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
Historical plugin documents
- Plug-in Authoring for Dummies
by Ed Hisrchman, 2010. Part of the unofficial Sibelius Wiki, still hosted by Tobias Escher. This document is from the time of Sibelius 6. - 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 2019
by Bob Zawalich 2019. An update of Gunnar’s document with issues of interest in to Sibelius Ultimate time frame. - Manuscript Do and Do Not 2021
by Bob Zawalich 2021. A further update of Gunnar’s document - 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.
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
- Changing default dialog settings in Sibelius plugins
- Speeding up some Sibelius plug-ins by pruning the Plugin Preferences database