vcv-plugindownloader

This simple script parses the plugin information provided by the VCV Rack community repository and download the binary release versions of plugins available for the specified target platform (Windows, MacOS, Linux). If a binary release is not available, an option can be provided on the command line to fall back on building the plugin from source.

The script

• gets the latest plugin information from the Rack Web API, which is synced to the community repository on GitHub.
• downloads the archive of binary releases, verifies the sha256, and extracts the archive.
• discards any archives that fail sha256 verification (or encounter any other error) and does not extract the archive.
• only downloads archives that are not already present in the downloads directory (verified via sha256).
• only updates the local version of the plugin if a new version was downloaded.
• can fall back to cloning and building the plugin from source (via command line option).
• will try prefer the latest git tag (if there is one), otherwise check out the HEAD of the master branch to build the plugin.
• allows specifying a Rack patch (.vcv) file and download all publicly available plugins contained in the patch file
• allows updating all existing plugins in the plugins folder without installing any new plugins.

Prerequisites

• Command line access (i.e. a shell)

NOTE for Windows users: Using the Windows cmd.exe will work for downloading binaries, but most likely fail for building plugins from source. An msys2 development environment with the appropriate Unix-like shell is recommended for building plugins from source using the -s (or --source) option of this script.

• Python 3

Optional:

• git (only required for building plugins from source)

Usage

• Clone this repository to VCV Rack's plugins directory OR download the script from Github

IMPORTANT NOTE: For binary packages the plugins directory can refer to either the directory inside of the source tree for dev builds, e.g. ~/source/Rack/plugins, or the platform-specific plugin directory for installed VCV Rack versions, e.g. Documents/Rack/ (Mac), My Documents/Rack/ (Windows), or ~/.Rack/ (Linux). If you decide to use the -s (or --source) option to fall back to compiling plugins from source that are not available for your platform in binary form, the script must be executed from the plugins directory in the source tree, e.g. ~/source/Rack/plugins.

• Change script permissions appropriately per your platform (only required on Linux and MacOS)

For example on Linux:

chmod +x vcv-plugindownloader.py

• Execute the script with the appropriate target platform

vcv-plugindownloader.py win

NOTE: The script always assumes the current working directory is the plugins directory!

Arguments

• The required platform argument selects the platform, for which plugins are downloaded.

Valid platforms are: win, mac, lin.

• The optional -l (or --list) argument prints out the names of all available plugins in the community repository:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win --list

• The optional -i (or --include) argument allows specifying individual plugins to include in the download in a whitespace-separated list:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -i AudibleInstruments Grayscale

• The optional -x (or --exclude) argument allows specifying individual plugins to exclude from download in a whitespace-separated list:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -x AudibleInstruments Grayscale

• The optional -s (or --source) argument attempts to fall back on cloning and building the plugin from source:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -s
vcv-plugindownloader.py win -s -i Fundamental

• The optional -j (or --jobs) argument specifies number of jobs to pass to make with the -j argument:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -s -i Fundamental -j 8

Obviously only has an effect when -s is specified.

• The optional -c (or --clean) argument specifies whether to clean the build directory before compiling from source (via make clean):

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -s -c -i Fundamental

Obviously only has an effect when -s is specified.

• The optional -d (or --delete) argument allows deleting plugins from the plugins folder:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -d
vcv-plugindownloader.py win -d -i Fundamental

USE WITH CAUTION!

Executing vcv-plugindownloader.py win -d will delete ALL Windows plugins in your plugin directory! The script will confirm the delete action, unless --yes is specified on the command line to override the confirmation dialog.

• The optional -y (or --yes) argument answers all questions with 'yes':

vcv-plugindownloader.py win --delete --yes

USE WITH CAUTION!

This will override any dialog and answer all questions with yes. Useful for automated tasks.

• The optional -p (or --patch) argument specifies a Rack patch file (.vcv), which allows downloading all available plugins in the patch file:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -p MyPatch.vcv
vcv-plugindownloader.py win -p MyPatch.vcv -x Befaco
vcv-plugindownloader.py win -p MyPatch.vcv -x Befaco -s

• The optional -u (or --update) argument allows updating all existing plugins in the plugin directory:

vcv-plugindownloader.py win -u
vcv-plugindownloader.py win -u -s
vcv-plugindownloader.py win -u -x Fundamental

Notes

For certain modules (e.g. Fundamental), a git branch or tag needs to be checked out for the build to succeed (master is not compatible with the currently release tag). This branch or tag is hard-coded in the script and will be updated as required. Note, that plugins that are pinned like that will not be updated automatically.

Supported platforms

The script has been tested on the Windows and Linux platform, but should work on MacOS also.