# Secondary Windows

### About Plugins Window

The About Plugins window, accessible from the Nicecast menu, shows a list of all plugins currently loaded into Nicecast. It also allows you to dynamically load and unload plugins, without restarting Nicecast, which may be especially useful to plugin developers. Plugins loaded via the Load command will be forgotten once Nicecast is restarted. Plugins installed in the locations specified below will be automatically related when Nicecast is next launched.

Nicecast supports VST plugins (VST/Mach-o, VST Carbon, and certain Classic plugins), AudioUnit plugins, as well as our own in-house .4fx format. Plugins placed in the following locations will be loaded at every launch:
.4fx - ~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/4FX and /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/4FX
VST - ~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST and /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST
AudioUnits - ~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components and /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components

### Toolbar

Load - Loads a plugin from anywhere on disk while Nicecast is open. This plugin will be automatically unloaded when Nicecast is quit.

Unload - Unloads the highlighted plugin. If this plugin is installed in one of the default locations mentioned above, it will be reloaded at the next launch of Nicecast.

Reload - Reloads a copy of the current plugin. Useful for plugin development.

Reveal - Shows the location of this plugin in the Finder.

### Archiving Window

The Archiving window allows you to record your own broadcast for archival purposes. It's simple settings are described below:

### Status

Archive - Toggles the status of the archiving process. Depress to initiate archiving.

Status Line - Indicates archiving status, as well as length of current file being saved.

### Format

Type - Choose between lossless AIFF (high files sizes, perfect quality), compressed MP3 (small file sizes, lower quality), compressed AAC (small file sizes, slightly better quality than MP3), and Apple Lossless (medium files sizes, perfect quality)

Channels - Record to separate channels (Stereo) or combine both channels to one (Mono)

Bitrate (MP3 and AAC Only) - Set the compression of the archived MP3 file. Lowering this number will lower the quality of the resulting file, but also reduce the disk space it requires.

### Destination

Sets where the archive file will be saved. Defaults to your Music folder, in a subfolder called Nicecast Broadcast Archive.