Getting Started

Install PLVS and get through the first launch.

Packages

Download the package for your platform from GitHub Releases.

Windows

Run the installer, or extract the portable ZIP and launch plvs.exe. Keep all extracted portable files together. Both builds use the WebView2 runtime that ships with Windows.

PLVS isn't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn on first run — choose More info, then Run anyway.

macOS

Open the DMG and drag PLVS into Applications. The build isn't notarized, so Gatekeeper blocks the first launch. Remove the quarantine attribute once:

xattr -cr /Applications/PLVS.app

Alternatively, move PLVS.app to the Trash and immediately move it back.

First launch

A new installation opens with a starter workspace and a starter Loudness Profile. PLVS never starts capturing audio on its own: pick a signal source (see Signal Source) and press Start when you're ready to monitor.

PLVS checks for updates automatically and asks before installing one. The confirmation dialog shows a progress bar while that download runs.

Signal Source

Open Sources in the toolbar to choose any kind of input — you pick a signal, not an underlying API. The footer and system tray show the selected source as Output · name, Input · name, or Application · name.

Automatic

Binds to your system's current default output and follows it when the default changes. A good default for most sessions.

System playback

Monitor whatever your system is currently playing, with no virtual audio routing. On Windows this uses WASAPI loopback; on macOS it uses the native system-audio tap available on macOS 14.2 and later.

ASIO drivers bypass the Windows audio mixer, so loopback cannot hear them. Set your DAW's audio system to WASAPI, or route an ASIO setup through a virtual audio cable such as VB-Cable to a WASAPI-visible device.

Physical input

Monitor a microphone or line input directly.

Application

Meter one running audio application instead of the complete system mix.

• Windows needs build 20348 or later. Applications using ASIO or WASAPI exclusive mode bypass this capture path.
• macOS 14.2 or later lists applications currently connected to Core Audio, groups an application's helper processes with it, and captures through the current default output device.

PLVS recognises the application again when it restarts and reconnects to it.

Long source lists

Outputs, Inputs, and Applications are grouped into collapsible sections with source counts. The picker scrolls when the available sources do not fit on screen. The system tray's Source submenu offers the same source groups, including running applications.

When capture is interrupted

PLVS tells you instead of showing stale readings. A stalled stream, dropped audio, or a changed default output is shown as a notice. On Windows, when a system audio change such as toggling Spatial Sound invalidates the device, PLVS rebuilds the stream and starts a fresh measurement automatically.

Panels

Eight meter panels read the same signal at once. Each panel's settings menu holds the options listed here.

Single-choice settings open floating dropdown menus, like System Settings, without moving the rows below them. Use the arrow keys to navigate, Enter to select, or Escape to dismiss the menu. Channel choices retain their group headings, including All Pairs, in one scrollable menu. Multi-choice layers, metric ordering, and other detailed editors continue to expand within the panel.

Line traces, reference guides, event markers, and max-hold outlines use their resolved Theme colours directly. Filled areas and time-, level-, or energy-based fades can still use transparency when it carries measurement meaning.

Level Meter

Shows every channel individually, as Peak, RMS, Momentary, or Short-term. It can show a True Peak Max marker driven by the active Loudness Profile; click the readout to reset the maximum. Scale labels close to a marker fade out so the reading stays legible.

Bar Colors chooses what the colours mean. Gradient (the default) is appearance only: one green-to-red ramp over the visible bar, in every mode, that zooms with the scale and ignores the Loudness Profile. Level Zones colour by level, with a hard change at each threshold, so a level keeps its colour at any zoom. In Peak and RMS, Warning / Critical sets the zones (defaults: Peak −6 / −1 dBFS, RMS −18 / −9 dBFS); they are a reading aid for headroom, not a compliance check, because the Peak bars show sample peak while delivery limits are judged on true peak by the True Peak Max marker and Stats. In Momentary and Short-term the zones come from the active Loudness Profile's upper limits on that metric or its Max; with no such rule the bar shows the metric's Loudness curve colour, because nothing is judging it. The readout markers follow the Profile under either option. The Dock's level strip has the same Bar Colors and its own Warning / Critical in its settings.

Loudness

Momentary and Short-term LUFS curves over time, following ITU-R BS.1770 measurement with EBU R128 gating conventions. The reference line comes from the active Loudness Profile. Grid adds horizontal guides at the visible loudness-axis ticks and is off by default.

Stats

Numeric readouts you choose and reorder: Momentary, Short-term, Integrated, Momentary Max, Short-term Max, Loudness Range, Short-term Dynamics, Integrated Dynamics, True Peak Max, Correlation, Side/Mid, and the dialogue readouts described in Dialogue-Gated Loudness. The active Loudness Profile colours readouts that breach its rules.

Spectrum

An FFT-based real-time analyzer with a fixed reference view: per-band level in the dBFS domain, aligned with common DAW practice rather than IEC 61260 filter-bank metrology. View it Combined, as L / R, or as M / S; add a maximum trace that Decays or Holds; adjust tilt, octave smoothing, and speed. Hover to read frequency and musical note.

Grid adds horizontal level guides and vertical frequency guides at the visible axis ticks. It is off by default and follows the same pan and zoom ranges as the axes.

Spectrum area fills use a fixed opacity gradient from 20% at the top to 2% at the bottom. The same pair applies to Primary, Secondary, and Snapshot fills in Workspace and Dock.

Spectrogram

Frequency content over time, as a 2D Heatmap, 3D Lines, or 3D Surface, coloured by your theme. Choose the channel, tilt, smoothing, and level floor.

In 3D Lines and 3D Surface, Grid shows the floor grid. The same setting is shared by both 3D modes, is hidden in 2D Heatmap, and is off by default.

In 3D Lines, the mathematically edge-on 0° and 180° azimuths receive a one-degree render-only camera offset. The saved angle and control value stay unchanged, while the tiny offset prevents the frequency and height directions from collapsing together and preserves the normal level colour and opacity gradient. Adjacent angles and 3D Surface are unaffected.

Vectorscope

Phase and correlation between a pair of channels, defaulting to Front L/R. Display it as Lissajous, Polar Sample, or Polar Level, with an optional max hold.

The axes, diagonals, rings, and other orientation marks are always-visible measurement guides, not an optional Grid setting.

In Polar Sample, Persistence controls how long the recent sample trail remains visible. It defaults to 400 ms, ranges from 0 to 1000 ms in 50 ms steps, and updates the display immediately. Samples fade linearly from the Theme's full Trace colour to transparent over that interval; 0 ms shows only the newest samples. A captured Snapshot uses the full Snapshot colour without an age-based fade. The setting is hidden in Lissajous and Polar Level, where it has no effect.

Lissajous Hold Slow keeps its fixed phosphor-style trail. Persistence is a Polar Sample display choice only: changing it does not restart analysis or create another history.

Stereo Map

Stereo image plotted across the frequency spectrum, so you can see where the width lives. Switch between Position, Correlation, Mono Loss, and M/S Ratio, and hold the maximum to compare against what came before.

Each mode has its own Grid choice, off by default. Switching modes restores that mode's choice; the guides follow the visible frequency and value axes. With Grid off, no standalone zero line is drawn.

Energy Fade Strength controls how strongly quiet frequency bands recede. It defaults to 75%: lower values make quiet but valid bands easier to see, 0% gives every band above the analysis gate full visibility, and 100% restores the original full-strength energy fade. It changes the display immediately without restarting analysis or creating another history.

In Position, Color Blend controls how wide the transition is between the Secondary and Primary channel colours. It defaults to 50%, blending from position -0.5 through +0.5. At 0% the colours switch sharply at centre; at 100% they blend across the complete -1 through +1 range. The setting is hidden in the other modes, where it has no effect.

Stereo Map uses a fixed 20% fill opacity across all four modes, live data, Snapshot data, and Dock. It affects only the area beneath the curve; the curve keeps the energy-adjusted opacity and Hold stays fully opaque.

Waveform

A DAW-style per-channel amplitude envelope over the session history. Optionally colour it by frequency content and show the spectral centroid.

Waveform has no optional Grid and does not draw a centre reference line.

Waveform uses a fixed 12% envelope fill opacity while Frequency Color is off, shared by Workspace, Dock, Live, and Snapshot. The outline remains opaque. Frequency Color continues to use a fully opaque body so its Low, Mid, High, and Neutral colours do not change with the background; Spectral Centroid is unaffected.

Reading history

Every chart can be zoomed, panned, and scrubbed, with a live hover probe. How far back history goes is set by History Length in System Settings.

Crosshair and latest-time edge guides use Secondary Text at 60% opacity. Off-window selection edge lines use the selection color at 60%. Their directional fading bands remain unchanged.

Loudness Profiles

A Loudness Profile is your own rule set for judging a measurement. PLVS ships no platform or broadcast certification presets; every value in a profile is one you chose.

What a profile contains

• Reference — a LUFS value drawn as the reference line on the Loudness panel. It judges nothing by itself.
• Rules — each rule picks a Stats metric, a side (> or <), a threshold, and a severity, Warn or Fail. One metric can carry several rules, so a target range is two rules.

Integrated loudness is not judged until the measurement has settled.

Where profiles apply

• The Loudness panel's reference line
• The colouring of Stats readouts that breach a rule
• The True Peak Max marker on the Level Meter
• The Level Meter's Floating Value, and its Momentary and Short-term bar colours under Level Zones
• The verdicts in a File Mode report

The Level Meter colours its Momentary and Short-term bars from rules on that metric and on its Max (Momentary Max, Short-term Max) that set an upper limit ("above"). This applies when the Level Meter's Bar Colors is Level Zones; the default Gradient does not follow the Profile. A lower limit ("below") is not drawn on the bar — live loudness falls between phrases, so the bar would sit red — but Stats still judges it.

Managing profiles

Select, create, rename, reorder, and delete profiles from the Loudness Profile menu. A new installation starts with one example profile named after its parameters; edit or delete it freely. In Dock mode, the Dock header can switch the active profile.

Profiles can be exported and imported from System Settings.

Dialogue-Gated Loudness

Optional readouts that measure loudness only while dialogue is detected, using an on-device voice activity detector — no audio leaves your machine.

Turning it on

Add any dialogue readout to the Stats panel. Detection runs only while one is shown.

Readouts

• Dialogue Coverage — the share of time dialogue is detected. It is highlighted while speech is detected right now.
• Dialogue Integrated — integrated loudness over dialogue only.
• Dialogue Range — loudness range over dialogue only.
• Dialogue Offset — how far dialogue sits above or below the overall mix.

Choosing a detector

Dialogue Detection in System Settings chooses the engine: Silero VAD (the default), FireRedVAD, or TEN VAD. Changing the detector restarts the measurement.

Limits

These readouts are a real-time monitoring estimate, not a certified dialogue measurement. The open-source detectors differ from the proprietary Dolby Dialogue Intelligence used by certified broadcast tools, so values can differ by a small margin. Singing counts as speech, so readings run high on music with prominent vocals. Use them for monitoring, not compliance sign-off.

Multichannel

PLVS follows your source's channel layout, with a manual choice when needed.

Automatic layout detection

Mono, stereo, LCR, quad, 5.0, 5.1, 7.0, and 7.1 are recognised automatically from the channel count. Before capture starts, panels use an assumed stereo layout and show the placeholder channels as L and R. Once capture reports the real topology, its detected or selected labels take over.

Manual layouts

Choose the layout under Channels in System Settings. Standard layouts from mono through 9.1.6 are available, and Custom lets you assign a role to each channel — for example when a source uses a different channel order.

When PLVS cannot identify a layout, it says so, and loudness uses channels 1 and 2 only until you set one. Channels above 8 are never guessed from the count alone.

Per-panel behaviour

• Level Meter shows every channel individually.
• Loudness uses BS.1770 channel weighting for the detected or selected layout, excluding LFE.
• True Peak Max covers every channel.
• Spectrum, Spectrogram, Vectorscope, and Stereo Map let you choose which channel or channel pair to view.

Channel labels can be renamed under Channels in Settings.

Workspace

Arrange panels into the layout your session needs.

Multiple workbenches

Multiple workbenches are supported on Windows and macOS. On macOS, launching PLVS again while a workbench is visible opens another workbench; launching it while all PLVS windows are hidden brings an existing workbench forward instead.

Launch PLVS again when you need to meter another Source. Each additional workbench opens Stopped with Automatic selected, so its Transport looks and behaves like the first workbench without starting capture by itself. Press Start to meter the default output, or choose another Source first. It then keeps its own Source, layout, active Preset, active Loudness Profile, Theme, window position and Dock state. There is no workbench naming or profile-creation step: PLVS uses the selected Source as the operating-system window and target name, adding (2), (3) and so on while identical Source names are running.

Saved Presets, Themes and Loudness Profiles remain one shared Library, so importing or saving an item makes it available to every workbench without automatically applying it to their active measurement.

Split layout

Drag panel edges to resize, and split or merge panes to change which meters are visible at once. When moving a panel, PLVS fills the space it will occupy after you release the pointer and labels the placement direction. Dropping on a panel title adds it as a tab; moving outside a valid panel shows No Drop Target and leaves the layout unchanged.

Modules and presets

The Modules menu adds panels, including a second instance of a meter you want to watch two ways at once. The Presets menu saves and switches between whole layouts.

Toolbar configuration entries such as Loudness Profile, Views, and Presets remain neutral while closed, even when their configuration is active. Hover and an open menu use the same neutral background and brighter icon. Inspect the menu for the selected configuration and modified state. The same convention applies in Dock. Direct feature toggles retain their on/off indication; Reserve Screen Space uses a solid top divider when enabled and a dashed top divider when disabled. Both states use the same neutral icon color at rest, without a persistent highlight.

Snapshot

Click any point on a history chart to freeze every meter at that moment, then return to live with one click. Useful for inspecting a peak you only heard go by.

Views

The Views menu pares the window down for monitoring: Always on Top, Compact Panels, Hide Chrome, Auto-hide Controls, Surface Opacity, and Glass. Surface Opacity changes the transparency of Workspace, panel, and Dock fills; text, measurement data, states, focus rings, controls, and borders remain opaque for legibility.

On macOS, setting Surface Opacity to 0 also removes the native window shadow. This prevents AppKit from drawing shadow-shaped outlines around the remaining opaque text and meter graphics; raising Surface Opacity above 0 restores the normal window shadow.

On Windows 11, Hide Chrome also hides the outer system window outline; turning it off restores the system outline. Auto-hide Controls also uses a chromeless window, so the outline stays hidden while that mode is enabled. Normal windows retain their native shadow in either mode.

Dock

On Windows, Dock parks a slim, always-on-top meter strip against the top or bottom edge of the screen, so the meters stay visible while you work in another app. Hovering the strip shows a header for switching the Loudness Profile and editing which modules the strip shows. The strip can also reserve its screen space so maximised windows do not cover it. Hover a Stats readout or an icon-only Dock action for the same themed explanation shown in the normal workspace.

Dock's module-width and height resize lines stay hidden while idle, appear in Border Color on hover or keyboard focus, and use Accent while you hold and drag them, matching Workspace split lines.

When several PLVS workbenches use Dock, only one can reserve a particular monitor edge. A second Dock on that same edge remains visible as an overlay and does not disturb the existing reservation. Top and bottom edges are independent.

Persistence

Your layout, presets, and view choices are remembered and restored the next time you open PLVS. Measurement history is not: each launch starts a new session.

File Mode

Inspect a local audio file offline, using the same meter panels as live monitoring.

Opening a file

Drop an audio file onto the window, or choose Open file in the toolbar. PLVS reads the file's metadata with ffprobe and decodes it with a bundled FFmpeg — no external tools to install.

Scrubbing

Move through the file's timeline and every panel updates to match, exactly like live monitoring. Analysis stays read-only and local to the current session.

Reports

When analysis completes, the summary can be exported as a report: Export Markdown, Export JSON, or Copy as Markdown. Reports include the channel layout and the verdicts of the active Loudness Profile.

Command Line

Installed Windows and macOS builds include plvs-cli for diagnosing the installation and for inspecting or changing the state of an already-running PLVS app. It is not a headless replacement for the desktop app. The full command set is in the CLI Reference.

Where it is

• Windows: plvs-cli.exe sits beside plvs.exe. Enabling Agent Control in Settings adds that directory to the current user's PATH; otherwise use the full path. From a Portable folder, run .\plvs-cli.exe and keep it beside plvs.exe.
• macOS: /Applications/PLVS.app/Contents/MacOS/plvs-cli (or the same path under ~/Applications). PLVS does not edit shell startup files; use the full path or create your own symlink.

Checking the installation

plvs-cli doctor --json verifies the installed runtime and bundled sidecars, even while PLVS is closed. Add --out <file> to write the result to a file.

Controlling the running app

Start PLVS and enable Agent Control in Settings. Then discover the available surface with plvs-cli capabilities --json and read the app's current state with plvs-cli inspect --json.

Queries return a global revision. Every change requires it, for example:

plvs-cli workspace apply layout.json --json --expected-revision 44

If the revision conflicts, inspect again and reconcile the change that happened in between, rather than retrying blindly.

System Settings

Everything for making PLVS fit into how you work day to day.

Opening Settings softly blurs and dims the workbench behind it while the Settings drawer stays opaque and clear. The drawer keeps a single border along its inner edge against the workbench. Floating menus and dialogs retain their full outlines and shadows.

Control feedback

Ordinary dropdowns and setting fields are transparent with hidden borders at rest. Hovering, opening a dropdown, or editing a field shows a neutral background and border. Keyboard focus uses the same feedback without an outer focus ring. Single- and multi-choice checks use the accent color. Dark / Light selection in the Theme Editor uses a neutral selected background.

Switch thumbs gain a subtle border on hover or keyboard focus. Slider thumbs use a neutral hover fill and an accent fill while dragging or holding an adjustment key. Sliders without an adjacent value show a value tooltip during hover, focus, and dragging; those with a visible value do not duplicate it. Disabled controls are dimmed and do not show interaction feedback.

Numeric and color text fields commit on Enter or when focus leaves. Escape cancels the draft. Invalid required numeric entries restore the valid value rather than becoming zero. Loudness Profile rule fields retain their special empty value, meaning the bound is not judged. Color picker gestures and sliders still preview immediately, except analysis parameters that commit when adjustment finishes.

Startup and closing

Open at Login launches PLVS when you sign in. It is one shared preference when several workbenches are open; the current coordinator owns the operating-system registration and restores the saved workbench set. Close Behavior chooses whether closing the window keeps PLVS running in the system tray or quits it. Before either action, PLVS finishes saving pending settings. If saving fails, the window stays open and offers Retry or Cancel.

Quitting one additional workbench removes it from the next restore set. If a workbench crashes, its saved workspace remains recoverable instead of being treated as an intentional removal.

With several workbenches open, only the current coordinator checks for and installs application updates. Before installation, every workbench must have no open draft editor, stop capture and finish saving. The update package downloads before that interruption. A refusal or timeout cancels the update; a successful update closes the workbench set and restores it after relaunch. If the installer fails after peer workbenches have already closed, PLVS relaunches the current version so the saved set is restored instead of leaving those workbenches closed. If the coordinator itself disappears while workbenches are waiting at the save barrier, they resume any capture that the barrier stopped.

PLVS also keeps one system Tray. Its Workbenches submenu uses Source-derived names and can show, start, stop or quit a specific running workbench. Quit PLVS flushes and closes the complete workbench set; quitting one workbench does not close its peers.

Global shortcut

Record a Global Shortcut for Clear, which works even when PLVS isn't focused. When several PLVS workbenches are open, PLVS registers the shortcut once and sends Clear to the workbench that was focused most recently.

Appearance

On Windows 11, the outer system window outline follows the window chrome: it is visible by default and hidden in chromeless views. Native shadows, rounded corners, and window resizing remain available in normal windows. Older Windows versions keep their default outline behaviour.

Interface Size scales the whole interface. Appearance follows the system theme by default or uses a fixed theme. Light and Dark ship built in, and the theme editor lets you build and save your own themes. A custom theme keeps its Dark or Light appearance beside its name; Core holds the main identity colors, Palettes controls shared data scales, and Advanced contains optional per-interface and per-module overrides. Advanced roles stay on Auto unless you customize them, and can be searched or reset to Auto a section at a time. Advanced exposes color customization, not fill-opacity controls. Defaults remain 20% / 2% for Spectrum, 20% for Stereo Map, and 12% for classic Waveform. Fill opacity is fixed by the app and is not stored in or exported with Themes. Palette stop positions, the theme name, and Dark / Light appearance remain editable.

Advanced → Interface → Primary Text also supplies ordinary text on panels, raised surfaces, neutral controls, and selected surfaces. Text on solid Accent, Success, Warning, and Danger areas has separate controls.

Advanced → Interface → Border Color sets one opaque colour for ordinary interface separators and control outlines, including input fields. It does not change chart Grid or Guides colours; these follow the plot surface by default and retain their per-module Advanced controls. Older themes preserve an authored border's appearance against Panel Surface and any inherited Grid colours when imported or loaded. Input outlines now share the ordinary Border colour.

Workspace panels use their surface colour, rounded corners, and spacing without permanent outer outlines or lines below their titles. Header, Footer, and the File analysis summary also omit outer outlines. The gaps between panels remain draggable: their resize line appears on hover and stays highlighted during a drag, then disappears when idle. Workspace and Dock resize lines use opaque Border Color on hover or keyboard focus and Accent while dragging. Dock resize lines also disappear when idle. Panel-location outlines use opaque Accent. While moving a Workspace panel, its prospective space is shown with a translucent Accent fill and no separate outline, leaving the panel beneath visible. Directional placement and tab insertion share the same unframed two-line hint. The preview itself identifies the dragged panel; invalid areas show a brief pointer label instead. Input fields retain their existing boundary cues. Hover colours are generated as opaque colours; disabled controls retain their reduced opacity. These interaction rules do not add Theme Editor settings. Panel title-bar buttons use opaque secondary text by default, with primary text and a subtle background on hover, matching the header toolbar. Disabled buttons retain reduced opacity. When reordering Presets, Loudness Profiles, profile rules, or Dock modules, the dragged row has a 1px opaque Accent outline and its grip stays in primary text colour until the drag ends.

Imports and edits from another workbench refresh the Theme Library without replacing this workbench's applied Theme. Switch away and select the Theme again to apply its updated version. While the Theme editor is open, your unsaved draft remains visible; external changes mark an existing draft as stale. Cancel restores this workbench's applied Theme, rather than applying the peer edit or keeping the preview of an unselected Library item.

The built-in Light and Dark themes are tuned independently: each keeps opaque Workspace, panel, control, muted, and selected surfaces distinct, and uses scheme-appropriate text and feedback contrast. Measurement colors keep the same meanings in both appearances even when their exact values differ.

Open Theme Preview shows controlled overview and module scenes from the current unsaved draft without changing Workspace data or layout. The module scenes include representative optional Grid lines and always-visible Vectorscope guides so their resolved colours can be reviewed. Its Spectrum, Stereo Map, and classic Waveform examples show their fixed fill opacity, and the overview includes ordinary, selected, and disabled controls. These are illustrative scenes; use the real panels to judge geometry and data-dependent rendering. The Visual Review page reports recommended contrast, color-separation, surface, and Intensity targets and can jump back to an affected control. These findings are advisory: they do not interrupt editing or block saving, built-in Themes, or sharing. Invalid Theme structure and unsupported versions remain errors. Module findings use the final overridden colours and link to the corresponding module control.

History and dialogue detection

History Length sets how far back history panels can be scrolled: 30, 60, 120, or 240 minutes. Shortening it drops older rows without restarting the measurement. Dialogue Detection chooses the engine behind the dialogue readouts.

Channels

Rename channel labels and choose the channel layout; see Multichannel.

Import, export, and reset

Saved Items exports selected Loudness Profiles, Presets, or Themes and imports any of their shared file types, choosing the right review from the file's document kind. Complete Setup uses one configuration file instead: importing it replaces your whole setup and restarts PLVS rather than merging. These operations move configuration only, never measurement data. With several workbenches open, PLVS first checks every workbench for an open draft, stops capture and saves before replacing shared data; the workbench where you chose Import receives the instance-owned fields. Reset PLVS to Default uses the same coordinated restart and restores a fresh installation.

For a one-item file, use Export on the saved Loudness Profile, Preset, or custom Theme itself. The Settings Saved Items exporter retains multi-select export for sharing several Items of one type together.

If storage fails or PLVS exits during that replacement, the incomplete import is rolled back. A recovery journal completes that rollback automatically the next time the target workbench opens, before its saved state is shown.

New Loudness Profile exports use a strict portable format intended for sharing between installations. Every exported rule must have a threshold, and a Profile must contain a reference or at least one complete rule; PLVS reports an export error instead of silently dropping unfinished content. Older .plvsloudness files remain importable.

New Preset exports use the same strict sharing boundary. A .plvspreset file carries the public Workspace layout, module controls and axes, presentation choices, and Dock layout without local panel IDs, monitor identity, window position, source/device selection, measurements, or history. If a Preset selects a custom Loudness Profile, the file bundles that Profile as a dependency and keeps the reference attached when both are imported. Import adds the content to the Library but does not apply it. When you later apply the Preset, PLVS adapts optional Dock, reserved-space, Glass, display-size, and channel choices to the current machine without rewriting the saved Library item. Older Preset pack files remain importable. Module settings left at their defaults are not written into the file, so an earlier PLVS version can still import it unless the Preset changes a setting that version does not have.

Before a shared file is added, the import review lists each Item as Add, Already in your library, or Import as a copy, shows bundled Loudness Profile dependencies, and calls out safe adaptations such as collision renaming or a missing legacy dependency. Confirming the review is the only step that writes to the Library.

Import only adds saved Library content, so it remains available while a Theme or Loudness Profile draft is open and never discards that draft. After a single Item is imported, PLVS offers a separate Use Theme, Use Profile, or Apply Preset action. That follow-up uses the same safety rules as the normal Library controls; if it is refused, the successfully imported Item stays in the Library.

With several workbenches open, Library changes appear in each one. A changed Theme, Loudness Profile, or Preset does not silently replace the snapshot already active in another workbench; that workbench keeps measuring with its current snapshot until you explicitly apply a selection. If two workbenches edit the same Library item, the second save never overwrites the first silently: choose Reload for the committed version or Save as Copy to preserve the local edit under a new ID. An open Theme or Loudness Profile editor keeps its local draft and shows a warning as soon as PLVS observes that its saved source changed elsewhere.

A .plvstheme file carries portable Theme authoring choices rather than device-local state. It keeps the Theme's name, Dark/Light scheme, Core and Palette colors, and Advanced customizations; local IDs and the palette preset originally used to choose those colors are not part of the shared Theme. PLVS still imports older Theme pack files. If any Theme entry is damaged or incompatible, the import reports the problem and adds nothing instead of silently skipping that entry.

A portable Theme document copied as text can be pasted straight into PLVS: press Ctrl+V on Windows or Command+V on macOS anywhere outside a text field, or choose Paste on the Theme row in Settings. PLVS opens the normal Theme import review before adding anything; it never activates or overwrites a Theme just because it was pasted. A copied or downloaded Theme is recognized by its content: if an identical Theme, including its name, is already in your library, the review says so and nothing is added. Single .plvstheme files use the same Import action as PLVS-exported Theme pack files.

Crash reports and feedback

PLVS saves crash reports locally. With Ask To Send Crash Reports enabled, it asks before sending one after a crash. Feedback diagnostics are attached only when you choose to include them. Audio samples are never attached. In a multi-workbench run, local crash records include random instance and workspace identifiers so the matching per-process log can be diagnosed. See the Privacy Policy for the exact contents, retention and deletion-request details. Feedback and crash-report prompts also link to that policy before any diagnostics are sent.

Agent Control

Agent Control lets plvs-cli inspect and change the running app; see Command Line. It is off until you enable it.

Licenses

Every package includes a licenses folder containing the third-party notices, the complete PLVS MIT License and the license texts referenced by the notices. Portable users can open that folder directly beside plvs.exe; in a macOS app bundle it is under Contents/Resources/licenses.

The retired Selected Surface theme setting is no longer shown or evaluated for contrast. Existing themes still import; obsolete selection-surface overrides are discarded without changing the remaining colors. Intensity palette position sliders retain focus while moving a stop and show progress within the stop’s permitted movement range.

FAQ & Known Limitations

What PLVS intentionally does not do, and why.

Does PLVS process or change my audio?

No. PLVS is read-only monitoring — it never adds effects, EQ, or rerouting, and it never changes what you hear.

Why can't PLVS hear my ASIO interface?

ASIO bypasses the Windows audio mixer, so loopback capture cannot intercept it. Switch your DAW to WASAPI, or route through a virtual audio cable to a WASAPI-visible device. See Signal Source.

Can I export the metered data, like CSV?

CSV or session-data export is not implemented yet. File Mode can export an analysis report, Agent Control can save a screenshot or a bounded H.264 recording of the rendered app, and configuration can be exported and imported separately.

Are the dialogue readouts certified?

No. They are a monitoring estimate; see Dialogue-Gated Loudness.

Is Dock available on macOS?

No. Dock mode is Windows-only.

Is there a Linux build?

No, and there's no near-term plan for one.

Is PLVS available as a plugin (VST/AU/AAX)?

No. PLVS is a standalone desktop app only.

Why does my OS warn me when I first open PLVS?

PLVS builds aren't code-signed (Windows) or notarized (macOS) yet, so SmartScreen and Gatekeeper show their standard first-run warnings. See Getting Started for how to get past them.

Does PLVS send my audio anywhere?

No. All audio and metering data stays on your device, and there's no default telemetry. Update checks are automatic. Feedback diagnostics and locally saved crash reports are sent only after you explicitly choose to send them, and audio samples are never attached.

The Privacy Policy explains the data in each request, where it is processed, how long it is kept and how to request deletion.