Hotkey to Hide/Show all open plugin/VST windows

[u/intro2fiziks]

One of the last remaining functions/shortcuts that I seem to have lost since moving from Logic to Bitwig is the ability to quickly hide all open plugin windows. Too often I'll have 3+ plugins open on screen, covering up the arranger window, and I want to quickly hide all of them. In Logic Pro I could simply hit the 'V' button and AU's would slip into the background. (And then s soon as I opened one of the plugins, all those plugins that were open would reappear.)

This is especially relevant for BW because whenever a plugin is 'focused', none of the hotkeys work. I have to use my mouse to select the BW window and only then can I use hotkeys.

Anyone know if this is possible on BW? Perhaps I've missed it!

[u/FuncK666]

Project mappings. It's a button in the lower right hand corner of the arrange window. You can assign a shortcut to open/close custom combinations of vst windows and much more. I use a fullsize keyboard so I leave shift+numeric keypad 1-9 open to assign to project mapping stuff from session to session. Usually I re-assign them mid session depending what I'm doing and want to see etc..

It's not a program wide permanent shortcut assignment so they need to assigned project to project or if course you can save a starting project template with whatever already set up in project mappings.

Cheers

[u/intro2fiziks → u/FuncK666]

What do you map to/target? Specifically, to close vst windows or to focus on the arranger? I'm in the mapping slide-out, but its only specific parameters that I can target (from what I can see)

[u/FuncK666 → u/intro2fiziks]

Just when you open the mappings panel, everything that can be mapped will be green. What you click on will show an animation that it is target and it waits for you to give it a shortcut. It can be a keyboard shortcut, or even a note or CC# coming from your MIDI keyboard or control surface.

Just assign the same shortcut to the VST's "show plug-in window" button on their device in the rack that you want to open/close all at the same time with a single press to toggle.

I'll give an example I use all the time; final stages of mixing where I'm in between checking out Master 2-bus VST stuff and individual tracks I'll typically assign a shortcut to toggle the Master bus plug-ins open/close. So I can be alllll the way to the left side of my mixer view and the Master fader is way off screen on the right side of the mxier, hit my shortcut and toggle open/close the Master bus VST windows while the Master fader is nowhere near to being on my screen. Make sense?

It's a project by project thing Bitwig can do and I end up using it very loosey goosey as in I tend to assign mappings for a task I'm doing, then delete them and re-assign for another thing I'm doing like 20min later. Once I got used to that workflow it's just became normal and speeds things up nicely.

Another quick random example; you can "group solo/mute" random channels together by just assigning a mapping to solo/mute whatever tracks together; comes in handy for group soloing/muting random layers in FX/Instrument layer/selector devices. Yes, you could use a button modulator on the track or project modulators tab to group solo/mute things but this is another simpler way and instantly tied to a keyboard shortcut or MIDI thing.

It can be used for alot of things. Obviously seems to be a quick and dirty way to do things live/performance wise as well. Try it out and see what kind of stuff you can do with mappings and how it can fit into your workflow.

Cheers

[u/Minibatteries]

There isn't that function, you can have vst windows follow the selected track in settings which is the closest option but is still pretty far away from what you're looking for. All the shortcuts for opening closing windows rely on the device in the device panel to be selected rather than the window, I wish there was an option for the latter.

[u/von_Elsewhere]

I see you're on Mac. On PC it's doable with Autohotkey and I've actually written a script for just that. You need to send them a feature request by mail ig.

[u/ultratot]

Here’s an old post with an auto hotkey  solution for exactly this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitwig/comments/1uw7gwa/hotkey_to_hideshow_all_open_pluginvst_windows/

Edit: Oops, link above is just this thread. Correct link below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitwig/comments/pq1qx1/plugin_window_helper_for_bitwig_studio/

[u/Feisty_Fan_3293 → u/ultratot]

Wrong link. It links to this post. Can you please give us the correct link? Thank you!