AI Filter Previews

Question

Hello!

We're working on a filter that will contain an Avenza first -- a preview option. I was wondering what tools one would employ in such an endeavour? Off the top of my head, annotations seems a candidate, but I know it lacks a variety of abilities one would expect to need when generating even a simple preview (most notably lack of bezier support).

So what should we be using for this? Is there an 'official' approach we should be following?

Thanks!

Rick E Johnson · Answer

Gee, Andrew, it's been 10 years since you asked! I've been experimenting with previews from modal dialogs with some success (key word "some"). This technique kind of works.

When parameters change that would affect a preview, including checking or unchecking the Preview checkbox:

Dismiss the dialog
Call the draw method
If necessary, call screen redraw
Show the dialog again

Surprisingly, I don't see any flicker when this happens. Weird things happen, though, like events that need to happen twice to operate once, and dialogs that just disappear and won't come back. I tried adding a timer that would redraw the art if a Preview boolean was set to true (via the Preview checkbox), but the modal dialog stopped the timer. I haven't lost hope, though. Adobe does it, so there has to be a way!

-- Rick

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