 Loopdeck version 5.1 has just been released with some great new features, not least the Loopdeck marketplace, a new way to download profiles, plugins, and also icons as well. So we'll be digging right into that just in a moment. And I should say that the way that you get this is through the website. There is no sort of button in the app itself to download the update or check for the update. So you're gonna go to the website loopdeck.com slash get-started. I'll leave a link down in the description and then basically just go and yet grab the download for the operating system that you are currently on. I'm gonna specifically be looking at this from a Mac point of view because I am a Mac-centric channel after all. So let's have a little look at the software, shall we, and see if we can spot any changes. It might look pretty similar at first glance, but there is a couple of notable differences. First of all, we'll notice that the system settings or the settings icon, I should say, the little cog wheel has now sort of disappeared from up here, it always used to be next to the sort of little user name avatar just up here. This has now moved into a sort of dropdown menu. So we click this little arrow here and there we've got the username, but then also we've got this new feature which is plugins and assets. I'll come to that in a moment. We've also got the device settings. So that is what was previously that little cog wheel. And then we've got account settings, sign out and the switch to classic UI mode. So this previously used to be sitting up here in this sort of header bar, the switch to classic UI. I think in the previous version, when they changed the UI, they left that button there. Now it's sort of migrated down here, presumably, not so many people are using that mode. Underneath here, we've also got a couple of other menu items. So some video tutorials and onboarding wizard and a couple of support and legal links as well to some other stuff in there. So where the classic UI switch used to be just up in the top here, we've now got something new, which is this marketplace. And that is very similar. If you are familiar with Stream Deck and the Stream Deck marketplace that was added into one of their recent updates or their updates last year sometime actually, then well, this is very similar to that. It basically opens up in a separate window. So if you click on this, it will open up the loop deck marketplace just like this in a separate window. And so this is a place where you can get access to, as you can see here, profiles, plugins and icon packs. So we'll be having a little dig into that in a moment. And you can also access this as well from other places within the app interface. So for example, with profiles, we always used to be able to go and download additional profiles from the loop deck website. And we did that by coming down to the bottom and clicking here to find more app profiles. And when you clicked on that, as I say, it went through to a website that then you had to download the particular plugin for the device and the operating system that you're using. And then you would have to go and sort of manually import that into the app itself. Well, now clicking this takes you straight through to the marketplace. And so from there, you can see all of the different profiles. One of the things that I have actually noticed about this though is they don't seem to have quite the same list of profiles that we had before. Maybe some of them are similar, but I noticed one that has just stood straight out to me as absent, which is the zoom plugin that they had, sorry, I beg your pardon, the zoom profile that they had before. So when you went through to their website, that was available on their website. But when you come through to here, I'm not actually seeing it in this list. I don't know any of the other ones if there's any other specific ones that are not now available that previously were, or if there's, you know, which are the actual new ones in here. But nevertheless, this is a much better user experience from the point of going through and installing these. Notion, I'm not sure that Notion was in the previous one, but I might be wrong. So let's just see the process of actually installing this, shall we? You're basically gonna come down here and click on the install button. It's that simple. You can click on these to find a little bit more information and then it will tell you something about the compatible devices. Now, this is interesting. This is compatible with the Loupedeck CT and operating system Mac OS and Windows. So I'll just give this a go because I've got a Loupedeck Live. It'd be interesting to see if it is totally incompatible with the Loupedeck Live or whether it's just basically missing some functionality. So let's just click on install and see what happens. If I go back over to my device, it says it's preparing to install downloading profile and select application. So here it looks like I'm having to manually find Notion. Let's have a little look. Where's Notion? Somewhere down here, I probably should have used the search. There it is, Notion. So I'm gonna click on that. So it doesn't do that automatically and click on okay. So it has actually worked. So although it said it wasn't compatible, it just showed that it was compatible with the Loupedeck CT. It is actually showing me some different things here in terms of actions linked to Notion. Yeah, a bit strange though that it didn't just do the little step of finding it itself. It would have been nice if it actually did make the final step and that link itself rather than getting me to search for the app. But nevermind, I'll forgive it that. Let's come back over to here. So we have already installed this. It is still showing here as installed though, but I'll come on to how we can check on which profiles we've got installed. Coming back here, let's have a little look. What I'm also noticing is there are a number of plugins here, sorry, a number of profiles I should say. So this one, for example, for Luminar is Windows only. And so it does say not available for Mac. It'd probably be quite nice if you could sort of filter those out or at least if they weren't displayed to you when you are browsing on a device that is not compatible with them. Be good, you know, with Stream Deck you only basically get shown the ones that are available for that device. So I'm doing a bit of a critical review here, aren't I? But it'd be nice if those were filtered out so you only saw the ones that were relevant. But never mind, let's move on. The next one is plugins. And if I click on here, what we'll see is a whole series of plugins, none of which are available for the Mac. Now there are still the existing plugins that we've got. And presumably with this being called the marketplace there will be more plugins being added all the time or in due course there will be more added at least. So hopefully we'll see some more that are compatible with the Mac there to be able to install them. And then finally we've got icon packs. And icon packs are basically, again, it's the marketplace. It's very similar to the way it works with the Stream Deck where basically people are using this as a way to sort of promote their larger packs. So one of the great creators of icon packs is Sideshow FX. They've got some massive collections for all these sort of professional design apps and things like that. So all the Adobe Suite and Creative apps and things. So you can see here Ableton Live, Affinity Designer, and so on. And what they've done is they've provided what they call Sampler apps, sorry, Sampler icon collections. And so it's basically like a collection of some of their icons, presumably so that you see the quality in them and then go over to their website and grab the full collection. So for example, if I come down to just have a look down here, Photoshop, for example, we've got the Sampler pack. If I click on it, it will tell you here there are 70 icons. This is presumably the number of downloads, I guess. And then created by Sideshow FX. And then you can go and find the homepage of their website. And if we just go over to that, I'll just show you that they really are great. I mean, I've got icon packs available on my site as well. However, they're nothing compared to the total quantity of various different icon packs that there is with Sideshow FX. So I would be remiss for not actually mentioning them to go over and check those out. All sorts of apps they've got in here, Ableton Live, Affinity Designer, and so on after effects audition. And yeah, just really large collections. I think some of their regular collections are 300 plus apps for these various different things. So here you can see the Photoshop collection on the Loopdeck CT, and available for the Loopdeck Live as well. So yeah, really great resource there for apps. But just coming back to the ones that are available on here then, so as I say, these are sort of sampler apps. So the ones that you can get for free are sampler apps. But what you may find is they actually, you know, cover all of the sort of basics if you're not using all of the full functionality of some of these apps. So definitely worth getting the Sampler icon packs to see how they look. And then there's a few others in here as well. I've already had a quick look at this and just downloaded a couple of samples. So the way that it works is you just come here and click on install, simple as that, pretty obvious really. And then you'll notice in the Loopdeck app, it said it is installing the icon packs. So then you can click on okay. Now, let's find out where you can actually find these things that we've just been downloading. Well, this is actually from this menu up in the top once again, and here you can see plugins and assets. So this is where you're gonna be able to access basically kind of like the library, if you like, of everything you've installed. So here it shows you the plugins. So these are the various different plugins that we've got. And this is not necessarily quite the same as the list that we just looked at, in fact, on the marketplace because some of these are the built-in ones that are already installed from the Loopdeck when you first install the software. So we have got like the Photoshop plugin and everything like that there as well. And here is the icon packs. So here you can see this is the one that I've literally just downloaded. If you wanted to remove something, you can always click on it here, click on the three dots and then just click on uninstall to remove it that way. Or you can also go through it, go through back to the marketplace and uninstall it from there. So in terms of how you actually use those icons then, if we come through to any action that we've got in our list of actions. So here we've got our list of actions in the other side. The way that we change icons on the Loopdeck is by actually looking at the icon relative to the action. So we always open up this little pane down here when we click on a particular action, click on the little icon symbol there. And then here you can basically just drag and drop an icon on there if you've got something on your own computer. But we also now have this icon library. So if you click on that, then this is where basically you can access all of these different icons. So this is the set that we've just installed. Here also is the Photoshop Sampler. So you can see that there are a few different actions in here. Sorry, a few different icons I should say that may be of use. So you may need more, may want to check out that Sideshow FX. Obviously go and check out some of the ones that are on my site as well. Takeonetech.io slash store. They are very specific for things like Zoom, Ecamm Live and so on. But that is how you would get those into there. So that is basically in a nutshell the updates that have been added. And obviously this marketplace is the core of it. I've got a few issues really if I'm totally honest. First of all with the fact that you do get shown a lot of stuff that maybe isn't relevant in terms of the marketplace. If I'm never going to be using a PC so I don't necessarily need to see those plugins that are available there. The other thing that I've always had a bit of an issue with is with the profiles, which is whereby profiles, obviously you can have the, if I go to the Photoshop profile, for example, change to the Photoshop profile, there you go, you can see the Photoshop plugin with all of those pre-made Photoshop actions. What I really wish though is if I had come over to here and I go into like my, say one of my main profiles over here rather than an app specific one, I've been, I've called that one Ecamm Live which is probably not quite right. If I come over to this default profile, let's say I just want to start from here and I want to add in some Photoshop actions into this main profile, for example. Well, there's no way to actually add the Photoshop plugin into here, which is a bit of a shame really. So I can come into here and I can manage these different plugins, but you can see that these are what they call universal plugins and the Photoshop plugin, although I can come over here and I can see it, I can see that I've got the Photoshop plugin, just like that, but there's no way for me to actually add that actually over here, so that I can start adding Photoshop actions into here. It's a bit of a shame really, because it kind of forces you to use this approach of having a custom profile for each app that you're in, but I just don't like the dynamic mode of switching between them. But hey ho, that's me. Maybe I'm just being fussy about that. That is the 5.1 update and it's funnily enough, I had literally just finished my five video beginner's guide to Loopdeck. I was just making the thumbnails for it, then I got the email saying that there was this new version out. I'm gonna have to go back and remake a few of those videos. So nevermind about that. I will leave a link though to the Loopdeck playlist over on the right hand side and probably sometime tomorrow, that new updated beginner's guide will be updated there too.