Questions & Answers

FR: Single-click to open plugins

+98 votes
1,872 views
asked Jan 23, 2016 in Studio One Feature Requests by breydo83 (270 points)
edited Apr 20, 2016 by breydo83
It would be nice if the plugins could be opened with a single click like in Pro Tools. Having to double click plugins every time gets tedious and a single click option could potentially save hundreds or even thousands of clicks per session.

11 Answers

+8 votes
answered Feb 4, 2016 by chancekaye (3,320 points)
Yes please. This has bugged me from Day One.
+7 votes
answered Feb 23, 2016 by waynerose1 (3,780 points)
Yes, please. And provide a key command for it.
+6 votes
answered Mar 30, 2016 by stevekitch (1,360 points)
Yes. I switch between Pro Tools and Studio One. Bugs me a lot!
+4 votes
answered Jun 21, 2016 by Scoox (17,130 points)
edited Sep 11, 2017 by Scoox

I'm assuming you man FX inserts, in which case you just got my vote sir. However, there is a reason for the double-click: currently the single click expands-collapses the FX slot, and double-click opens the actual plugin. Here's my proposed solution:

Double-click and single-click don't play well together, because to detect a single-click the program must wait a fixed amount of time before it can assume the user intended to issue a single-click. That's why, when you single-click an FX slot in S1, there is a short delay before it expands or collapses. This short delay is not a show-stopper but it is quite annoying nonetheless.

FX slots also respond to right-click. The right-click brings up a small context menu. Here's where I see room for improvement: this menu can also be opened via a left-click on the small down-arrow button, so one of the two methods can be considered redundant:

This is probably a good time to point out the elephant in the room: that the small arrow is too hard to notice against the similarly-colored background, which makes it even more redundant.

Expanding-collapsing of slots could instead be accomplished by means of a dedicated expand-collapse button on the slot, while the menu opens only via right-click. In addition, remove from the menu any redundant commands, for example, why would anyone want Expand/Collapse in this menu when you can already accomplish the same with a single click without opening the menu?
Here is a mock-up of my proposed solution, notice how the expand-collapse arrow button gets flipped upside-down when the fx slot is expanded, similar to the track expand-collapse button. I've also made the buttons a bit brighter because currently they are too hard to see.

I would get rid of the following right-click menu items:

Edit...: Single-left-click FX slot would do the same, so it's not needed.

Expand/Collapse: Single-left-click dedicated expand-collapse button on FX slot would do the same, so it's not needed.

Bypass: I wouldn't entirely get rid of this, but I would implement right-click on the actiavte-deactivate button () toggles bypass. Furthermore, bypassed slots should have a different background, because currently they look the same as non-bypassed slots, which is not very good. Something like this might work well:

0 votes
answered Nov 23, 2016 by Scoox (17,130 points)
No news on this one...
0 votes
answered Jan 31, 2018 by neiljordan1 (18,420 points)
I'm with you, but I see the argument for the current setup too.

Best solution is to have an option for either to be used.
+4 votes
answered Dec 8, 2018 by benreaves (11,380 points)

While I would agree with Scoox about how some stuff is redundant, why not this...

Change single- and double-click options. I literally NEVER use the mini control set that the native S1 plugins have. AND, no third-party plugin supports that view whatsoever. So there's no reason for it to be the "easy" option. While I'd rather there be a keyboard shortcut to open that mini control view and have the rest of the plugin bar work like Pro Tools: right-click to bypass, left-click to open.

I don't understand why the mini view is prioritized when nothing but S1 stock plugins work with it. And no other plugins ever will, because there's no need to develop a control set for just one DAW when the GUI is what everyone's actually concerned about.

+3 votes
answered Dec 18, 2018 by federicosilva (4,550 points)
Left click to open, right click to bypass. Please, this is the most common case, as many here are saying the expand feature only works with stock plugins, and is not that useful even in those cases. Bypassing plugins on the mixer by clicking once is also a must have feature.
0 votes
answered Oct 15, 2023 by ts-12 (380 points)
I hope 8 years later they finally fixed this
0 votes
answered Jan 29 by ts-12 (380 points)
With so many votes I would expect it to be fixed by now. Still no ?
0 votes
answered May 3 by anthonyvl (140 points)
All the programs in the world open with one click, I think there is a stupid selfish bias here
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