The plugin window

When you click a plugin in the chain, its window – the way its maker designed it – opens on the right of the channel view. Shadow Rack makes it as big as the space allows, so a small compressor fills the screen on a laptop and on a big monitor alike. You can also open a plugin in a window of its own and keep it on screen while you work on other channels.

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1. 1The plugin's name and maker
2. 2BYPASS this plugin (B)
3. 3PIN: keep it open in its own window
4. 4X: remove it from the chain
5. 5The plugin's window, as big as fits
6. 6Double-click the row: the plugin in its own window

Always as big as fits#

There's no size button. Every plugin is shown as big as the panel allows - from half its own size up to twice its size:

• Plugins that can be resized are simply given the new size, and redraw themselves at it.
• Plugins with a fixed size (most Waves plugins, and many others) are enlarged or shrunk by macOS itself, so even a fixed 600-pixel GUI fills a big screen.
• Some plugins say they can be resized but refuse to get smaller. Shadow Rack notices and shrinks them like fixed-size ones.
• If a plugin changes its own size - its size menu, a section folding open, a preset - it's fitted again.
• Interfaces that start out tiny and grow a moment later (some Native Instruments plugins) are fitted once they've reached their real size.

After zooming, Shadow Rack checks the result once. If a plugin only drew into its own corner and left the rest empty, it's shown at its own size from then on, and that's remembered for that plugin.

If a plugin doesn't fit even at half its size, it opens in a window of its own instead, and the panel says so with a SHOW WINDOW button.

Sharp graphics on ordinary monitors#

Many plugins (Waves especially) have high-resolution graphics for Retina screens. On an ordinary monitor, Shadow Rack makes them draw with those anyway, so a zoomed plugin stays sharp instead of blurry. The switch is Sharp plugins on monitors without Retina in Setup > Plugins; it's on by default, and a change takes effect the next time Shadow Rack starts.

A plugin in its own window#

Open a plugin in a window of its own with:

• a double-click on its row in the chain,
• PIN in its header, or
• ⌘⇧W (Plugin > Open in window).

Each of these pins the plugin. A pinned plugin's window stays open while you switch channels and plugins, so you can keep a reverb or a de-esser on screen while you work elsewhere. The window's title is channel · plugin, for example Vox Lead · Pro-DS.

• The panel on the right then says PINNED, with SHOW WINDOW (bring it to the front) and UNPIN.
• Closing the window un-pins the plugin.
• Pinned windows are saved in the session and open again when you load it.
• They float above the rack while Shadow Rack is in front, but never over its dialogs or over other apps. Their position is remembered, and a window is always put back on a screen that still exists.

A plugin can only have one window open at a time, so while it's in its window, it isn't in the panel. A window opened only because the plugin was too big for the panel isn't pinned: it closes when you select another plugin.

Plugin previews in the chain#

Every row of the chain shows a small preview of the plugin's window. Shadow Rack takes it quietly the first time the plugin is on a channel - when it's shown in the panel or in its window, or, if you never open it, from a copy opened out of sight a few seconds later. Until there's a preview, the row shows a stand-in with a symbol for the category (an EQ curve, a VU needle, a reverb decay). Previews of bypassed or missing plugins are dimmed.

If a picture is wrong - taken while the plugin was still loading, say - use Take its picture again in the plugin menu. The pictures are kept in ~/Library/Application Support/Shadow Rack/Thumbnails/.

The knob strip under the plugin#

When a MIDI controller has learnt something on the FX page, a strip tagged WING KNOBS appears under the plugin (it carries that name with any controller): what each of the four knobs turns, its value, the bank, and LEARN to choose the parameters. It's described on MIDI controllers.