How to create a custom panel in the right way (without having an empty panel in the file info) ?

Question

Hi Everyone
My name is Daté.
I'm working in the fashion industry as a designer and Design consultant to help fashion brands improving the design workflow by using Adobe softwares and especially Illustrator.
I'm not a developper, but i'm very interested about the possibility to introduce xmp technology to provide more DAM workflows in the fashion industry.
Fashion designers produce a lot of graphical objects in illustrator or Photoshop. Unfortunately they are faced to a big challenge which is about how to manage, search, classify and get this files faster. Of course PDM system or PLM system are used in the Fashion industry to manage data, but for many companies, implemanting this kind of database is very complex.
When i look at what you can do with xmp, it seems to be an interesting way of managing design files, then i started to follow Adobe instruction to try to build a custom panel.
The main idea is to (Theory) :
create custom panels used by fashion designers to classify their design files.
Use Adobe Bridge to search files, create smart collection to make basic reports in pdf and slideshows
Find someone to make a script able to export metadata in xml files
Use indesign and the xml file to generate automatically catalogues or technical sheets based on xmp values
I have created a custom panel by using the generic panel provided by Adobe and i have modified the fields to feet with the terms used in the fashion industry and it works well.
But unfortunately, when i try to create my own custom panel from scratch with Flashbuilder (4.6) and the Adobe CSExtensionBuilder_2 (Trial version), it doesn't work!
Here is the process :
I have installed flashbuilder 4.6
I have download the XMP Fileinfo SDK 5.1 and placed the com.adobe.xmp.sdk.fileinfo_fb4_1.1.0.jar in C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.6\eclipse\plugins
In Flashbuilder, i have created a new project and select xmp Custom panel
The new project is created in flashbuilder with a field with A BASIC Description Field
To generate the panel, right click the project folder and select xmp / Publish Custom Panel
The panel is automatically generated in the following folder : C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\XMP\custom file info panels\3.0\panels
  Go to illustrator, Open the file Info
The panel appears empty
The others panel are also empty
The panel is created and automatically placed in the right folder, but when you open it in Illustrator by selecting the File Info option in the File Menu, this custom panel appears empty!!! (only the title of the tab is displayed). This panel also prevent the other panels to be displayed.
When you delete this custom panels from the folder C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\XMP\custom file info panels\3.0\panels and go back to the File Info, the other panels display their content properly.
I also try to use the plugin XMP Namespace designer to create my own namespace. this plugin is also able to generate a custom panel, but this one also appears empty in AI or Photoshop.
I try to follow the process described in Adobe xmp documentation many times, but it didn't works.
It seems that many peaople have this issue, but i dodn't find a solution in the forum.
I try to create a trust file (cfg), but it didn't work.
It would be so kind if you can help me to understand why i can't create a custom panel normally and how to do it in the right way.
Thanks a lot for your help,
Best regards,
Daté 

Answer 1

Hi Sunil,
After many trial, i realize the problem was not coming from the trust file, but from the way i have created the custom panel.
There is 2 different ways, the first described below is not working whereas the second is fine :
METHOD 1 :
I have downloaded the XMP-Fileinfo-SDK-CS6
In the XMP-Fileinfo-SDK-CS6 folder, i copied the com.adobe.xmp.sdk.fileinfo_fb4x_1.2.0.jar plugin from the Tools folder and i pasted it in the plugind folder of Flashbuilder 4.6
The plugin install an XMP project
In Flashbuilder 4.6 i have created a new project (File / New /Project /XMP/XMP Custom Panel)
A new xmp project is created in flashbuilder.
You can publish this project by right clicking the root folder and selecting XMP / Publish Custom Panel
The custom file info panel is automatically published in the right location which is on Mac : /Users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Adobe/XMP/Custom File Info Panels/3.0 or /Users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Adobe/XMP/Custom File Info Panels/4.0
Despite the publication of the custom file info panel and the creation of a trust file in the following location : "/Library/Application Support/Macromedia/FlashPlayerTrust", the panel is blank in Illustrator.
I try this way several times, with no good results.
METHOD 2 :
I have installed Adobe CSExtensionBuilder 2.1 in Flash Builder
In FlashBuilder i have created a new project (File / New /Project /Adobe Creative Suite Extension Builder/XMP Fileinfo Panel Project)
As the system display a warning about the version of the sdk to use to create correctly a custom file info, I changed the sdk to sdk3.5A
The warning message is : "XMP FileInfo Panel Projects must be built with Flex 3.3, 3.4 or 3.5 SDK. Building with Flex 4.6.0 SDK may result in runtime errors"
When i publish this File info panel project (right click the root folder and select Run as / Adobe illustrator), the panel is published correctly.
The last step is to create the trust file to display the fields in the panel and everything is working fine in Illustrator.
The second method seems to be the right way.
For sure something is missing in the first method, and i don't understand the difference between the XMP Custom Panel Project and the XMP Fileinfo Panel Project. Maybe you can explain it to me.
So what is the best solution ? the right sdk to use acording to the creative suite (the system asks to use 3.3 or 3.5 sdk for custom panels, so why ?)
I'm agree with Pedro, a step by step tutorial about this will help a lot of peaople, because it's not so easy to understand!!!
Sunil, as you belong to the staff team, can you tell me if there is  :
A plugin or a software capable to extract the XMP from llustrator files to generate XML workflows in Indesign to create catalogues
A plugin to allow indesign to get custom XMP in live caption
A plugin to allow Bridge to get custom XMP in the Outputmode to make pdf or web galeries from a smart collection
How can you print the XMP data with the thumbnail of the file ?
Thanks a lot for your reply.
Best Regards
Daté