Plugins and their locations on a MAC

[Tim Waterworth]

Could someone please help with the location and operation of plugins on LR5.
The story so far is:
Followed the help from smugmug, to load their latest plugin. So after finding library on finder, placed 'SmugMug.lrplugin' in users/username/library/application support/adobe/lightroom/modules/

Opened up Lightroom and it updated the two smugmug services which I have and had before the latest LR5 update.

Went into File/plugin manager, to confirm that SmugMug is installed and running.  The version it sees is 2.0.5, about 10 versions behind the one I have just loaded. If I choose show in finder it points to where I put it but that is/should be the new version. If I press update it identifies a 433KB file of version 2.1.5.0, which has taken so long to load I cancelled it after half an hour and 10KB in!!!

If I go to another plugin I have found that many more plugins are in Applications/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom/contents/plugins/... various plugins (I believe that this is where Lightroom 5 is looking for its plugins and why it cannot see v2.1.5.0 of SmugMug). On the Mac I cannot get to contents/plugins on finder except through the show in finder button in the lr5 plugin manager.

Can someone explain what I am doing wrong. Where plugins should be placed and how, (if they are in library or contents) with perhaps an explanation of what is happening?

I feel like signing, CONFUSED.COM

[john beardsworth]

In general, plugins can be stored in any folder you wish. You then install them in LR through File>Plugin Manager. I prefer to keep mine in a "Plugins" folder (name can be anything) on Dropbox so each of my computers is always referring to an updated version.

However, LR has always had a built-in folder called "Modules". Any plugins in this Modules folder are automatically loaded each time Lightroom starts. That's good in some ways but bad if you have more than one.

Don't keep plugins in the Applications folder. The plugin may need to write information into its own folder and Applications isn't the place for temporary data like this. Library is a better place, but as I say I think a shared folder is better.

John

[Tim Waterworth]

Good morning John, thanks for your advice. Could you tell me how to access the applications contents on the MAC through Finder. Apologies for such a question but used PC's for the first 30 years!!

[john beardsworth]

Well, maybe you're better off not knowing. I only mentioned it when you said "I have found that many more plugins are in Applications/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom/contents/plugins/" and my guess is that these are built-in plugins which you can leave well alone.

But usually in Finder you just use the Go menu. If you also hold down Alt, Library becomes available.

John