QuickTime 3 Reference

Saving and Restoring Settings

QuickTime has always provided a rich-support mechanism for importing media from other formats into QuickTime movies, as well as exporting from QuickTime movies to other media formats. Importing and exporting are handled by movie data exchange components.

You write import and export components to allow a user to configure how the component performs its work. Your component provides a routine that presents a dialog box for the user to change options. For an import component, you need to implement MovieImportDoUserDialog ; for an export component, you must implement MovieExportDoUserDialog . For example, a text import component may present a dialog with options for setting the font/size/style dimensions of the text media it will add to the movie. The WAVE audio export component presents the Standard Sound Compression dialog, so that sample rate and sample size can be specified for the generated Wave file.

In the past, when a user made a change to the configuration of a component in a settings dialog box, those changes would be lost when the component was closed.

With QuickTime 3, it is now possible to retrieve the current settings from an open import or export component. In addition, you can restore a component's current settings to previously-retrieved settings. The restoration does not involve any user interface. This may be advantageous for application developers who want to provide preferences for the last settings used or want to perform batch importing or exporting, using previously-established user settings.

For information about using the new save-and-restore component settings mechanism, refer to the section "Registering Movie Data Export Components" .

If you are working with export components--either writing them, or trying to enumerate or otherwise match up components with source media types--you need to take into account these changes in QuickTime 3. For those writing export components, you should move to this new registration mechanism. If you're enumerating components, you need to make appropriate changes. If you are not doing either, you won't need to be concerned about the changes because the QuickTime Movie Toolbox has been updated and will hide the details.

Standard Compression Components and Settings