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philrosenberg2013
Inspiring
August 10, 2017
Answered

About Dialog message length

  • August 10, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 1155 views

Does anybody know if it is possible to extend the message length beyond PF_MAX_EFFECT_MSG_LEN (255 characters) or provide another way to provide about information?

I am using a number of third party libraries in my plugin which require crediting as part of their licence conditions and they will not all fit in. Unless I can expand this dialog or find another way to provide the credit then I may not be able to deliver this project 😞

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer

If you are not necessarily bound to the native "About" dialog functionality (which is subject to the mentioned limits), you can do one fo the following things:

1. Open a custom, OS-specific dialog/popup window. There are several API functions for both Windows and MacOS that allow you to do this and present information in almost any way you want. Additionally, you can integrate some third-party UI framework (JUCE, GTK, wxWidgets, etc.) although that is certainly overkill if used for an about box alone.
2. If your plugin only runs in After Effects, but not in Premiere Pro, you can simply use the Adobe scripting API and execute some Javascript code from the C++ side that displays a panel/dialog UI which you can customize in size and content pretty much how you want. I think there are some examples in this forum, else I can provide you with simple examples of doing that.

Cheers,

Toby

3 replies

P
philrosenberg2013Author
Inspiring
August 11, 2017

Thanks so much Toby, I'll give that code a try!

Phil

P
philrosenberg2013Author
Inspiring
August 10, 2017

Hi Toby

Thanks for that info. So how would I actually implement that when I receive a PF_Cmd_ABOUT command - i.e. how do I stop AE displaying the "native" dialog? Also is there any problem with opening a modal dialog that would hang the execution path - I assume not, but given that it sounds like you have done this before I thought I would ask.

Phil

A
Anonymous
August 10, 2017

On top of my head, I think I remember simply not setting anything for out_data->return_msg in PF_Cmd_ABOUT will not display a native about dialog box. Both native dialog windows as well as scripting windows/panel are modal. OS-specific dialogs can be modal or non-modal, but it makes sense to make them modal in this case in my opinion.

P
philrosenberg2013Author
Inspiring
August 10, 2017

I know I marked this as answered, and it sort of is. However, when it came to implementing, using the windows messageBox function used the default windows style rather than the same style as AE and when using the javascript alert  function, the dialog is titled "Script Alert" and again the default windows style is used rather than the AE style. Does anyone know a workaround for either of these issues? Note that I am passing in NULL for the parent when using messageBox. Is there a way to get the AE Window handle - maybe that will cause the style to be inherited. Sorry I'm not great at Windows programming or javascript.

A
Anonymous
Correct answer
August 10, 2017

If you are not necessarily bound to the native "About" dialog functionality (which is subject to the mentioned limits), you can do one fo the following things:

1. Open a custom, OS-specific dialog/popup window. There are several API functions for both Windows and MacOS that allow you to do this and present information in almost any way you want. Additionally, you can integrate some third-party UI framework (JUCE, GTK, wxWidgets, etc.) although that is certainly overkill if used for an about box alone.
2. If your plugin only runs in After Effects, but not in Premiere Pro, you can simply use the Adobe scripting API and execute some Javascript code from the C++ side that displays a panel/dialog UI which you can customize in size and content pretty much how you want. I think there are some examples in this forum, else I can provide you with simple examples of doing that.

Cheers,

Toby

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