Hi guys,

I was thinking of how Adobe should push forward our scripting abilities and wrote a long post about it here: http://mytho.mn/future-adobe-scripting/

I think it's somehow a big topic, now that we are on the way on unified workflows between all the apps.

As an AE scripter, my views are probably biased, but let's discuss about it here to maybe build a better future ;)

If you don't like links, here is a copy/paste of my post:

We need scripting to change

Today, each Adobe application have it’s own scripting language, and it’s own set of UI API, and this is a big obstacle for us, to come with new and exciting scripts and extentions for our beloved applications.

With the Creative Cloud, Adobe is touting the synergy between all it’s flagship apps, the connected and seamless workflows from After Effects to Premiere, from Story to Audition, and yet, we can’t design scripts that can take advantage of that. In the center of this seemless ideology there is metadata, but even for that, we don’t have the handy tools.

The all we can eat model

In order to help us build impressive tools to make your applications sexier, we desperatly need some improvements, and now that we’re all under the Creative Cloud shiny name, it’s time to shape that future all together. And since you want us to access all your application to discover new possibilities, it’s time for me (us ?) to ask for the same favor in returns.

This is how I imagine the future of scripting, at an high level, and if needed can provide specific exemples, and even in depth explanations on some points. You know how to reach me ;)

Gentleman, start your (scripting) engines

First of all, we need a common scripting language for all the applications, and a consistent set of API for all of them. Of course, this won’t be done in a day, each app having it’s own history before and after their Adobe life, but why can’t we have an abstraction layer that would convert all our unified api calls into specific application language ? Adding layers of interpretation is just a short term solution to a long term problem. I hope that in a couple of years from now, UI accross all Adobe apps will share the same language, and that we’ll be able to run natively our scripts within all the apps.

Un pour tous, tous pour un

Then, we need to be able to call the API of every apps, from within any app. Best exemple is: if I want to create a Premiere Pro Project from a set of After Effects comps within After Effects, via scripting, the only way is to write a Final Cut Pro XML document and then let the user import it by hand inside Premiere. That’s inconveniant to say the least. And if I want to create a Premiere Pro project with dynamic Links to a set of After Effects comps, I simply can’t, unless I’m able to decypher the *.pproj fileformat, and believe me I tried.

I can go on of course. I cannot change some PSD file specs within After Effects, and we should be able to do that. The list could be very long, and in fact, I even have a case study for that to share with you Adobe. I should be able to do these simples operation no matter what my host application is. And these exemples are just confined within the video application space. Imagine what the community could achieve mixing the Edge tools, Flash or After Effects…

So may it be via launching headless background apps, or a central scripting runtime, it’s your design choice, but please, let us do that.

Files of the Conchord

Within the same idea, we should be able to create every Adobe document files
from any app. Creating Audition, Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop files from any of these apps will allow us to move interconnectivity forward in ways that will blow your mind. Let us add an icing of dynamic link from within our scripts too. I can share a lot of ideas with you guys on this one.

Metadata is at the heart of an unified workflow. Adding XMP metadata into any Adobe supported file format should be as simple as a document.xmpAdd(); Your applications are supporting almost all media fileformat natively. Enpower us with that so we can have fun with metadata writing and sharing.

The Dark Knight Rises

With aescripts.com, the awarness around scripting have raised significantly, the number of new tools for your customers is growing on a daily basis, and people are hungry for more.

So let us help you build tomorrow workflows. Extend and enhance scripting so that we can create groundbreaking experiences for Adobe Creative Cloud users, and push forward the worflows of tomorrow.

Cheers,

Seb

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Sébastien