Russ

This question is in response to a post that Eugene made in the UFX thread, but since it was not directly related to UFX, I thought it would be better to create a new thread.

Can anyone explain how to do this?

I tried this but was unable to get a new category to show up on the plugin/effects menu.

I copied the default skin and edited kxskin.ini (new guid), lang.ini, and categories.ini.

I tried adding:
(lang.ini)
categories.10=MyFx

(categories.ini)
10=categories.10

I also added some plugins to this category, at the bottom of categories.ini (plugin_guid=10, etc).

I also tried use hex ('A' instead of '10') in both files to see if it made any difference.

I know kX was using the new skin because the effects that I added to the new category no longer showed on the list in the general area (they moved to the 'Default' category), but the new category did not show up in the list.

[COLOR=Gray] <edit> I do not seem to get the above behavior any more (3539), but I do know that the new skin is being used as I moved some of the plugins (i.e. added the rest of the ProFX plugins to ProFX menu, etc).
</edit>[/COLOR]

Did I miss something?

BTW:
What is the max number of categories?
What format is used for category numbering (hex, decimal)?
Is there a max number of plugins per category?
Is there anything else we should know about this?

Thanks,
-Russ

Russ

I am still wondering about this...

I can move plugins around within the current categories, but I cannot add new categories.

stylus02

could be very usefull.

Eugene Gavrilov

if I remember the things correctly, here's what is necessary:

categories.ini:
=========
[categories]
10=categories.10

your plugin guid=10
your plugin guid=10
...

lang.ini:
=====
[lang]
categories.10=Category Name

However, current driver code does only support =10= categories, this is hard-coded in kxmixer source code. So, it will only work for categories 0..9

Russ

It would be great if that number could be increased in in the future (as my plugin list is getting long)

Thanks E. (and Max)

klundberg

Hi Russ (or anyone),

I'd like to learn how to fiddle with the plugin menus and categories to avoid scrolling. I know about windows INI files, but do not have a
- lang.ini
- categories.ini
anywhere on my OS drive. Is there a tutorial or information pertaining to how to edit these files, and make them active? I presume that kxCtrl.exe is involved, but did not see an explicit command line option for ini files.

Thanks,
Ken Lundberg

Russ

It is the kx skin system. There is a file in the kx directory, kxskin.kxs, which is a zip archive. The files are in there. There are no tutorials that I know of, and the only documentation is the comments within the files.

-Russ

Russ

Here is more info (now that I have more time to respond) regarding editing the plugin menu.

Currently you will only be able to rename the sub menus and add/remove plugins to/from the sub menus.

Extract categories.ini, lang.ini, and kxskin.ini from kxskin.kxs.

lang.ini contains the sub menu (category) names for different languages. You would edit this if you wanted to change the name of a sub menu.

categories.ini is where plugins are assigned to a sub menu (category). This is done using the plugin's GUID and the category# (from lang.ini). It should be fairly self explanatory. BTW: It appears that the last line in the file should be a blank line.

You will need to edit kxskin.ini to give the skin a new name and a new GUID (generate GUID from kX Settings menu).

Zip up the 3 files as whatever.kxs, register the new skin and select it from the menu to use it.

For any other skinning, you will need to look at the structures of the different files, and read the comments within those files, etc.

<edit>
In kX 3541 you can add new categories!
See Eugene's previous reply for info on adding new categories.
Thanks E.
</edit>

Russ

I added an example (3541 only) here. It places all ProFX plugins into the ProFX submenu, and it adds a UFX submenu, where it places any uncategorized UFX plugins (i.e. UFX plugins that are not already in another category).

BTW: The categories.ini file differs from the original (in addition to the above modification) in that it is sorted (I find it easier to work with this way), and has comments indicating the category names.

klundberg

Russ,

Wow - I'm liking this user community more and more - fast answers and exceeded expectations!

Thanks for the information about kxskin.kxs (a zip file by any other name is just as sweet), and the example. My objective was to organize the plugin menu structure, and you've already done it.

Onward,
Ken

janez

nice info, thanx
I was wondering the same thing: How can I sort and organize all those plugins. That lengthy popup menu is not exactly ideal.
I am not a programmer, but there´s nothing wrong about a wishlist, right :-)?

Would´t it be nice to have an editor for that function that presents an Explorer type interface with drag and drop functions and that makes the changes in those .ini files in the background.
A Programm like that could also offer the function to unregister plugins, so the user doesn´t have to do it in the registry. It could also be integrated in the settings dialog in the KX Mixer application.
Just a thought. Maybe someone feels inspired for a weekend project.
greetz
Janez

Max M.

janez

I'm afraid this does not look like a weekend project. And imho, such efforts won't be worth the result. Actually Russ already showed the right way above. The result ("more suitable plugins menu") can be achived by a "non-programmer" within a few hours (a worst possible time estimation) just by editing the corresponding text file. All you need is just a text editor and a zip/unzip utility. That's it.
So my wishlist would look like: someone (anyone, anyone interested, a group of people, to whom it may concern - whatever ) just to sit and make it (maybe with some peer-reviewing and several editing iterations to make all interested parties be less or more happy).
Then (most important step) the new ini file to be sent to Eugene as a "community patch" - this way it becomes the "official" and the "only" plugin menu right with the next driver version release.
This is how such things work (and imho, the only way it will work at all).

__________________

Eugene Gavrilov

max, u da man