How do I search for a block? / How do I find the location of an existing block?

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/62908#Comment_62908

You can't!

There is no way to search from an instance of a block to find its location in the Reaktor Browser, or on your hard drive, other than a manual search.

Fortunately, this usually isn't too much of a problem, once you have found where the Blocks are in the browser, it's easy to find them again.

If I'm not using some installed collection like Blocks Base, Blocks Prime, or something like Toybox, then I usually just drag the Block's .ism directly from the windows file manager... that does have a search facility :). So as long as the file is named appropriately, everything is good.

Gotta be careful with Racks though - if you were to change the location of some Block (or modify the Block), then it would break racks that reference it I think?

Seqsual

Hit enter when you are editing your rack and pop-up search field will appear.

In Racks mode you can press enter and start typing to find what you’re looking for. If this mysterious Block doesn’t show up, it should be possible to export it from the Rack as Instrument (maybe you have to convert the Rack to an Ensemble first? I can’t remember). Then you can save (and recall) it anywhere you want.

All comments

Please click on the number of contens to show Blocks only in the user library

To go back click on the cross behind the word Blocks

The factory library don't contains Blocks. It's the older ensemble collection from Reaktor 5.

Answer to B:

I'm on PC and the Blocks are here:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\

miguelchambergo

Hi Paule,

Thanks for answering.

A. How do I get to that search input? This is what I see:

(notice that there is no search input field on the left)

B. Sorry, I didn't explaint it well.

I meant: where do I find a block that is in my patch in the list/browser on the left? Example:

Thanks a lot for your help 🙏

Please switch to the globe (left sign) the right sign are your add-ons (personal use)

miguelchambergo

Hi Paule,

Yes, but there is no search input to search for blocks (see image below). Example: "Sequencer" should show blocks with that name.

You can open the folder - click on the (+) in front of Native Instruments

As you can see in my hardcopy there are open folders and closed (with +)

Do you instal both „Blocks Base“ and „Blocks Primes“?

In Blocks Primes >Blocks >West Coast you'll find a SEQ

In Kodiak are two sequencers

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/62908#Comment_62908

You can't!

There is no way to search from an instance of a block to find its location in the Reaktor Browser, or on your hard drive, other than a manual search.

Fortunately, this usually isn't too much of a problem, once you have found where the Blocks are in the browser, it's easy to find them again.

Gotta be careful with Racks though - if you were to change the location of some Block (or modify the Block), then it would break racks that reference it I think?

Seqsual

Hit enter when you are editing your rack and pop-up search field will appear.

miguelchambergo

Thanks a lot, everybody!

This is a nice community.

I finally found the answers, so I'll give a little bit of background.

A. Search: hitting "Enter" and typing out a keyboard worked just fine. I wonder why they didn't implement it on the left side panel but at least it is possible. So this issue is solved.

B. Finding out the path/location of an existing block: this one is related to the first question and needs some background. I found an old patch of mine that had multiple outputs (my audio interface has 10 outputs) so I wanted to do something similar on another patch. I couldn't find a way to change the output from stereo (2 outputs) to multiple outputs (I needed 6). At that moment, I thought that maybe I needed another block but I couldn't find an effective way of searching, so that triggered my questions in this forum. Anyway, the solution was to actually edit the block itself (see image below):

Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer :)

Have a nice Monday you all!

A good tip by seqsual

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/62964#Comment_62964

A. Search: hitting "Enter" and typing out a keyboard worked just fine.

Iirc, this only works for items in three 'correct' path. So for stuff from the user library, it's tricky unless you just throw everything in the same 'official' folder(s?)

IMO the only way to do this in a flexible way is to use sym links, but they are a major pain - only possible with command line script!

I might be completely out of date of course. Old habits die hard and all that.

I wonder why they didn't implement it on the left side panel but at least it is possible. So this issue is solved.

Pretty sure this was introduced as an alternative to left pane and context menu. It's particularly useful when building due to how many modules and macros there are.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/62957#Comment_62957

Just tested, and the 'press enter' mechanism doesn't seem to work for 'user' Blocks. Even if they are in the User Blocks path defined in preferences. It's really designed for factory components. For me it doesn't work with Toybox stuff either, which is Native Access installed.

Converting to ensemble and saving gives you a new copy of the Block, but that only helps us find the original if the Block's heading/title text is the same as the filename - which isn't always the case... the actual filename is not kept. If it was we could use the OS search to find the original. This is important, because if the original is 'lost' and then deleted unknowingly from the file system, then there will be some difficulty getting racks that reference it to work. So it's a useful trick, but not a panacea.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/63041#Comment_63041

It’s definitely possible to search for 3rd party blocks (commercial and UL) with the Enter method, I do it all the time and almost never use the left pane. Just look at the 2 screenshots posted in this thread. Weird that it doesn’t seem to work for you. Unfortunately, I’m not in front of my Mac to check my settings, but I know I haven’t touched the „official“ folders.

And yeah, the other thing was meant as a quick workaround and not as a solution.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/63056#Comment_63056

Weird that it doesn’t seem to work for you

Maybe its a mac only thing?

Or maybe the side effects of having had multiple versions installed over time on the same PC

EDIT: so more tests, and 'enter' does find User Blocks folder, and Toybox stuff in Rack mode, but not in ensemble mode!

And yeah, the other thing was meant as a quick workaround and not as a solution.

No worries, I don't mean to be argumentative. Workarounds are great, but file management is a huge weakness in Reaktor, so I think its good to be clear about the limitations.