Re: how to receive a Cocoa drag in a Carbon app using regular Drag Manager?

FROM : Daniel Morrow
DATE : Wed Oct 13 21:43:48 2004

OK,

this is the last bit, and then I'll stop bothering everyone with this.

I have added a Uniform Type Identifier definition to my .plist, and it 
still doesn't work. There's that cryptic bit about "make sure it is 
read by the system" which I'm not sure is happening.

So, is there an actual sample .plist file which does this? If so, I'd 
like to see it. Tracking down this stuff is difficult.

but here's my definition:

   <key>UTExportedTypeDeclarations</key>
   <array>
       <dict>
           <key>UTTypeIdentifier</key>
           <string>com.maned.QuickLink</string>
           <key>UTTypeDescription</key>
           <string>Quicklink data</string>
           <key>UTTypeConformsTo</key>
           <array>
               <string>public.data</string>
           </array>
           <key>UTTypeTagSpecification</key>
           <dict>
               <key>com.apple.nspboard-type</key>
               <string>QuickLink</string>
               <key>com.apple.ostype</key>
               <string>ABCD</string>
           </dict>
       </dict>
   </array>

The name of my app is "QuickLink" so, in my Cocoa app, I'm just using 
"QuickLink" as the type.

The UTTypeTag keys were found by running my app, assigning a string to, 
say, kUTTagClassOSType, and then doing a "Show Description" in Xcode's 
debugger to see what the actual values were. This is weird, because the 
key name "com.apple.ostype" differs from what is shown in "UTTypes.h" 
example. Which makes me suspicious that maybe I'm not using the right 
keys.

So, to conclude, I still can't get this to work, although it appears 
that I'm doing everything right. I guess I'll go ahead and use the 
"GetDragPasteboard" call, even though this will be difficult seeing as 
the plugin is CFM and pointing to the Universal Headers found in 
Metrowerks. I know how to point MW to look at the other headers, but 
this just adds extra complexity I was hoping to avoid.

If there are no further comments on this, I'd like to thank everyone 
who was so helpful.

-Dan.


On Oct 13, 2004, at 2:13 PM, Bryan Prusha wrote:

>     Ah, I see.  Yes, if you add a Uniform Type Identifier definition 
> (UTType.h) to your .plist and make sure it is read by the system this 
> will work. Make sure it describes both an NSPasteboardType and it's 
> corresponding OSType.  Again though, this will only work on 10.3 and 
> later because this type of synonym conversion didn't exist until Drag 
> Manager was reimplemented on top of the Carbon Pasteboard.  Given your 
> plug-in restrictions this makes sense.  In the longer run I highly 
> recommend adopting the Carbon Pasteboard.
>
> On Oct 13, 2004, at 10:48 AM, Daniel Morrow wrote:
>

>> OK,
>>
>> I got another response suggesting that I use "GetDragPasteboard" too.
>>
>> But here's my situation - I'm a plugin in InDesign, which, (from what 
>> I can tell) does not use the Pasteboard APIs. The InDesign APIs has 
>> nice wrapper classes which handle drag-n-drop. These routines are 
>> cross-platform (Mac & PC). So, I'm trying to avoid using Mac-specific 
>> code in here, if at all possible. On the Mac, they seem to wrap the 
>> Drag Manager, because their APIs ask for drag-flavors (4-char codes) 
>> to get the dragged data.
>>
>> So, what I'd like, ideally, to do is say to the OS:
>>
>> "Hey OS, if you get anything on the pasteboard with type 
>> "MySpecialType" it also has a Drag-flavor 'MySp'."
>>
>> I thought this might be possible by adding some kind of data into my 
>> plist which would describe this translation, and then whenever I 
>> dragged my custom data from my app, it would also be dragging along a 
>> drag-flavor of "MySp"
>>
>> The reason I'm using a custom type in the first place is because my 
>> plugin (in InDesign) doesn't want to intercept all 'TEXT' drops, or 
>> any other standard type. This is a special drop, with my special 
>> data, created by my app.
>>
>> if this is truly not possible, then I'll move on to using 
>> GetDragPasteboard.
>>
>> Again, thanks for all the help,
>> -Dan.
>>
>> On Oct 13, 2004, at 12:57 PM, Bryan Prusha wrote:
>>

>>>     This is one of the big reasons the Carbon Pasteboard was 
>>> introduced in 10.3 (Pasteboard.h).  It's flavors are based on 
>>> Uniform Type Identifiers which can contain information about both 
>>> NSPasteboard types as well as their corresponding four character 
>>> codes. What you want to do is add the data on the Cocoa side as you 
>>> already do and adopt the Carbon Pasteboard on the receiver side.  
>>> The Pasteboard can be retrieved from the drag via GetDragPasteboard. 
>>>  From there you can use UTTypeCreatePreferredIdentifierForTag  to 
>>> create a dynamic UTI (UTType.h) from the NSPasteboard type you used 
>>> earlier.  Make a request of that dynamic UTI flavor from the 
>>> pasteboard and you'll receive the data.  Unless you're using one of 
>>> a handful of well known types there is no way to receive Cocoa 
>>> pasteboard data using Drag Manager.  Adopting the Carbon Pasteboard 
>>> is the only way to do this in a general manner.  Since you're 
>>> already familiar with Drag Manager learning the Carbon Pasteboard 
>>> will be very straight forward.
>>>
>>>        Please check out the PasteboardPeeker sample code for 
>>> examples of all things Pasteboard (copy&paste, drag&drop, services, 
>>> translations).
>>>
>>>     
>>> http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/PasteboardPeeker/
>>> PasteboardPeeker.html
>>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 13, 2004, at 7:22 AM, Daniel Morrow wrote:
>>>

>>>> I assume there's a technote about this somewhere, but I'm having 
>>>> trouble finding it.
>>>>
>>>> I have two apps. One is a Cocoa app which contains a table view, 
>>>> and I want to drag items from that table to another app. Dragging 
>>>> them out in Cocoa is pretty easy.
>>>>
>>>> The other app is Adobe InDesign. It appears that InDesign is using 
>>>> regular Drag manager calls. I'm writing an InDesign plugin. 
>>>> InDesign gives me a way to get the DragReference. Which appears 
>>>> valid.
>>>>
>>>> I ask it how many items are in the dragref. It tells me 1, so far, 
>>>> so good. Next I get the DragItemRef, and it oddly always has the 
>>>> address "0x000C0C0A". Which is amusing. But I really need to get 
>>>> the data out of it.
>>>>
>>>> Is there a way to do this? I can change the code in the Cocoa app, 
>>>> which I'm writing. But I have to use a DragReference on the 
>>>> InDesign side. Any ideas?
>>>>
>>>> -Dan.
>>>>
>>>> P.S. - Sorry to post this to two lists, but I guess there aren't 
>>>> too many people working in both worlds simultaneously like this.
>>>>
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>>>
>>>

>>

>
>