Piers Goodhew runs down some of his routines using Applescript at
FCP 5.1.2 for Script Kiddies

I’ve been using the raw apple-events in Cocoa instead of using Applescript so I’m not sure about your problems with GetXML. Hopefully somebody will read your comment and have some insight.

Keep us informed if you turn up anymore good Final Cut XML/Applescript insight.

–open project
set myfile to choose file
tell application “Final Cut Pro” to «event KeyGofcP» given «class fcpP»:myfile

And yes: its ‘fcpP’ for all events, ignore the typing error in FinalCutPro_XML.pdf

I have all the simple events up and running, but i don’t manage to get a result back from Get XML (kKGAEGetDocumentXML ‘eXML’).

Any tips?

…It seems the replaceif found command will only apply to certain elements – for instance master clips respond well to this command

The getXML apple-event seems to return the entire XML for the project so the sequence element and its components is nested in that XML. If you wanted to change elements in the sequence you’ d getXML to find the sequence in question, alter it and return the entire project back with the altered sequence with sendXML. At least that seems to work initially, I’m still digging intto it and I’m sure there will be some gotchas.

…How did you come across the private data interchange protocols? This sounds very interesting, please elaborate as much as you can.

I’m a curious guy, so I usually start investigating the internals of the programs I work with. There are a couple of plugins like Automatic Duck’s free XML exporter and the Panasonic frame rate convertor that exhibit behaviors I’m interested in. FCP is mostly written in Carbon, but some of the hooks are in Cocoa which makes for a much easier task for reverse engineering because you can override methods, adhere to protocols etc.

If we use class-dump to take a look at the plugins we’re interested in, we find there is a protocol called PRODataInterchange being used. A protocol in Objective-C allows you to adhere to requested methods and you’ll recieve the events you adhere to. So, if you write a well-formed CF plugin that adheres to the PRODataInterchange protocol you’ll be able to do data interchange natively in FCP

That said, I’ve stumbled a bit in the actual implementation and since it’s private Apple could change the spec at any time, so I’d lobby for them to make it public. It’s such an important missing piece in Workflow management for FCP and if the new set of apple-events don’t get us quite there we may be left wanting.

Dale

How did you come across the private data interchange protocols? This sounds very interesting, please elaborate as much as you can.

Keep up the good work on this great blog,
–M

Yes, that’s what it looks like. You’ll have an add and remove element and since it will do the remove first, you’ll be able to alter existing metadata. You’ll also be able to write your own keys, so you can come up with your own metadata schemes

Dale