[Sticky] Please help debug the Unify online manual

Hi, thanks for keeping the User Manual updated. I'm currently adding Unify bundled plugins to my customised plugin subset list and I found out that some of the MIDI effects (MidiBox, PolyBox) are not listed on this page: https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=bundled-plugins#midi_effects

@robert-p

Good eye, thank you! That page was a relic from an earlier version of the manual, superseded by what I had added to the main start page. I have simply replaced it by moving the newer content, leaving just a link on the start page.

Also, there is a Passthru built-in effect which seems to do exactly what it's name suggest: passing audio thru, but I couldn't find any information about it

@robert-p

Fixed, thanks.

Thanks, I thought I found an Easter Egg;)

BTW I found the Passthru plugin very useful! And this is why: a default INIT patch always loads a Sine Wave Synth as a instrument, but there are scenarios where I don't want the new (INIT) patch to play any sound till I load one of my favourites synths into the instrument slot. Now, I can replace the Sine Wave Synth with the Passthru plugin (that I already added to my instrument plugin subset list) and save it as a template. Thanks to that, I can have multi-layered Instrument template with 8 Passthru placeholders as a instruments and predefined channel strips on each audio layer, and once loaded, I can easily swap the placeholders with my synths. So why is the Passthru placeholder better for me? Because it doesn't make any sound when I press the key on my keyboard (a template with 8 Sine Wave Synths playing the sound straight away doesn't sound nice to me;)

Posted by: @robert-p

BTW I found the Passthru plugin very useful! ... there are scenarios where I don't want the new (INIT) patch to play any sound till I load one of my favourites synths into the instrument slot. I can replace the Sine Wave Synth with the Passthru plugin (that I already added to my instrument plugin subset list) and save it as a template.

 Very interesting! Thank you for the tip. I'll mention that to John.

@getdunne The manual is looking very good and being online can be kept up to date with changes.

Today I thought I would remove the free Obsession Library I was too quick to add during the Livestream as I probably won't be buying Obsession even though the demo is pretty good as I already have quite a few OB synths (Arturia, PA and the free one in Unify).

So after a few fruitless minutes spent skimming through the Unify menus looking for a "Delete Library" function I turned to the online manual. There is a section on adding libraries but I couldn't find anything on deleting them. Is this something that can be added in future? Also, can you briefly tell me how to do it? Thanks

@zinct

I have edited the appropriate page https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=libraries . Scroll to the bottom for instructions on how to remove libraries. Thanks for pointing this out!

@getdunne Thank you, that looks just the ticket. 

On the page https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual-1.7/doku.php?id=transport under "Starting and stopping the transport" heading "method 3", the line appears:

Method 3: When the Trigger menu is set to “Manual start/stop”, the two large icon buttons at the left-hand side of the Transport will light up to indicate they are active (see image, red outline).

As "Red" is no longer used as the outline color, the line should read:

Method 3: When the Trigger menu is set to “Manual start/stop”, the two large icon buttons at the left-hand side of the Transport will light up to indicate they are active (see image, magenta outline).

(So, if a three-letter word pops out at me during a quick scan through all these docs pages, what does that mean exactly about my brain???) 🙂

Terry

Posted by: @terrybritton

if a three-letter word pops out at me during a quick scan through all these docs pages, what does that mean exactly about my brain???

Says you're a born copy-editor. Many thanks.

As it turns out, both the text and the image required correction. The two colored outlines were supposed to be different colors, but a quirk of my graphic editor made them the same, and I missed that.

On the page under the example for the Akai MPD218 discussing the pads, the word "knobs" was substituted for "pads" in two places.

https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=midi-controller-files

Posted by: @terrybritton

On the page under the example for the Akai MPD218 discussing the pads, the word "knobs" was substituted for "pads" in two places.

Fixed! Thank you.

Hi Shane,

First, I've been reading the manual for the last few days and I think it's really great.  Well done!  And I appreciate that you want to make it better.

 I have some suggestions about navigation. I don't know how much work is involved in coding stuff like this.  If it's too much work, then "never mind," it's fine as it is. 

In general, I would like to be able to page through the manual as if it was a book.  As far as I can tell, I have to keep going to page one. Even if there is a shortcut for going from one page to the next it would be preferable if it was simple and visible. 

You do a table of contents for each page, but this doesn't save much time for somebody who is just reading it like a book from top to bottom.

On the other hand, if somebody wants to learn all the instruments and effects, it would be a huge help to have a full list of links for all of them on every instruments and effects  page. For example, to able to go to the Guru Sampler Page, and then, with one click, go directly to another instrument or effect page. I think anybody who is teaching themselves Unify would like to do it that way. With the current manual, it's a lot of paging back and forth.

To be honest, it would be nice to have access to links to all the chapters and topics on every page, like you do with a PDF. Sometimes you'll be reading about something and another topic will come up. For example,  an instrument will be mentioned.   If you want to read up on that, it's back to page one, then to the page on instruments, then to that instrument.  To go back to where you were, it's back to page one and then another click. If you could see all the links on the side of the page, it would be so much more efficient for learning. One click to anywhere. Back button on the browser and you're where you started.

As this is a reference that people use while actually using Unify, I think an index would be great. It would be so great to just search for a topic in an index and get a link to what you want to know about. Or even easier, if you're using MidiBox, you could click on the OPS button and see "How to Use Midibox" as an option.  Click on that and you're on that page in the manual.  

Also, as it is an online manual, why not embed some of John's excellent videos in the appropriate spots?   I realize that you can go to the videos section of the website or to YouTube and find the videos, but that takes time. If you are studying the manual to find out how to use MidiBox, it would be cool to have a video right there, should you want to watch it. 

I've been using Unify every day since it came out, but only what I could figure out on my own.  I'm only now doing a deep dive into John's videos and this manual is awesome.  I'm only offering these suggestions because you said you wanted to hear them. I know you have your hands full making all kinds of new features for Unify itself.  😀 

Happy New Year,

Reid Rosefelt

PS  in the Chapter "Controlling sounds through time" you have a link to "Using MIDI," which suggests that it will be a different topic from "Using Macro Knobs"  When you click it, it just takes you halfway down the "Using Macro Knobs " page.  To me, that made me sure I clicked the wrong links, so I went back and tried again. This would really be helped if instead of calling the link "Using MIDI," you changed it to "Linking MIDI CCs to Macro Knobs," which is where it takes you.

@tiger

Very good points, thank you! I agree the manual's structure is not very clear anymore. It was clearer at the beginning, but the manual has grown along with the software, and has become more than a bit ragged. I'll keep your suggestions in mind as I think about reorganizing it.

One thing you might want to try is clicking the "Sitemap" link at the very top right. This will take you to a list of ALL pages. Because the list is auto-generated, it's not organized in any useful way (it's just an alphabetically-ordered list of all the "short names" for the pages), but if you click on every one of the links, you can at least be certain you've read the entire manual, and haven't missed anything.

Thanks Shane.  I'll try that.  Happy New Year!

Reid

@tiger I agree - great suggestions! 

I am fortunate to have a dual monitor, and what I do is leave the main page open in a tab in one window, then I right click the link to the page I want to read and have it open in a new window, which I put on my main screen. I open any links in the article into a new tab in that same window I then close that entire window when done reading.

I also use the search function quite a lot, leaving the results page open and opening the links into new windows similar to above.

I hope that helps. I also am reading every page in the manual and this approach of mine sped things up considerably.

Terry

Audio File Player page - mda Vocoder link = broken, it seems the site is gone 

@rob

Thanks for letting me know. Of course it was only a matter of time before that site disappeared for good.

I'll try reaching out to mda developer Paul Kellett directly, to see if the files are recoverable.

UPDATE: I reached Paul, who said he plans to do something about this, but gave me a Wayback Machine link for now: https://web.archive.org/web/20220430233044/http://mda.smartelectronix.com/vst/help/

ALSO: I have added pages for all the MDA plug-ins within the Unify online manual itself, so we're no longer dependent on third-party sites for the descriptions.