Programmatically Manipulating the Contents of the Timeline in FCPX
Programmatically Manipulating the Contents of the Timeline in FCPX
- Subject: Programmatically Manipulating the Contents of the Timeline in FCPX
- From: Sam Windwer <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:12:30 -0500
- Importance: Normal
Hi all,
I developed a plug-in for FCP7 that consists of two components: an FxPlug
generator and a companion application that communicates with a running
FCP7 instance to populate an open sequence with several instances of this
generator. The companion application is able to do this using FCP7's
support for Apple Events. Specifically, it first sends a "Get Project
XML" message, inserts the new instances of the generator into the
project's XML, then sends an "Import XML" message to give FCP7 the updated
XML (this causes FCP7 to immediately reload the sequence, which now
includes the new generators). Is it possible to do something like this in
FCPX?
I know that FCPX has support for exporting and importing XML, but this
doesn't seem automatable to the same level that it was in FCP7. For
example, another posting to this list confirmed that you can send XML to
FCPX using an Apple Event, but you can't receive XML. Also, my current
implementation makes use of the "updatebehavior" element so that it can
modify the open project in-place; it seems that sending XML to FCPX will
produce a new project.
Another concern that I have is that according to the documentation,
"FCPXML version 1.1 describes certain project data that is useful for
exchanging with other applications. It does not describe all possible
data, and therefore is not a substitute for the native project file when
archiving a project or moving a complete project from one system to
another." This means that round trips can be lossy, so my current
methodology of retrieving all of the XML for the project, modifying it,
then reimporting it may not be the most sound thing to do.
When it comes down to it, I just need a way to programmatically manipulate
the contents of the timeline, whether or not that involves using XML. If
my current methodology for FCP7 isn't directly translatable to FCPX, is
there another way to do what I'm trying to accomplish? For example, is
there some sort of API for scripting FCPX (or are there plans to make
one)? Or should I go back to the drawing board because programmatically
manipulating the contents of FCPX's timeline isn't possible?
Thanks in advance.
~Sam
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