Using ICasparCGMedia objects

All media files which are playable by CasparCG are mapped into ICasparCGMedia objects.
This are namely:

• CasparCGAudio
• CasparCGColor
• CasparCGMovie
• CasparCGStill
• CasparCGTemplate

They are holding all the data necessary to work with them.
All are implementing the ICasparCGMedia interface.

ICasparCGConnection:

Properties:
    Name
    Path
    Fullname
    Infos
    Base64Thumbnail
    MediaType
Methods:
    addInfo(key, value)
    setInfo(key, value)
    parseXml(xml)
    fillMediaInfo(connection, [channel])
    fillMediaInfo(connection, [channel])
Functions:
    clone() -> ICasparCGMedia
    containsInfo(key) -> Boolean
    getInfo(key) -> String
    toString() -> String
    toXml() -> XmlDocument
    toXmlString() -> String

To create a new instance of any ICasparCGMedia, all you need is the fully qualified name of the media. This is even enough to play all media objects and use them with CasparCGCommands. But to get all out of them, we need to gather more information. Luckily, CasparCG is providing them.

To fill these informations, there are two ways.

1. Provide a XML definition of the media object and call the parseXml(xml) method. This can be queried with the InfoCommand or may be saved to a file.
2. Let the object get the data itself by calling the fillMediaInfo(connection) method. You need to provide a working connection to a CasparCG Server containing this media in its media/template directory.

After calling one of them, the media object knows everything that is important. What exactly this is depends on the media type. All in common is, that you can find this metadata as a key-value store inside the Infos property. You may use the provided getter/setter functions to access them.

You can use this key-value store for your own storage too. If you would like to add infos to media object, just add a new Info to your object using the add(key,value) method.

There are two media types which differs a bit.
The CasparCGColor is not a real media as it only defines a color that has no metadata and is not stored on the CasparCG Server. Just define the color via the Name.

The CasparCGTemplate provides much more data then the other media types.
In addition to the metadata, it can hold information of the template structure and the data the template shows.
Because of this, the CasparCGTemplate provides a wider set of functions:

CasparCGTemplate

Functions:
    getData() -> CasparCGTemplateData
    getDataString() -> String
    hasData() -> Boolean

CasparCGTemplateData

Methods:
    addInstance(instance)
Functions:
    containsInstance(instanceName) -> Boolean
    getInstance(instanceName) -> CasparCGTemplateInstance
    getInstances() -> IEnumerable(Of CasparCGTemplateInstance)
    hasData() -> Boolean
    toDataString() -> String
    toDataXml() -> XmlDocument

CasparCGTemplateInstance

Functions:
    getName() -> String
    getComponent() -> CasparCGTemplateComponent
    getProperties() -> IEnumerable(Of CasparCGTemplateProperty)
    getProperty(propertyName) -> CasparCGTemplateProperty
    hasData() -> Boolean
    setValue(propertyName, value) -> Boolean
    toDataXml() -> XmlDocument
    toXml() -> XmlDocument

CasparCGTemplateProperty

Properties:
    Name
    Type
    Info
    Value
Functions:
    isSet() -> Boolean
    toDataXml() -> XmlDocument
    toXml() -> XmlDocument

To make things short, all you need to know is, that the CasparCGTemplateData contains one CasparCGTemplateInstance for every accessible TextField in your template.
The typical CasparTextField used in flashtemplates provides only one property called "text".
So, you would access the data of TextField f0 like this:

template.getData().getInstance("f0").setValue("text","New value")
value = template.getData.getInstance("f0").getProperty("text").Value

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