Plugins Page - Call for Content

[Woland]

Hello all,

The Isadora forum has been around (in various iterations) for quite a long time and is full of lovingly-crafted example patches, GLSL shaders, User Actors, Macros, and other useful files created by many generous and talented members of our community. The problem is that the posts with these files get pushed farther back in the list of posts as new posts get made, making them much harder to find (especially for newer users). Because of this, for a long time, our community longed for a place to collect these files so they would be easier to find and so, with the launch of Isadora 3, we created our new Plugins Page to fill this need. The Plugins Page is also where you can find all of the additional tools and plugins that TroikaTronix creates, like the OpenNI plugins and tutorial for body and skeleton tracking with a Kinect, NDI Watcher plugin, Screen Capture plugin, Artnet plugin, GLSL Shaders, FFGL plugins, and Syphon Virtual Webcam. If you're on the forum a lot, you've probably seen me asking people who post helpful files and such to upload the same content to the Plugins Page so that they can be more easily accessed. Well, now I'm asking you all, (especially those who have been high-level Isadora users for years), to go back and take a look at the topics that you yourself created in the past for the explicit purpose of sharing content with the community (or times you can remember where you posted an example file to answer someone's question). If you have time to do so, this would be a wonderful (and free) gift that you could give to the entire Isadora community. So, if you've ever made a cool patch, tutorial file, GLSL shader, User Actor, Macro, or any other useful file that you posted on the forum in order to share it with the community, I implore you to go find that content, possibly update or polish it, and then upload it to the Plugins Page so that we can have a larger library of useful content in a central location for all Isadora users to access and use. We'd be especially overjoyed if there are any power-users, teachers, professors, or workshop providers that would be willing to share any of the content from your curriculum that relates to Isadora with the community by uploading it to the Plugins Page. Your knowledge is invaluable, especially to newer members of our community, so any files, documentation, video/written tutorials that you upload to the Plugins Page helps us share your precious knowledge with the entire community and ensures that Isadora users everywhere can benefit from your teaching skills for years to come.

This puts me in mind of an Isaac Newton quote: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants". When I was just starting out with Isadora, I really knew that I was standing on the shoulders of the giants in this generous and knowledgeable community; everyone helped me see much farther than I ever could on my own. Now, I do my best to give others a better view by hoisting them up onto my shoulders (and I'm still learning new things all the time from other Isadora users!). Almost nothing gives me more satisfaction than teaching, especially because whenever I teach Isadora to anyone they always think of or propose something that I never would have come up with by myself. It's the closest thing to magic I've ever experienced. Everyone has so much potential and if we collect our knowledge, we can not only share it with each other, but we can create an indispensable resource for our community and ensure that new members of our community have plenty of giant shoulders on which to stand. There are people out there who haven't even touched Isadora yet that could be the next Mark Coniglio, Graham Thorne, Jamie Griffiths, Sammy Chien, Michel Weber, Fred Rodrigues, Gertjan Biasino, Ryan Webber, Carole Kim, Alexander Nantschev, Monty Martin, Russell Milledge, Ian Winters, Jacques Hoepffner, Fubbi Karlsson, Kate Freer, Jared Mezzochi, Juriaan Gregor, Mark Morreau, Matthew Haber, or Iro Suraci and if we pool our knowledge in one place so that everyone can access and absorb it, we can provide future Isadora users the tools they will need in order to surpass us.

Best wishes <3

Woland

P.S. If you haven't used the Plugins Page before, you'll need to make a free account there in order to upload content. 

P.P.S. I'm going to try to spend part of the holidays doing this with my own content because what else am I going to do alone in my apartment for days on end? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[Skulpture]

@woland I have lots of goodies and 'things'. I will do my best to upload more. 

[Woland]

@woland said:

P.P.S. I'm going to try to spend part of the holidays doing this with my own content because what else am I going to do alone in my apartment for days on end? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

The first of my new uploads: https://troikatronix.com/plugin/simple-midi-example/

From the Plugins Page: 

A short example file showing some simple ways to use MIDI notes to change values in your patch. It includes two screenshots showing basic Live Capture and MIDI Setup for sending MIDI notes from Isadora to Isadora. The patch covers:
– Starting Live Capture=
– Sending MIDI from Isadora to Isadora
– Using a Text Draw actor to display the incoming MIDI Note and a Speak Text actor to say it.
– Colorizing live video dynamically based on the pitch of the MIDI note.
– Colorizing Shape with one of three pre-selected colors based on which of three ranges the incoming MIDI note falls into.
– Colorizing a pulsing/exploding shape with Explode and a Decay Generator
– Using the MIDI note to change the color of the Live Drawing actor while using the mouse to draw.
– Using the MIDI note to change the color of the Live Drawing actor while using the pitch and velocity of the note as x/y coordinates, letting you draw automatically with the random MIDI notes.

[DillTheKraut]

Did I miss it or is there no search functionality in the plugin section?!

Best

Dill

[bonemap]

@woland

I will have more to contribute to the page soon. It is a great resource and I am looking forward to making additional contributions!

I would like to be able to delete one of my entries due to changes in an external API that has made it dysfunctional. How do I do that? 

It would be good to get an idea about the process of how submissions are moderated. Are submissions tested in the Isadora software? Are category checks done? Is there an indication or standard for setting tags on submitted content?

I have been looking at the functionality of the plugins page as well. It would be good to have additional category organisation features and/or a search feature as the page entries expand. User contributed tutorials have been suggested to be posted there along with code snippets and demonstration patches that are not specifically software 'plugins'. It appears possible to apply filters to the list, and that is functional but not as elegant as entries divided into their categories and a search function. The efficiency dividend is probably at play here, as more page entry categorisation requires more backend administration time from the Isadora moderators. And if I recall, one of the criteria was to be minimal backend moderation.

Best Wishes

Russell

[Michel]

@dillthekraut
No there is no search function. We just did a few updates to the plugin page a few weeks ago, from the collected inputs of the users during the first year. I will put this to the list but can't promise anything. 

@bonemap
The easiest way at the moment to delete your plugin is, edit the plugin and change the title to "please delete this plugin". I will then delete it in the backend. 
In general I test the plugins in Isadora very roughly. I do also check the category and tag selection and correct them where necessary.
The tag section mostly reflects the filter function in Isadora plus adding a few additional ones. We are open to discuss additional entries.
There is a new category for tutorials since about 2 weeks.

It appears possible to apply filters to the list, and that is functional but not as elegant as entries divided into their categories and a search function.

Not sure what you mean with "not as elegant as entries divided into their categories", because you can filter by category.

The Wordpress plugin for the "plugin page" is custom programmed and changes will be only passed in bulk to the programmer to save time and money. A search function can be tricky if you are looking for a plugin or function but you don't really know how that plugin or function was named. 

Best Michel

[DillTheKraut]

@michel said:

A search function can be tricky if you are looking for a plugin or function but you don't really know how that plugin or function was named. 

 It would help maybe, to expant the search to the description and tags instead of limiting it to the title. Wouldn't it?

[Michel]

@dillthekraut

Yes but then why not just use the filter for categories and tags?

Best Michel

[DillTheKraut]

@michel

Because sometimes it may make sense to have a more fuzzy kind of search, if you have an issue but no perfect idea of a solution. The discription may include more hints then the tags or title offer. In the end it surly depends on the authors scope and will for how detailed the informations are, but the searcher may look for something the Author would not have in mind in the first place.
What represents this more then the so often surprising and unexpected use of Isadora it self? 😉

Best
Delil

[CitizenJoe]

Would it be relatively easy to implement a system that logs which plugins a user has downloaded and perhaps even lets them know if a newer version has been uploaded!? Personally, I would love this. As the page gets larger, it's more difficult to navigate and harder to keep track of what you've done on it.

Cheers,

Hugh

[Michel]

@citizenjoe

Well you can bookmark plugins and then have a list of your favourite plugins. The simplest way to check if there are updates is to click on last updated. As you may imagine implementing a email notification will be quite a task.

I will write down all of your suggestions and collect them to be discussed in the team. But it may take quite a while for a next update. Because we just had a round of user suggested improvements.

Best Michel

[CitizenJoe]

@michel, I wasn't suggesting an email notification! Rather, the idea that when you clicked on a plugin it would say that I downloaded it on H=December 12, 2020, or something or something like that. Or perhaps when you looked at your profile, it shows you a list? I imagine that the tech is already built in, because it knows when you look at a topic or when the topic has been updated?

Happy holidays!

Hugh