Draft Documents
Here are draft documents I have written discussing the writing of ManuScript language plugins in Sibelius.
Plugins are written in Sibelius’ ManuScript programming language. In Sibelius 7 or later you can find the ManuScript Language Reference at File>Plug-ins>ManuScript Language Reference. In Sibelius 6 and earlier, you can find it at Help>Documentation.
- Write your own simple plugin
- Case study – simple plugin Hide All Voices Except 1
- Case Study – Rotating Pitches to the Left Rather than the Right
- Write your own custom filter
- Write Your Own Plugin Using Minimum Plugin
- Plugin Techniques Do Not Show This Dialog
- Preferences plugin to save plugin preferences
- Public Domain Plugins
- Tutorial: Translating an AI plugin to ManuScript
Historical plugin documents
- Plug-in Authoring for Dummies
by Ed Hisrchman, 2010. Originally part of the unofficial Sibelius Wiki, hosted by Tobias Escher. This document is from the time of Sibelius 6. External inks in this document are likely to be bad, but the information is good. - ManuScript Dos and Donts
by Gunnar Hellquist, 2001 – 2005. The earliest document I know describing things to watch out for in ManuScript. Around the Sibelius 2 – 3 time frame. Gunnar was an important plugin developer when I started writing plugins. - Manuscript Do and Do Not 2025
by Bob Zawalich, 2019 – 2025. An update of Gunnar’s document with issues of interest in the Sibelius Ultimate time frame. - Ed’s plugin primer
by Bob Zawalich, 2009. A description of how to go from a minimal plugin to one that could be published with a fair amount of error handling added. - The “Mischievous Twins” problem with developing Sibelius Plugins
By Thomas Weber, Notengrafik.com, 2022. Linked to with permission. An exhaustive deep dive into one aspect of the language: Data types and specifically type coercion. - ManuScript Quirks
Hans-Christoph Wirth, 2014. Notes from one of the great plugin authors.
Plugin Research and Analysis Notes
- New Optional Plugin Features as of Sibelius Ultimate 2020_9
- Quartertone Support in ManuScript as of Sibelius Ultimate 2020_9
- Treating the Character Type as a String Type as of Sibelius Ultimate 2020_9
- Updating plugins to properly transfer properties for Notes and Chords
- Get and Set Note Property Sparse Array Routines in NoteProperties and utils
- How plugins store settings for user data
- Plugins, Saving dialog settings, and the Add Plugin Preferences plugin
- Changing default dialog settings in Sibelius plugins
- Speeding up some Sibelius plug-ins by pruning the Plugin Preferences database