Comments on: How to Script in Adobe Illustrator (Adobe)

By: Brochures

Brochures — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:59:05 +0000

Thanks for sharing these excellent resources. These are really useful. Keep up the good work!

By: nathaniel

nathaniel — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:24:32 +0000

I’m with you, I wish the support was there out of the box.

I would also point out that Adobe already does allow scripting via an extension of JavaScript called ExtendScript. What makes it ExtendScript? Adobe Illustrator specific keywords. If you know ActionScript 3, you’ll be comfortable in ExtendScript logic, keywords, and grammer with almost no uptake. You’ll still have to learn the Illustrator specific keywords. Let’s hope that the new Adobe CS5 effort is focused on harmonizing those keywords, but don’t hold your breath.

Alternatively, you can program in AS3 via the new CS3+ support for SWF files inside of Illustrator. See the FlashPanel example this blog post for more information: http://kelsocartography.com/blog/?p=1401 and this Adobe tutorial: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop/articles/patchpanel_flashpanel_print.html and John’s post here: http://js4ai.blogspot.com/2008/01/flash-panel-installation-issues.html. Not as deep an integration as you might like… but you can still parse thru objects using ExtendScript and decide what to do with them via ActionScript 3, and then effect that change back to the ExtendScript. Might be better to just bight the bullet.

By: Tom Auer

Tom Auer — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:05:44 +0000

I think it’s ridiculous that Adobe doesn’t use ActionScript for scripting in Illustrator. For me, having really gotten comfortable with AS3, it would make it so much easier to produce print-resolution graphics automatically from existing code. Data-driven graphics could be produced so much quicker and more efficiently, especially for someone who works frequently in a programming frame of mind for graphic design of data. This is especially true for geographic data which can be quickly parsed, symbolized, and drawn with Flash.