file upload from premier pro to cep extention

[Vibrant_experts5EF6]

I want to enable drag-and-drop functionality in my Adobe Premiere Pro plugin, allowing users to drag timeline (sequence) files or project files into the plugin. This would send them to my platform for processing. However, I am facing the following challenges:

1. Rendering Files in the Plugin: I need to render them before uploading files, but I cannot perform this rendering operation within the plugin.

2. Retrieving Drag-and-Drop File Data: After a file is dragged and dropped into the plugin, I cannot correctly retrieve the necessary file data for further processing.

3. Handling Selected Timeline Files: As an alternative, I try to detect when a user selects an object (e.g., a file or sequence) on the timeline. I listen to the event of the selection and display the file's information in the plugin. However, I cannot process the selected file properly after detection.

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Issues in Points:

1. Rendering in the Plugin:

   • The plugin cannot render timeline (sequence) or project files before uploading them for processing.

2. Drag-and-Drop File Data Retrieval:

   • File metadata and information are not being retrieved correctly when a file is dragged and dropped into the plugin.

3. Processing Selected Files:

   • Although the plugin detects and displays selected file information from the timeline, the processing of these files is not functioning as expected.

4. CEP Extension Limitations:

   • The limitations of the CEP extension might be causing difficulties in handling drag-and-drop operations or rendering files directly within the plugin.

Would you like suggestions or solutions for resolving these challenges?

[Bruce Bullis · Accepted solution]

Hi Vibrant,

I'm not sure what part(s) of above are your questions, or an AI's attempt to restate those questions. 🙂 

1. PProPanel shows how to render from within an extension.
2. PPro provides no support for dragging TO a panel; only dragging FROM a panel. Again, see PProPanel for example usage.
3. Specifically, what unexpected results are you seeing, when processing selected track items?
4. As above; No, CEP is functioning as expected, in that drag TO has never been supported, and rendering is completely possible. 🙂

[Vibrant_experts5EF6]

Hi Bruce,

I'm trying to create a plugin where if the user selects one of the files in sequence I want to render that file in the plugin and I want to send that file to my back-end server so that I can give them the processed file back This is my agenda

now,  I'm stuck with this, or else is there any other to preview the files

so can I only render the files using the render method but that render only renders the file content ina player that's what you are trying to say right?

[Bruce Bullis · Accepted solution]

> I'm trying to create a plugin where if the user selects one of the files in sequence

> I want to render that file in the plugin and I want to send that file to my back-end
> server so that I can give them the processed file back.

"one of the files in sequence" : There are NO files in a sequence; there are only trackItems. [Sounds weird, I know; it's true.]

trackItems are almost always based on a file, but trackItems are also the result of footage interpretation, intrinsics (Position, Rotation, Opacity) that the user may have modified (and keyframed), and any number of effects may be applied. So, if you were to render the trackItem's time range of just the source media file, your extension would ignore/miss everything the user has done to that trackItem. I doubt this is what you want. 

> so can I only render the files using the render method but that render only
> renders the file content ina player that's what you are trying to say right?

That's not at all what I'm trying to say, and I don't know what you mean by 'player', in that context. 🙂 

Restating for clarity...

The working PProPanel example I referenced renders a portion of the active sequence to a new media file on disk, based on a specified output preset (.epr file). For a simplistic approach to rendering only a given (selected) trackItem, you could set the sequence in/out points to match the trackItem's in/out points, then render as previously suggested. 

Let's say you successfully render replacement for the selected trackItem; you would need to import it into the project (using app.project.importFiles()), then change the source projectItem in use by the replaced trackItem, keeping in mind that there may be timecode offsets between the original projectItem and your replacement. 

If you're making pixel changes to trackItems, why not just write an AE Effect plugin? That's what they're made to do. 

[Vibrant_experts5EF6]

Okay got it, thank you 😊