Vegas Style explorere Window Please

[Rednroll]

Damn, I didn't realize how spoiled I was by this feature, until I started using Sonar more and now Reaper. I hate having to go to a menu item to fetch media on my hard drives now. Having that dockable explorer window right on the apps UI, where you can just drag and drop the media anywhere along the timeline is a pretty nice feature. I hope this one makes it on the tudo list. It makes it even more painful that Reaper doesn't remember the last folder you went to when you use the Insert>Media menu item.

[synth]

It will definitely turbo-charge the workflow.

[Ben Zero]

Ditto. Would dearly love to have an Explorer window, tab-able/dockable with the mixer. Really miss it. Which makes me thing a media pool-type window would also be very, very useful.

While I'm being demanding :), I don't know about everyone else but I think the plugin window that you can dock, like the one in Vegas is really great. I use it for quickly dragging plugs to tracks/auxes/busses - it's often much handier than pulling up a specific tracks FX window and is fantastic for a quick workflow. Finally, a way to organise the FX into folders - plus the ability to rename them, etc - would also be really nice (unless this is there already and I've missed it?).

Cheers

Ben

[sinkmusic]

Isn't there a vst explorer plugin already exist ?
I know something was once developed for Tracktion, because Tracktion did not have a browser feature... Maybe it oculd fit and work fine with reaper... ?
I can't remember the name....

Edit : i think it is Tackybrowser... Yes, it is. And the man who did it is Subliminal : http://subminimal.org/tools.php

[Ben Zero]

I know the plugin you mean Sink - thanks for reminding me of that. I haven't had a chance to try it in Reaper yet. I do though think that a 'native' explorer would be a much better option in terms of workflow and useability. What are your thoughts on this Justin?

Ben

[Christophe]

I just created a small Explorer like plugin for Reaper, get it here:

http://ronwarez.com/reaper-0922-explorer.zip (unzip in your REAPER folder)

Note that once you close the media explorer window, there's no way currently to get it back :) I'll add that later.

Let me know what you think...

-Christophe

[fluffy]

Bang up! Can we make it dockable?

Good job!

[Newbie Brad]

DLing now. Great idea, run with it!

[Ben Zero]

Great!

Yeah, being able to dock/tab with the mixer would be great. As would the ability to preview and auto preview files. :)

[MJH]

Great!

Yeah, being able to dock/tab with the mixer would be great. As would the ability to preview and auto preview files. :)

Absolutely, these types of things are what makes... er, yes again, Vegas' GUI the best at Audio/video work flow. I appreciate the work the above poster did on the Explorer plugin but Explorer really must be native to be efficient/usable.

MJ

[eidenk]

Damn, I didn't realize how spoiled I was by this feature, until I started using Sonar more and now Reaper. I hate having to go to a menu item to fetch media on my hard drives now. Having that dockable explorer window right on the apps UI, where you can just drag and drop the media anywhere along the timeline is a pretty nice feature. I hope this one makes it on the tudo list. It makes it even more painful that Reaper doesn't remember the last folder you went to when you use the Insert>Media menu item.

I hate built-in browsers. You don't need to go to the menu to add items in Reaper. You can drag and drop audio and midi from Windows Explorer directly onto Reaper's tracks. It gives so much more flexibility than a built-on browser IMO.

[Rednroll]

That's actually what I do with Sonar, but here's why I really dislike that scenario. Usually you're working back and forth of working in your mulitrack, then you want to grab some audio and place it in the project. Ok, now the explorer window is out of view and it's behind everything. So then you need to unminize it and bring it into back into view. Ok, then you say work with dual monitors to solve that problem. Well, I do that but sometimes I work with dual apps rewired together so now both of my screens are taken up with each app. Then also the same when I'm working with my multitrack and my stereo editor like Sound Forge. Well Sound Forge get's its own screen, so where does my explorer view go now? Let's not forget about everytime we put our multitrack as a background app, then if we have it set to release the audio and midi ports because we're working in a couple differenct audio apps.....then that's what it does. So I basically lose all access to my multitrack app, just trying to grab a file and place it on the timeline while I'm playing back a project.

So the good thing about having the explorer built into the app? I don't run into any of those problems. If I don't need it like if I had a preference like you....then I don't have to use it and I turn it off in the "View" menu. So I don't see any background for an objection for not having it, when you don't have to use it if you don't want to. Also like Vegas, Vegas will let you drag and drop audio from the Windows explorer window just the same as from it's built in explorer window. So how can you hate something you don't have to use and still gives you the same flexibility you outlined? The only thing I can think of is that you have never used it. If you did then you're missing the whole concept behind it.

[eidenk]

I understand what you are saying of course. The thing is that I manage to drag and drop stuff onto maximised apps without even using a Windows Explorer window. Here is how I do. There is a trick obviously. I use two things :

Additional desktop taskbars with toolbars set to browse and a third party utility running as a background app that allows to display the taskbars over maximised applications.

http://home.nordnet.fr/~pmdevigne/TaskbarActivate.html

Say (crude and simple example) you've got a samples folder. Drag and drop it on any empty border of the screen. It will be created as a taskbar. Now create like that another taskbar with any folder. Then drag and drop it onto the previous one you've created, the samples one. Move the slider so that all you can see from the samples one is it's title and two little arrows. Click on them and browse through your samples. Click and drag, right-click and drag and explorer context menu is available for all items. Log off to save yours taskbars once you are satisfied by the layout. PS : Use auto-hide of course.

If Justin does not make a browser or if he does it later, you've got a nice tip here that you can also use for any app that supports drag and drop of objects onto it. Very efficient if well organized. And very unobstrusive. Of course it's not perfect as you can't drag several objects at once and must browse again for each new item.

And not tested with dual monitors I must say.

[Art Evans]

I've had TaskBarActivate running on my Win98SE system for some time now to address a specific problem - trouble is I can't remember what the problem was! Anyway - must remind myself what it does. Thanks for reminding me that it's there!

[Rednroll]

[QUOTE=eidenk]
Say (crude and simple example) you've got a samples folder. Drag and drop it on any empty border of the screen. It will be created as a taskbar. Now create like that another taskbar with any folder. Then drag and drop it onto the previous one you've created, the samples one. Move the slider so that all you can see from the samples one is it's title and two little arrows. Click on them and browse through your samples. Click and drag, right-click and drag and explorer context menu is available for all items. Log off to save yours taskbars once you are satisfied by the layout. PS : Use auto-hide of course.[QUOTE]

Now that sounds pretty simple....I don't know why I didn't think of that before?

[eidenk]

There is something else you can do and that is maybe better even. It is to simply use Windows Explorer. Rooted on a particular folder if you don't want to deal with all your computer data structure in the tree view. And use a stay on top maker utility.

For example paste something based on this in the create new shortcut dialog if you want such a rooted view :

C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.exe /e,/root,C:\My Samples

Put this shortcut on your quicklaunch for example so it is always easily accessible and have one or another freeware app that allows to pin any window on top such as DeskPins that I have just googled :

http://users.forthnet.gr/pat/efotinis/programs/deskpins.html

It has an autopin feature so that if you want you can configure it to make any particular explorer window on top as you launch it.

Then you can drag and drop anything you want onto your app without the harrassment of your explorer window going underneath each time you drag an object onto the app. Believe me I know the score.

I use myself an app called Wintime for fixing windows on top. It also runs as a background task and adds a "stay on top" item to the titlebar context menu of all windows.

And don't worry about any performance impact using those little helpers. It is really negligible. 0.1 % of CPU time and a few hundred kb of RAM at worst.

[Art Evans]

Hey - nice explorer, Justin! Works really well. Thanks, even though I didn't ask for it.

[eidenk]

Yes it's very nice, even splendid. Little problem here though. The Up button does not work on the My Documents item. It does work on its subfolders and also on Desktop and anywhere else I have tried.

Also the Up button sends directly to My Computer when clicked from an empty directory.

It would be nice as well to have a button to launch it directly from the main interface. As it's a plug I don't know if it's possible.

[MJH]

EXCELLENT start Justin. Dockable/tabable with My "Reaper" Favorites in the mixer view along with other views maybe? Please?

MJ

[eidenk]

Also maybe a button to toggle the view from everything to only the supported files ?

[fluffy]

Also maybe a button to toggle the view from everything to only the supported files ?

That's a nice idea.

This thing's pretty nice actually. I would like to see it become dockable, just so that when it's open, it's not over the timeline, it's under it (or whatever). But that's pretty much my only (small) request.

I love how the top of the tree is "Project Directory"! Nice little timesaver.

Excellent work as usual, guys.

[RokkD]

Huh!...here I am wondering what the hell are they talking about, 'Explorer'....I can't find the dang thing..:mad:......aaahhhhh .924 is up and nobody told me..:(

brummm..brummm..:)

--

[malcolmj]

Huh!...here I am wondering what the hell are they talking about, 'Explorer'....I can't find the dang thing.
--

Ctrl+Alt+X

:)

[RokkD]

Thanks Malcolm

This thing is great....preview drag and drop, Im happy :)

[synth]

Imagine a dockable "a la Opera/Firefox" sidebar file explorer o_O