the mute clip function used to be on the right-click menu. When you right-click a clip you just select it. n\Now, even after reading the Help file, which guides me to how I'm supposed to mute a clip, I still can't mute a clip! I'm very disappointed that function was moved from the right-click menu. It slowed down my work flow, being stuck on how to mute a freakin' clip, and it was so easy at first being on the right-click menu. Jeesh..
 
So, please Cake, don't change much!???
 
EDIT:
 
OK some corruption was going on in a project I had. Clip Mute/Unmute is still on the right-click menu, but it wasn't showing up when I had a certain project loaded at one time. And using the smart tool for muting wasn't working either. I never saw that behavior before. Sorry, I went off about that. It is working fine, now.
 
Still, I'm not for much change in the PIM. :)