site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev@lists.apple.com Ben, This is one of the more confusing aspects of our apps. When the user tells the app to add a plug-in to some footage, whether via a pop-up menu, dragging and dropping, cut/copy and pasting, or selecting it in a list and pressing the “Apply” button, the app first creates an instance of the plug-in and puts it on the drag & drop pasteboard. This is where your -addParameters method will get called. The application will then create a copy of what’s on the pasteboard and apply that copy to the footage. When creating a copy, it will call your plug-in’s -initWithAPIManager: method, but won’t call -addParameters. Since it already has an instance of the plug-in, it just copies the parameters itself. This means that anything you set up in -addParameters that isn’t a parameter will not actually make it into the instance that the user is actually using. I believe the reason we do this is so we have a single path in our code that all plug-in instantiation goes through, regardless of how the user interacted with the app. The reason we make a copy instead of just applying the one on the pasteboard is because the user can do a cut and paste or copy and paste multiple times. So we have to leave one on the pasteboard for that scenario. So I see a few ways you could deal with this: Set up your array in -initWithAPIManager:. You know the first 2 parameters are always the same and have the same IDs, so just add them to your array there. If you have a naming scheme that allows you to discern parameters or their types, you can iterate over the parameters you have and call [-FxDynamicParameterAPI parameter:name:] to get the name of each parameter and figure out its type from that, and do away with the array. Keep a 3rd hidden parameter that is your array of parameters. Then it will get copied when your parameters get copied. Let me know if any of those will work. Generally, if your plugin has data that can’t be generated at runtime, you need to stick it into a parameter for the app to save it. If you don’t do that, how are you planning on regenerating the list of the dynamic parameters when the user opens a saved document? Darrin
On Sep 6, 2017, at 6:53 AM, Ben Syverson <ben@bensyverson.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I’m working on a project that uses dynamic parameter creation, and running into issues.
I have two params which are always present (a “Show Editor” button and a hidden custom parameter to store a project file). I’m adding these in addParameters.
In order to keep track of my parameter list, I’m using an NSMutableArray property on the instance, self.paramsByIndex. So in addParameters, I’m adding my first two parameters to my array.
The first problem is that when I’m updating the paramList, my first two params aren’t there. Is addParameters called on a separate instance of my FxPlug?
It’s making it really difficult to keep my list of parameters in sync with what’s returned from the dynamic API (parameterIDAtIndex:, etc).
Are there any guidelines for how & when to manage dynamic parameters? At this point, I’m printing NSLogs to try to understand which of my FxPlug methods are called in what order, and whether they’re all coming from the same instance.
Thanks!
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