CS4: Reusable compositions / objects?

I may be overlooking something terribly obvious, certainly wouldn't be the first time...
As someone with a software development background, I tend to think in terms of building a library of objects and reusing them across projects. For example, I'm working on a series of videos and there are some 3d compositions I've built which are essentially the background for various text messages. In a perfect world, I would create this object once, and then be able to import / reference it and use in multiple AE projects. It would also be nice to paramaterize the text so that I could essentially drop an object into a timeline and at a certain point tell it, "here's your text."
Currently, the only option I see is to create an AE project, create the composition / object, and then just dupe it wherever needed. However, this approach would mean that if I wanted to reuse the same object in every show, I would have to put every episode of every season in the same AE project in order to reference it. The alternative would be a "save as" scenario for each episode, but of course that means if I need to change anything in the composition that I'm reusing, I'd have to replicate those changes in a boat load of AE projects (one for each episode). Can't imagine that the pros do it this way.
The fact that I'm fairly new to this coupled with the incredible power I see in AE leads me to believe that the kind of reuse I'm looking for is probably possible, I'm just too much of a noob to understand how. For that matter, I'm not even sure what concepts I should be looking for in the manual, making my typical desire for RTFM a bit constrained.
If I haven't been too obtuse in my explanations of what I'm trying to accomplish, could any of you point me to the right spots in the manual (or other resources) so that I can learn how to build a reusable (and perhaps even parameterized) compositi8on / object?
Alternatively, if this sort of thing just ain't possible, I'd love to hear how you guys go about handline these sorts of scenarios in your production environment.
Thanks!

Hey, man.
Thanks for taking the time to help.
Yeah, that sort of import is pretty much the same as the "save as" scenario in that regard. From the looks of it, I don't know how the Adobe guys could ripple in future changes, as it's essentially a copy and paste operation. Once you've iomported (pasted) the stuff in, you're free to edit and change it any way you like. Wouldn't want to be the programmer trying to figure out how to unwind all the changes you made after the initial import, which is probably why they don't offer that feature.
I was hoping that there was a way of saving compositions / objects out as some sort of reusable binary-ish object. These apps (AE, PrPro, etc.) were clearly written in C++ (I see crash messages with the .cpp filename referenced). From that perspective, what I was hping for would be analagous to creating a Library project in C++. Code it, compile it, and then the project using it simply imports the binary .lib file and references the appropriate objects. Of course, that's meaningless in AE, just trying to illustrate.
Appreciate the ideas, though!

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import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.geom.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import javax.swing.*;
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implements ActionListener {
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I got a better version to work as expected. Though there will probably be issues with the transformation to display coordinates as mentioned before. At least figured out some of the kinks of using a custom Composite/CompositeContext object.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.geom.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TestCustomComposite2
extends JFrame
implements ActionListener {
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        public TestCanvas() {
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            Dimension size = getSize();
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            gfx2D.fillRect(0, 0, size.width, size.height);
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            gfx2D.setColor(Color.YELLOW);
            gfx2D.fill(clippingShape);
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                gfx2D.setComposite(composite);
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            if(oldComposite != null)
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                gfx2D.setRenderingHints(rh);
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//            dumpRaster("SRC   ", src);
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//            System.out.println();
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                        int cy = y - dstIn.getSampleModelTranslateY();
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            System.out.print(" rw=" + format(raster.getWidth()));
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            System.out.print(" tx=" + format(raster.getSampleModelTranslateX()));
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            System.out.println();
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3.There are lost of occasions when we set up an Artwork on a packaging cutter guide with various images placed around the pack, these images will be masked and the images are all set to a template size so that it enables us to work very quickly across 100 or so language packs. Quite often these images will move around the pack as the client changes their mind where they would like them. Normally its a simple procedure of using the picture image corner (Outside the mask) to snap to point to another position/guide on the template but as we cant select outside the mask we can no longer do this. All the masks could be completely different shapes so we cant use that to snap to point so the only way around it now is to replace the links instead of moving them, which is a lot slower. (I could explain why but Im sure you know). So thats one good reason why it would be really handy to have a toggle or pref to quickly flick between one method or another.

Urgent: How to find out the size in bytes of java object

Hi Experts,
We've a requirement that we need to find out the size of a java object at run time, is there a direct java API to get the size of a composite object in memory?
Here is my requirement: We are adding string objects (which is an xml string of considerable size) into a List. After reaching certain size limit (lets say 5MB) of the list i need to put this data into DB as a CLOB. So every time I add a string object to the list, I need to see if the total size of the list exceeds the limit and if yes, flush the results into DB.
I am not sure if java has a direct API for this, if not what is the beast way to do it, it s critical requirement for us.
It would be really great if someone could help us out.
Thank you,
-Shibu.

>
We've a requirement that we need to find out the size of a java object at run time, is there a direct java API to get the size of a composite object in memory?
Here is my requirement: We are adding string objects (which is an xml string of considerable size) into a List. After reaching certain size limit (lets say 5MB) of the list i need to put this data into DB as a CLOB. So every time I add a string object to the list, I need to see if the total size of the list exceeds the limit and if yes, flush the results into DB.
I am not sure if java has a direct API for this, if not what is the beast way to do it, it s critical requirement for us.
It would be really great if someone could help us out.
>
Could you explain your actual requirement a little more fully.
1. Is each individual string a separate XML string? Or is it just a fragment? Why would you just concatenate them together into a CLOB? That won't produce valid XML and it won't let you easily separate the pieces again later. So provide a simple example showing some strings and how you need to manipulate them.
2. Are you using these xml strings in Java at all? Or are you just loading them into the database?
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If you explain what you are really trying to do we might be able to suggest some better ways to do it.

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The reason the assembly is 'Unsafe' is because it is calling the TimeZoneInfo class to convert between timezones, since we are not yet on UTC dates. We plan to in the future but that's a big project.
We are also not using the 'SQLCLR' but rather have written our own class library and just have a project reference to it, which works just the same, but we have found to be better for the C# programmers.
I am playing with signing the assembly using an SNK file and have figured out what I need to do, including 1) creating a master key, 2) creating an asymmetric key using the same SNK file that signed the assembly, 3) creating a login for the asymmetric key,
and 4) granting unsafe assembly to the login.
When I do all that with straight SQL, it actually works! But I am having trouble fitting this into our SSDT world.
Should I create a separate SSDT project for items #1 through #4 above, and reference it, and check 'Include composite objects' in our publishing options? As stated in this blog post though, I'm terrified of messing up the master database, and I'm not
excited about the overhead of another project, a 2nd dacpac, etc.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ssdt/archive/2012/06/26/composite-projects-and-schema-compare.aspx
Since we do use a common set of deployment options in a deployment tool we wrote, which does set the 'block on data loss' to false, and the 'drop objects not in source' to true, b/c we drop tables all the time during the course of refactoring, etc.
I don't want to drop anything in master though, and I don't want to have to publish it separately if we didn't have to.
I suppose I could just have some dynamic SQL in a pre-deployment script that takes care of the master database, but I was trying to do it the 'right' way, in a declarative style, but struggling.
So, in short, what's the recommended approach for getting an 'unsafe' CLR assembly into an SSDT project?
The error that started all this was:
CREATE ASSEMBLY for assembly *** failed because assembly *** is not authorized for PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE.
The assembly is authorized when either of the following is true:
the database owner (DBO) has UNSAFE ASSEMBLY permission and the database has the TRUSTWORTHY database property on;
or
the assembly is signed with a certificate or an asymmetric key that has a corresponding login with UNSAFE ASSEMBLY permission.
Also, would a certificate be better than an asymmetric key? I'm not entirely sure of the difference just yet to be honest.
Thanks,
Ryan

After much fighting with this, figured something out as a workaround, and thought I'd share it.
First, I'm pretty certain the SSDT declarative way for these master objects just doesn't work yet.
My workaround was to make a pre-deployment script (that runs when we create new databases, as well as for the current release), that takes care of the security items needed to support a signed CLR assembly with unsafe permissions.
One issue we were running into was when it came to creating the asymmetric key, there are 4 ways to do so, and we didn't want to depend on a hard-coded/absolute file path. The 4 ways are "From file", "from external file", "from
assembly", or "from provider". I still don't 100% understand the from provider way, but ultimately we are actually using the from assembly way, with a little trick/hack I did that allows us to not have to use the 'from file' way and to
reference a hard-coded path on someone's C:\ drive. I really really didn't want to do that b/c we create local dev databases all the time and not everyone has the same paths setup. Also, our databases are deployed on our servers as well as remote-hosted-customer
servers, and up until now, the database release has not needed file system access. Even the CLR itself is created using assembly_bits, which is awesome.
So I thought of something...
What if I had a simple/temporary assembly, which I create from assembly_bits, use to import the public key from, through the create asymmetric key from assembly command, and then drop as if it never existed?
Well...it works!
Here is my current prototype of a pre-deployment script, which I'll go through and cleanup more, but thought I'd share. I also want to document how I created the temporary assembly_bits in case anyone ever wants or needs to know, even though they really
shouldn't. But it should make them feel better. Basically I just created did this to get them:
1 - Created a C# Class Library project in the solution.
2 - Added our .SNK to that project and removed the 'Class1.cs' that it created by default
3 - Signed that class library with the .SNK
4 - Added a project reference to that class library from the main database solution.
5 - Generated a deployment script (but didn't run it) and grabbed the create assembly statement (copy/paste)
6 - Deleted the temporary project
7 - Pasted the code I had copy/pasted into the pre-deployment script
Note that the objects do apparently need to go into MASTER, so at the end of the pre deployment script, I switch back to the automatic [$(DatabaseName)] after first having done USE master.
Hope this helps someone. Finally got it!
BTW - The other way we almost used was to introduce a SqlCmdVariable of $StrongNameKeyFilePath but that would have been a hassle for people to set whenever they got a new machine, etc.
Thanks,
Ryan
PRINT '**************************************************************************'
PRINT 'Pre\SetupMasterDatabaseKeysAndLoginsIfNecessary.sql'
PRINT '**************************************************************************'
PRINT '************************************************************************************'
PRINT 'If they do not already exist, create the database master key, as well as the asymmetric'
PRINT 'key, from the Strong-Named File (.SNK) which signed the CLR assembly. Finally, also'
PRINT 'create a login from that asymmetric key and grant it the UNSAFE ASSEMBLY permission.'
PRINT 'This is all necessary b/c the CLR currently has to be referenced for UNSAFE permissions'
PRINT 'in order to access the TimeZoneInfo class. This code and these objects can be removed'
PRINT 'if the system is ever updated to use all UTC dates and no longer requires the TimeZoneInfo class.'
PRINT '************************************************************************************'
USE master
PRINT N'Creating Temporary Assembly [Wits.Database.AsymmetricKeyInitialization]...'
CREATE ASSEMBLY [Wits.Database.AsymmetricKeyInitialization]
AUTHORIZATION [dbo]
FROM 0x4D5BlahBlahBlah;
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM sys.symmetric_keys WHERE name LIKE '%DatabaseMasterKey%')
BEGIN
PRINT 'Creating Master Key...'
CREATE MASTER KEY
ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'I Removed This Part For This Post'
END
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM sys.asymmetric_keys WHERE name = 'ClrExtensionAsymmetricKey')
BEGIN
PRINT 'Creating Asymmetric Key from strong-named file...'
CREATE ASYMMETRIC KEY [ClrExtensionAsymmetricKey]
FROM ASSEMBLY [Wits.Database.AsymmetricKeyInitialization]
END
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM sys.server_principals WHERE type_desc = 'ASYMMETRIC_KEY_MAPPED_LOGIN' AND name = 'ClrExtensionLogin')
BEGIN
PRINT 'Creating Login from Asymmetric Key...'
CREATE LOGIN [ClrExtensionLogin] FROM ASYMMETRIC KEY [ClrExtensionAsymmetricKey]
PRINT 'Granting Permissions to Login created from Asymmetric Key...'
GRANT UNSAFE ASSEMBLY TO ClrExtensionLogin
END
PRINT N'Dropping Temporary Assembly [Wits.Database.AsymmetricKeyInitialization]...'
DROP ASSEMBLY [Wits.Database.AsymmetricKeyInitialization]
USE [$(DatabaseName)]

Even spacing of objects? (justification)

CS4
Given 4 objects of the same size/shape aligned on one row. The left object is aligned to where is is suppose to be on the left and the right object is aligned to where it is suppose to be on its right edge.
Now, how do I evenly space the other two objects between the left and right most objects? None of the distribution choices seem to do what I need.
TIA.

In AI 12 (CS2), the Auto option in the dropdown field under Align palette | Distribute Spacing does what you want. I apologize if this works differently in AI 14 (CS4).

Losing field (in a Composit Object) in an HttpSession

Hello. I am losing fields in a Composite object (object tree) that I am storing inside of an HttpSession. I'm developing with Tomcat and I saw that Tomcat implements the put/getAttribute methods with a Hashtable.
So in my case, I store object A. in an HttpSession. For a user requests, I get A. and do some processing that sets object D. If I put that object back into the session and come back to it in a later request, object D has now been lost.
A
B
C
D
Is there some contract that I'm missing here? I don't think these objects (A - D) need to be serialized. What am I missing here?
Thanks in advance
Tim

It is very difficult to figure out what is going wrong from the info u have given. Examine your server log carefully if you can find any clue.
You may also write a listener implementing HttpSessionAttributeListener and implement the methods
attributeAdded(HttpSessionBindingEvent) ,attributeRemoved(HttpSessionBindingEvent) ,attributeReplaced(HttpSessionBindingEvent) to write some meaningful message in logs.
Track the message generated by attributeRemoved() method in particular to find out when exactly is your object D going out of session. May be that will give u some clue. You can use HttpSessionBindingEvent.getName() and
HttpSessionBindingEvent.getValue() methods to know about the object added/removed/reset in your session that has invoked the particular method in your listener.
Also you will need to register the listener class in your web.xml for that to work properly.
You will find more examples/help of this listener in net if u do a google search.

Composition widget boxes such as featured is it's copy SEOable?

Do bots see the copy inside the various composition object widgets , such as featured news and blank?
Can bots see them all even when out of our view?

Yes! Here is a screenshot of the default "Featured News" widget rendered in Safari without CSS and JavaScript!
For better SEO/accessibility remember to tag your titles as h2/h3/etc... and to add a Title/Alt attribute to your images (you can do all this things inside Muse).
Francesco

Fireworks CS4 won't quit... Ever

I just got CS4 and the only problem I'm running into so far is that FW CS4
won't quit.
Anyone have any ideas:
[0x0-0x66066].com.macromedia.fireworks[658]: Adobe Fireworks
CS4(658,0xa04cf720) malloc: *** error for object 0xffffffff: Non-aligned
pointer being freed
Jan 26 21:11:02 -Mac-Pro [0x0-0x66066].com.macromedia.fireworks[658]: ***
set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
Jan 26 21:11:09 -Mac-Pro Adobe Fireworks CS4[658]: ***
_NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x9214800 of class NSCFArray autoreleased
with no pool in place - just leaking\nStack: (0x95d8e73f 0x95c9ae32
0x2677011d 0x2680d121 0x2670a9dc 0x2670e71d 0x26919e76 0x26919f6f 0x26932220
0x2671b098 0x2671b167 0x266e6230 0x27c63b37 0x25a06189 0x25a05cb6 0x2693b2b8
0x269542f4 0x25a05912 0x25a03621 0x25a02a9e 0x2693b2b8 0x266cf500 0x266d0e7b
0x266cc87f 0x266d2ba1 0x266ef2a6 0x2671012d 0x26612cd9 0x266133b0 0x26619209
0x2664ba6f 0x2668976f 0x26780e98 0x267811ad 0x266418b6 0x2664a4f1 0x2677171f
0x2676887a 0x2e41e09 0x2e40b67 0xa1a756 0xa1b3a1 0xa19654 0x787f88 0x21f3945
0x784386 0x37be 0x36d9)
Jan 26 21:11:17 -Mac-Pro Adobe Fireworks CS4[658]: Adobe Fireworks
CS4(658,0xa04cf720) malloc: *** error for object 0x1395880: Non-aligned
pointer being freed (2)\n*** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug

Thank you. I thought I would start here. I'll repost!
Cheers,
~Ben~

CS4: Reusable compositions / objects?

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