Receiving Media and Data Through a Custom Share Destination

Receiving Media and Data Through a Custom Share Destination

Receiving Media and Data Through a Custom Share Destination Receive rendered media (movies), editing descriptions for project timelines, library archives, and FCPXML for other Final Cut Pro items in your app.

Overview

After your users have finished working on their project in Final Cut Pro, they’re ready to bring it over to your app for final processing. Maybe your users plan to upload their project to an asset management server, or perhaps they need to archive or catalog the entire Final Cut Pro library.

With a Final Cut Pro custom share destination (and support from your app), your users can receive rendered output from a Final Cut Pro project, along with FCPXML descriptions for the project’s editing decisions and other items, such as keywords, ratings, and markers. Your app can also request a copy of the library containing these items to use for archiving.

[IMAGE]: Illustration showing a Final Cut Pro custom share destination sending both FCPXML and QuickTime Movies to your app.

In Final Cut Pro, a share destination provides a set of preconfigured export settings. When a user shares one or more projects or clips, these settings determine the format and other characteristics of the exported media. A custom share destination serves a similar purpose, but it specifies an app that knows how to interact with Final Cut Pro as the target application in the Final Cut Pro export settings.

Once you set up a custom share destination for your users, they see the custom share destination you created as one of the choices for sharing a project in Final Cut Pro.

[IMAGE]: Screenshot showing File > Share menus with the custom share destination called MyAppCustomDestination selected.

Setting up your app is the first step in providing a custom share destination for your users. Edit your app’s Info.plist file to indicate that your app is capable of interacting with Final Cut Pro to configure the share operation (see Signal Your App’s Capabilities). Supply the scripting definitions required by Final Cut Pro to interact with your app through Apple events (see Describe Your Scripting Terminology) and add support so your app can respond to the series of Apple events sent by Final Cut Pro (see Provide Responses to Apple Events).

Once you’ve configured your app, create a custom share destination in Final Cut Pro. This is the destination that lets your users share their projects with your app (see Create a Custom Share Destination in Final Cut Pro). You distribute this custom share destination along with your app so users can add it to their own Final Cut Pro installation (see Distribute a Custom Share Destination to Your Users).

When your users have finished editing their projects in Final Cut Pro and want to continue their work in your app, they just select the project in Final Cut Pro, choose File > Share, and select your app’s custom share destination from the list of destinations. (See Intro to sharing projects in Final Cut Pro for more information.) Final Cut Pro conveys the request to your app, and your app responds with the information Final Cut Pro needs to perform the export operation.

Tip When you create the custom share destination for your app in Final Cut Pro, use that opportunity to test the communications between Final Cut Pro and your app. As your own first user, you can identify and fix any bugs before you distribute the custom share destination file to your users.