Wow, lots to digest here, thanks for the great suggestions.
 
Loving X-ray BUT--it does not work for my Focusrite plugins, they're VST2 (but so is the TH2, and X-ray works for it). There's no button for "give all keystrokes to" on the Focusrite plugins.

Huh... that's weird. Perhaps you are using older versions of the Focusrite plugs (and there are updates available)?
 
Knowing Focusrite that is likely the type of thing they'd want to know about.
 
OT: I have the FR suite (came with my interface) an keep forgetting I have them (I have not installed them yet). Earlier this week I was looking up some other stuff and ran across some vids/promo material and am all excited to install them. I'll probably forget/get distracted again but I'm curious how you are finding them, quality wise, in comparison to the included Sonar plugs?

And to truncate my earlier looong ass post... I basically just said to look into a few features.
 
1) The Dock (you can drag your VST GUIs into it and order them so they make sense... then you just have to press D to access them... this is generally what I do)
 
2) FX Chains and FX Chain Prochannel Modules (you can make a frankenstein monster of various FX that can be tossed as one entry in the FX bin instead of multiple entries then map out specific controls out of the various FX to a custom GUI... you can also drag it into the Prochannel and then access it from there).
 
3) Learn, live and love the existing Prochannel modules (because more often than not you'll be able to accomplish most mixing tasks there... then you only need to worry about specific effects in the FX bins such as amp sims which means less clutter/keeping track of a bunch of GUIs).
 
So... that was slightly shorter but still long. lol
 
This stuff is all in the online manual so you can just google search it. Cheers.
 

Oh and screensets. That's something else that might help and is in the manual.
 

This may not help but there is a command to show the Track View (Alt+1). I don't know of a command to show the desk top except for the (Windows Key + D). That is the Windows desk top.

A screen "history" might be cool. Kind of like the Undo/Redo history feature but for screen actions. Like any time you open/close a GUI, dock, View or other window and maybe even stuff like scrolls you could hit a Screen Undo binding and go back a step to what you were looking at before. Hit it multiple times and go back in time. Then Screen Redo to move forward again (providing you haven't opened/closed anything or scrolled). Or maybe have a third option that retains the forward history despite changes.
 
Oh boy... now my brain is trying to hammer out another feature request I'll never submit. lol
 
Stupid brain.

lf I wasn't clear, I meant the basic SONAR screen, not the actual windows desktop. I just wanted a key that BAM's you right to it. X-ray is cool, but doesn't function w/my Focusrite plugins, they won't X-ray. You can get to certain views immediately like track or console, and that's not bad, so it's getting there. I just wish all my plugins functioned with X-ray.

tyroneshuz1
Loving X-ray BUT--it does not work for my Focusrite plugins, they're VST2 (but so is the TH2, and X-ray works for it). There's no button for "give all keystrokes to" on the Focusrite plugins.

Is it possible the Focusrite plug-ins are 32bit and SONAR is 64bit? This would explain both the VST header and X-Ray issues.

Very possibly, but again, the TH2 Overloud is in the same category (VST2) and that X-rays just fine. I do notice one thing however--the Focusrite plugins appear in the my Windoze status bar (task bar?) at the bottom when I open them, none of my other plugins do that.

You should know if you are running 64bit SONAR, I can only guess by the description of the Focusrite plug-in behavior. If you are running 64bit SONAR, the standard 64bit installation only adds the 64bit version of TH2 SONAR or Producer (depending on which version of SONAR installed). 32bit VST plug-ins will have (32-bit) appended to their plug-in name in the VST lists. Also 32bit VST plug-ins are show in green in the browser.
 
In order for 32bit VST plug-ins to work in a 64bit host, they must run inside another program which acts as a bridge between the 32bit and 64bit environments. This results in the plug-ins actually running outside of SONAR. BitBridge, a program bundled with SONAR, is a server which hosts 32bit VST plug-ins. This is why they show up as separate Windows processes, wrapped with a different header and lack X-Ray.
 
It is possible to display the standard VST header for 32bit plug-ins by hold the SHIFT key when opening the plug-in UI. This will cause the standard VST header to open in second window usually behind the plug-in UI. This header contains the "Give all Keystrokes to plug-in" option along with the other VST header features. The header window is also dockable where the plug-in UI is not.