Find Sounds Faster with Improved Browsing
Floe is a free, open-source sample player for Floe-format libraries, actively developed as both the engine and interface for a growing ecosystem of sample instruments.
We’ve just released Floe version 0.10. The main focus this time has been on making it easier to find sounds when you have hundreds of presets and instruments spread across multiple libraries.
Improved Picker UI
The biggest change in 0.10 is how you browse and filter instruments, presets and impulse responses. We call these UIs the picker panels.
Search with More Control
Every filter now shows you exactly how many items match your current selection, and these numbers instantly update as you refine your search.
You can also choose between “match all” and “match any” filtering modes.
Say you’re looking for acoustic folk instruments. “match all” mode with both “acoustic” and “folk” tags selected will only show instruments that have both tags. “Match any” mode shows everything that’s either acoustic OR folk. This gives you more control over how broad or narrow your search is. Thank you for the feedback on this from a previous devlog.
What’s more is that the randomise buttons work on based on the current filters, allowing you to set up the boundaries and then explore countless combinations within that.
Browse by Folders and Tag Categories
Items can now be filtered by folder.
For presets, folders relates to the actual folders on your computer that the preset files live in.
For instrument and impulse responses, folders are categories set by the library creator to group items for easier browsing. For example, Lost Reveries has 4 folders of instruments: Low, Mid, Air and Vocal.
Tags are now grouped into standard categories. For example timbre tags like ‘airy’, ‘muddy’, ‘soft’ are separate from mood categories like ‘hopeful’, ‘nostalgic’, ‘melancholic’. Finding or browsing tags is easier as a result.
We have comprehensive guidelines on how tags and folders are used so that all sample libraries follow consistent patterns. You don’t have to learn new systems with each library—additional libraries just expand your available sonic palette.
Cleaner Interface
The picker panels now use space better. Instead of a permanent status bar that often cut off text, you get clean tooltips when you hover over items. The panels themselves are larger, and you can collapse sections you don’t need to focus on what matters.
Why These Changes Matter
These picker improvements become more valuable when libraries have comprehensive tagging (which all FrozenPlain products will have). Instead of scrolling through hundreds of items, you can narrow down to what you’re looking for with a few clicks. Finding “peaceful cinematic keys” becomes a matter of selecting the right tags rather than browsing through every item.
Whether you prefer grabbing presets or building sounds from individual instruments, the same tagging and filtering system helps you find what you need.
Library Development Improvements
We’ve added several features to help library developers make the best experience for users:
- A new Sample Library Developer panel with a tag-builder GUI that generates Lua code for tagging instruments instead of manually typing out tags
- New API definition files that work with Lua Language Server, giving you Floe-specific code completion and documentation
- The ability to split library configuration across multiple files using Lua’s
dofile() (only works for files within the sample library folder to keep libraries portable)
- A
set_required_floe_version function for better error messages when users try libraries designed for newer versions of Floe
Smaller Improvements
Several smaller changes that make regular use more comfortable:
- Right-click the instrument picker button to quickly unload an instrument
- Lock/unlock mode for the Save Preset panel, so you can change presets without the panel closing
- More consistent toggle button icons throughout the interface
- More obvious visuals for when mute/solo buttons are active
- Fixes for edge cases where mute/solo buttons would get stuck or not properly update
What’s Next
Version 0.10 puts us in a good position for the push toward 1.0. The picker improvements lay the groundwork for comprehensive tagging that’s coming to all FrozenPlain libraries.
The roadmap remains focused on stability and expanding available libraries. With these interface improvements in place, we can handle larger and more complex libraries without the user experience suffering.
Try out the new picker panels in 0.10. The improvements become more valuable the more content you have, so if you’ve been waiting to explore larger libraries, now’s a good time. When we add tags to our existing sample libraries, it will be a free update.
