plug-ins

I have an application where I need to make a Quartz movie using Quartz Composer and a custom plugin and have it run in a 3rd party application which is capable of playing Quartz movies.

As a first step I successfully developed my custom plug in using Xcode and 'built' a composition in Quartz Composer. I got this all running in Quartz Composer and this works totally fine in the viewer inside Quartz Composer.

Subsequently I tried to play it in the 3rd party application and it would not play, other parts of the movie played but my plugin simply did not function. I then tried QuickTime player and on one machine it behaved exactly the same - movie played but my plugin didn't function. On another machine I get the error "Quicktime player quit unexpectedly while using the "My Plugin Name" plug-in.

After this I was a little baffled and I read the forums and I came across the notion of Safe and Unsafe patches. I am wondering if this is why my patch doesn't work in applications other than Quartz composer.

If I enable the "Indicate Unsafe Patches" menu item then it shows an unlocked padlock icon on plug in presumably indicating it is in fact Unsafe.

On reading the forums further I came across mention of the Kineme Core plug in for QC, and that it had a UI for telling the system which patches were safe for which applications. I installed this and selected the KinemeCore Preferences, Unsafe mode, I successfully added the QuickTime player application to the application list but it fails to show my 'Custom patch' in the list of unsafe patches...

Some questions:

Am I on the right track, is it not playing my custom plugin because it is considered unsafe?
How can I tell 'an application' or the system that it is safe?
What is the correct way do achieve what I am wanting to do?
Any ideas on why I can't see my patch in the KinemeCore preferences Unsafe Mode list...
Any other ideas, useful information welcome.

I should also say I am mostly a Windows developer so I am new to Quartz technolgy and developing on a Mac.

Thank you,
Kind Regards,
Callum.

Hi,

I've got a composition that uses plug-ins and it works fine, but when I close QC and re-open the file, an error messages appears (posted at the end).

The composition don't work (the plug-in is missing...). But if I go to KinemeCore preferences to uncheck and re-check the plug-ings, it works fine again.

Any Idea?

Thanks!

The messege:

(null) : Patch with name "ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch" is missing

CARGA ULTIMA IMAGEN Cannot create node of class "ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch" and identifier "(null)"

CARGA ULTIMA IMAGEN Cannot publish output port ["outputImage" @ "ImageDownloaderBlockingPatch_1"]

Macro Patch State restoration failed on node "Patch_7"

Macro Patch Cannot create connection from ["Image_1" @ "Patch_7"] to ["inputImage_proxy_1" @ "Patch_14"]

(null)

State restoration failed on

After some back and forth with Offonoll, it came to mind that a forum topic needed to be started which catalogues in one central location what does or doesn't work in QC4, Snow Leopard, that did work in QC3.

I'm not talking about aberrations in the app itself (like Editor or Viewer issues), but about issues with plug-ins and patches. I would also like this to apply to Apple "patches"; the stock ones, available via the the QC patch library interface.

(Do not devolve into discussing app bugs that involved the Editor or Viewer, focus of app windows, etc., if possible.)

It would be great if people could use this as a thread to gather all of this info into one place, for easy reference.

Some thoughts to keep this as constructive as possible:

-A plugin/patch may appear to work, but may have various functions or "sub-patches" that work improperly. That said, it's not always going to be a straightforward answer about whether a plugin or patch works or doesn't work. We will probably see many that work "overall" but with some lingering broken functionality.

-Please indicate if you are running QC in 32 bit mode of 64 bit mode.

Some plugins and patches will run fine in QC, when the QC app is run in 32 bit mode, but won't run in 64 bit. Find the app in your Developer folder, do a "get info" and check the 32 bit mode to run in 32 bit).

-Indicate what OS version you are running. ("Apple" logo on the menu bar/ "about this Mac".)

-Generality doesn't help, while specificity does. Be as specific as possible about what you were doing when something didn't work, and possibly include sample qtz's or other needed code.

No one shall write "yo, ___ doesn't work". Pretty please.

-This isn't explicitly about Kineme patches at all.

This is about ALL patches, mainly 3rd party, obscure and rare ones, Kineme or otherwise, but also function that is broken in Apple patches, if applicable. It would also be more productive if this wasn't only centered on what is broken, but also what has been vetted to work well; if something works perfectly in your estimation, please share that info.

Similarly, if anyone notes that any bugs can be mitigated by following certain steps (eg., it works when QC is run in 32 bit, but not 64 bit, or another plugin of feature has superseded the old one), please let that be known as well.

Let's try to keep new patches/features out of this, or it could simply turn into a discussion about OpenCL issues.