# Small preview of a hosted plugin's editor

**URL:** <https://forum.juce.com/t/small-preview-of-a-hosted-plugins-editor/37331>\
**Category:** Audio Plugins\
**Created:** [January 27, 2020, 3:40am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/small-preview-of-a-hosted-plugins-editor/37331 "2020-01-27T03:40:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![1gn4ci0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/a9a28c/32.png) [@1gn4ci0](https://forum.juce.com/u/1gn4ci0)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 3:40am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/small-preview-of-a-hosted-plugins-editor/37331/1 "2020-01-27T03:40:37Z")

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I’m working on a VST3 plugin that will host a third-party plugin. It would be nice if my plugin’s editor had a window that displays a small preview of the hosted plugin’s editor (clicking the window would open the full-size editor). It would be really nice if the preview window showed the editor’s current state, but I would be satisfied with just a static snapshot of it - its purpose would mainly be just to indicate what the hosted plugin is. Does Juce have any tools that could help achieve this?

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**Author:** ![asimilon](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/asimilon/32/4235_2.png) [@asimilon](https://forum.juce.com/u/asimilon)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 9:13am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/small-preview-of-a-hosted-plugins-editor/37331/2 "2020-01-27T09:13:21Z")

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Presumably you must get some reference to an `AudioProcessorEditor` for your hosted plugin? In which case you could probably do something involving [createComponentSnapshot](https://docs.juce.com/master/classComponent.html#a275e46e5a8147f89c142c91ba5c793a5).

Not entirely sure though as I’ve never worked with hosting plugins.

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**Author:** ![1gn4ci0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/a9a28c/32.png) [@1gn4ci0](https://forum.juce.com/u/1gn4ci0)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/small-preview-of-a-hosted-plugins-editor/37331/3 "2020-01-27T16:57:16Z")

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Thanks @richie ! I think createComponentSnapshot is indeed the tool I’m looking for

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**Author:** ![xenakios](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/xenakios/32/4047_2.png) [@xenakios](https://forum.juce.com/u/xenakios)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 5:29pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/small-preview-of-a-hosted-plugins-editor/37331/4 "2020-01-27T17:29:32Z")

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Unfortunately, I think that only works for Juce components handled by your own program. (3rd party plugin GUIs of course don’t necessarily use Juce at all, but even if they do, they are not visible as Juce Components for the host.)

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**Author:** ![RolandMR](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/rolandmr/32/641_2.png) [@RolandMR](https://forum.juce.com/u/RolandMR)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 6:24pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/small-preview-of-a-hosted-plugins-editor/37331/5 "2020-01-27T18:24:27Z")

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You need to take a screenshot of the desktop, know where the plugin UI is and then crop the screenshot to that area. This came up a while ago, somebody ended up posting a screenshot library: [Screen capture desktop](https://forum.juce.com/t/screen-capture-desktop/15319/3)