[Feature request] StudioRack integration

Question

[Feature request] StudioRack integration

kmturley opened this issue 4 years ago · comments

I'm the lead developer of an open-source VST plugin manager called StudioRack:
https://github.com/studiorack

The aim of my project is to provide a free open-source way to manage VST plugin dependencies and their versions. I would love to add VSTPlugins to the StudioRack Registry, which would involve the following steps:

Publish a Github release containing the plugin source along with metadata plugins.json
Tag your Github repository with studiorack-plugin so it can be discovered
Wait for the studiorack-registry to index your plugin (every 24 hours)
Check the registry feed for your plugin to appear https://studiorack.github.io/studiorack-registry/

Wondering if you would be interested in collaborating to make this work? It would then allow users to install VSTPlugins using the StudioRack website, command-line tool or app?

Thanks!

ryukau · Answer 1 · Sun Nov 29 2020 11:38:29 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Hi, @kmturley.

It depends on how much work required to maintain the integration. Is there some step by step instruction available? Following parts are not clear to me.

How to write plugins.json?
Is it necessary to re-tag for each time when I update master branch on this repository? I'm not familiar with git tag behavior.

Kim T · Answer 2 · Fri Dec 11 2020 09:00:52 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

I've got full instructions here:
https://studiorack.github.io/studiorack-site/docs/05-develop-new-plugins

Should be pretty easy, you can either use the studiorack/cli tool or generate it yourself.

Your GitHub repo needs to be tagged with studiorack-plugin so Studiorack can find it via GitHub search API.
Then you use GitHub releases to publish builds of your plugins!

ryukau · Answer 3 · Sat Dec 12 2020 10:59:33 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Added studiorack-plugin tag and created release with files required. The release is linked below.

https://github.com/ryukau/VSTPlugins/releases/tag/SevenDelay0.1.14

For testing, this release only contains 1 plugin. I'll add others when it's confirmed working.

I have some feedbacks on "Develop new plugins" guide.

On "Use our plugin templates (optional)"

It might be better to add a line like:

If you already have the plugin repository, skip this section.

at the start of the section. It says optional, but the implication wasn't immediately clear to me.

plugins.json

It might be better to add the specification of date format.

The unit of size is not clear. I used number of bytes from ls -l.

Kim T · Answer 4 · Sun Dec 13 2020 06:26:37 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Thanks for the feedback, I will update my documentation.

Do you have linux/mac/windows builds of the plugin?

ryukau · Answer 5 · Sun Dec 13 2020 08:49:44 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Thanks for pointing out. I was forgetting to add yourplugin-<OS>.zip files.

Just in case, a VST 3 plugin can contain all 3 builds in a package. So it's a bit more convenient if StudioRack service extracts relevant build from a package. Below is the documentation of VST 3 file structure.

https://steinbergmedia.github.io/vst3_doc/vstinterfaces/vst3loc.html#mergedbundles

Kim T · Answer 6 · Mon Dec 14 2020 04:54:42 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Oh interesting, I didn't know that was possible! I'll look into it

One thing you need to fix is rename windows to win:
SevenDelay-windows.zip to SevenDelay-win.zip

and you need to add the topic studiorack-plugin to your repo, like this:

I realize in my documentation I said tag which is confusing. Have updated to say topic instead

ryukau · Answer 7 · Mon Dec 14 2020 09:05:57 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

It's fixed now. Thanks again for pointing out.

Kim T · Answer 8 · Mon Dec 14 2020 09:26:59 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Sorry one last thing, size should be a integer:
size: '1793748'

should be:
size: 1793748

ryukau · Answer 9 · Mon Dec 14 2020 10:14:17 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Fixed now.

I just realized that current size is based on original VST 3 package, which includes all 3 builds. And yourplugin-<OS>.zip have different sizes, because I only included the binary for the target OS. Is that OK?

Kim T · Answer 10 · Mon Dec 14 2020 11:29:15 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Your plugin passed validation and is now available on the registry here:
https://studiorack.github.io/studiorack-registry/

and on the site (but my code has a bug):
https://studiorack.github.io/studiorack-site/plugins/ryukau_vstplugins_sevendelay

This has been a really good test to see all the bugs and features that are not supported. I found a few bugs already with my code, which i've fixed. There is another bug with release names vs versions names. I am using the two interchangeably and that shouldn't be the case. Going to need to spend more time to fix it.

Will comment back on here when it's fixed! Thank-you for getting this working!

Kim T · Answer 11 · Tue Dec 15 2020 14:38:17 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

I've fixed the bug with release names not following semvar versioning, but there are definitely some things I need to think through further to make this more stable.

Thanks for doing this, it has opened up some use-cases which I hadn't thought about!

Your plugin now shows here!
https://studiorack.github.io/studiorack-site/plugins/ryukau_vstplugins_sevendelay

ryukau · Answer 12 · Tue Dec 15 2020 17:36:53 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

That's nice it worked. 👍

Please let me know when it gets more stable. I'll update and add rest of plugins after that.

Kim T · Answer 13 · Mon Dec 28 2020 05:24:17 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

I've updated the plugins.json format, main changes are:

id should be a "url slug" e.g. lowercase with hyphens
version should follow semantic versioning x.x.x numbers
files is an object now contains the different builds each with their own filename and size

So you'll need to update yours to be:

{
  "plugins": [
    {
      "author": "Takamitsu Endo",
      "homepage": "https://ryukau.github.io/VSTPlugins/",
      "description": "A stereo delay tuned towards short delay.",
      "date": "2020-12-11T03:48:37.553Z",
      "name": "SevenDelay",
      "tags": [
        "Fx",
        "Delay"
      ],
      "version": "0.1.14",
      "id": "seven-delay",
      "files": {
        "audio": {
          "name": "SevenDelay.wav",
          "size": 2396716
        },
        "image": {
          "name": "SevenDelay.png",
          "size": 32087
        },
        "linux": {
          "name": "SevenDelay-linux.zip",
          "size": 749745
        },
        "mac": {
          "name": "SevenDelay-mac.zip",
          "size": 708326
        },
        "win": {
          "name": "SevenDelay-win.zip",
          "size": 668548
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Then it should show up again!

ryukau · Answer 14 · Mon Dec 28 2020 09:15:14 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

plugins.json is now updated.

Kim T · Answer 15 · Mon Dec 28 2020 15:24:02 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Amazing, thanks for updating. Plugin is shown here:
https://studiorack.github.io/studiorack-site/plugins/ryukau_vstplugins_seven-delay

Kim T · Answer 16 · Mon Oct 25 2021 10:58:45 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

I now have 38 plugins on StudioRack. I think the plugin.json format is stable enough to add your other plugins?

If you don't have time, I can add them (by forking your repo, and adding the plugins.json and release binaries myself)

Let me know!

ryukau · Answer 17 · Tue Oct 26 2021 21:23:25 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

I'll work on it. I'm currently reviewing packaging process, so it may take some time.

ryukau · Answer 18 · Sat Nov 20 2021 16:08:43 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

Hi, sorry for long delay. I uploaded files on new release. Please let me know if anything is not working.

https://github.com/ryukau/VSTPlugins/releases/tag/ResetAndMuteFix

Kim T · Answer 19 · Sun Nov 21 2021 01:15:58 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time)

No worries, better to spend the time to make it perfect!

It's working! https://studiorack.github.io/studiorack-site/plugins

Thank-you for taking the time to add the audio/images/json metadata!