There’s been some questions and concern expressed in a few places about the where you should keep your Lightroom plugins (I’m not referring to Web Engines here, they do have a specific place).
The SDK tells us that Lightroom looks in a specific place for Plugins.
In Mac OS (current user) ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
In Mac OS (all users) /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules
In Windows XP C:Documents and SettingsusernameApplication DataAdobeLightroomModules
In Windows Vista C:UsersusernameAppDataRoamingAdobeLightroomModules
Plugins located here are automatically loaded and can be both enabled or disabled by the Plugin Manager, but not removed.
This lack of removal is causing pain for a number of users, so a few Lightroom users/gurus/developers were talking about this a while ago. We bantered back and forth about how we work around this limitation. In the end we figured on a simple solution. Manually create a folder beside Modules called ‘Plugins’ and store your plugins there. This allows you to have a central repository for all your Lightroom plugins, and to be able to add or remove them using the Plugin Manager. This isn’t any kind of mandatory or definitive solution, but may be of use if you feel you need to be able to remove plugins without losing them.
Even funnier, it’s a cut and paste from the SDK!
Good catch Harry.. Ironically that was a cut and paste!
Hi Sean
“In Windows XP C:Documents and UsersusernameApplication DataAdobeLightroomModules”
Documents and USERS???
Harry
Well, I went ahead and changed Application Data to remove the hidden attribute. I’m not aware of anything that this will hurt, so unless I find a better location for the Plugins folder I’ll keep it here.
I like the idea, but on XP Application Data is a hidden directory. Even though I’ve enabled display of hidden files within Explorer, Lightroom doesn’t appear to honor this request. When trying to Add a plugin you cannot get to the created Plugins folder.