On Apr 26, 2010, at 21:04:25, Christopher Wright wrote: >>> I have a need to display some auxiliary information from my plugin, that >>> doesn't end up rendered to the destination. Is it acceptable to instantiate >>> a window and use bindings (or update views in the execute method) to >>> display this information? Or is that a big no-no? >> >> [thread stuff] >> >> But no explicit reason it should not work to my knowledge. > > In general, this is "bad form" (i.e. if a background process, like quicklook > or spotlight, touches it, it pops up a window; that's weird). That said, > it'll work as long as you ensure that AppKit calls get executed on the main > thread. Keep in mind that executeAtTime: isn't necessarily called as you may > expect it to (i.e. it could only ever get called once, but then plugin tear > down doesn't happen for hours -- you'll have a stale window sitting around > waiting for something to do in the interval). > > Often (but not always), the settings panel in QC is used to display auxiliary > information, or the window is configured to only ever get displayed/loaded if > it's running in the QuartzComposer Editor. That keeps other things that > touch QC from acting weird (Finder, iTunes, ScreenSavers, and many other > commonly-used applications can load QC content, and if it's not in safe mode > your plugin will load as well). > > If the settings panel isn't sufficient, an aux window may be in order -- make > sure you handle multiple simultaneous instances nicely, and you'll probably > be ok. You might want to entertain clearly marking the window so users know > where it's coming from, since it's a rather unconventional thing for a QC > plugin to do.
In this case, my plugin is used by an expert user in a limited setting: a video production. He needs to see additional status (in particular, that the plugin ran into network issues getting data) that shouldn't be displayed in the video stream. I'd also like to be able to put buttons up that the user can click to initiate actions within my plugin (fetching new data, for example). I didn't see anything that suggested I could have UI send an action message (Obj-C message) to my plugin. Finally, I don't see either the preview settings or my host app showing the values of the published outputs. Am I looking in the wrong place? TIA, Rick _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Quartzcomposer-dev mailing list ([email protected]) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/quartzcomposer-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to [email protected]
