Notes from MNR

October 9, 2009

Pretty soon - the Creative Suite SDK

Those of you who attended the developer summit early this year heard us talk quite a bit about Patchpanel and Switchboard as programming environments for the Creative Suite. Advantages include being able to use Flex as a programming language, and cross-product development (plug-ins written for InDesign work in Illustrator, for example).

At MAX, I presented two hands-on sessions - How to write plug-ins for InDesign and How to write plug-ins for Photoshop - unfortunately not recorded - that discussed this technology, and improvements that we will be introducing in the near future. There is a brief overview of technologies at Molding the Creative Suite for any workflow that you might want to view.

Most importantly, if you are developing plug-ins for Creative Suite, you'll want to get involved in the Creative Suite SDK pre-release. Select ""Creative Suite Developers" as the participation program. We won't open until sometime in November - but sign up now so we make sure to include you.

As always, let me know if you have any questions...

mnr

9:45 AM | Permalink | No Comments

July 8, 2009

Interested in your thoughts about e-commerce

I'm wondering about what developers (you) need from an e-commerce system. Are there things you like? Hate? etc?

If you have some opinions, send me an email, and lets set up a time to chat...

mnr at adobe.com

5:21 PM | Permalink | No Comments

February 25, 2009

InDesign & InCopy update coming your way

Heads up!

Adobe is releasing a CS4 updater via the Adobe Update Manager - just went live this morning (February 25th) - and I apologize for the late update.

This update provides key fixes in the areas of Scripting, Master Pages, Digital Editions, Import/Export Graphics, as well as other miscellaneous issues.

Here are a few specific bug fixes included in the dot release. See the read me for the full list.

• Master Page Items from a placed InDesign document are dropped when exporting to PDF.
• InDesign CS3 documents converted to InDesign CS4 reflow unexpectedly due to hyphenation limits.
• When exporting a document to .SWF, “mailto:” hyperlinks have “http://” appended to them, making them inoperable.
• Page turns are incorrect for right-to-left bound documents exported to SWF.

12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

January 15, 2009

Recording of January 15, 2009 Developer Update

If you missed the January Quarterly Developer Update, you can still watch it here.

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December 16, 2008

Adobe InDesign and InDesign Server CS4 SDK Post-launch Developer Briefing

Roger Risdal is sponsoring two events for InDesign developers regarding the InDesign SDK. If you are a Skilled C+, Java, Developers or high skill scripting engineers and have a good understanding of the InDesign prod family SDK - AND can make it to New York or Munchen, you'll find this useful...

More…

3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

December 12, 2008

New tools for developing and automating across the Creative SUite - MAX presentation

If you couldn't attend my "New Tools" session at MAX in San Francisco, you can watch it at Adobe TV. This presentation discusses Flexbuilder, ESTK (Extendscript Toolkit), Extendscript, IDML, Pixelbender, Configurator, Photoshop Panels, Patchpanel and Switchboard. This is a great overview of these technologies and when to use which technology, and for what.

Note that this presentation is mis-labeled as "rocket science." oops!

View it here.

3:37 PM | Permalink | No Comments

December 8, 2008

groups.adobe.com

Adobe recently brought up a page for user groups - and I've created an online group for Creative Suite Developers. You can find it here.

Let's try this as a communication tool. I'd encourage you to register, and then let me know what you'd like to see improved.

MNR

4:21 PM | Permalink | No Comments

November 18, 2008

Using Eclipse to edit IDML

In some of my MAX presentations, I edited IDML files in Flexbuilder. Since a couple of folks asked for instructions on how to set Flexbuilder up to do this, I'll post it here. It's actually pretty simple...

IDML (InDesign markup language) is an XML representation of an InDesign document. You can export an InDesign document to IDMLM, edit the XML inside the IDML, and and the re-import into InDesign to create a modified version of the original InDesign document. I use Flexbuilder to open the IDML package, make changes, and resave.

More…

6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

November 11, 2008

CSBU Quarterly Developer Update January 15, 2009

We'll be running the next Creative Suite Developer Update on January 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am Pacific time. Point your browser at http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/qcsdu

More…

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October 20, 2008

Are you working with Adobe Sales?

I'm working on a project that will establish links between Third-Party developers of plug-ins and integrations, and specific Adobe Salespeople.

If you have worked with a specific Adobe sales person, would you send me a note? Make sure to copy the salesperson you worked with, and give me a brief description of the project you worked on.

Thanks!

MNR

11:55 AM | Permalink | No Comments

August 25, 2008

August Developer update

On August 6th we ran the latest Creative Suite Developer quarterly update. You can watch a recording at http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p92472199/ .

Topics we covered included ...

More…

9:49 AM | Permalink | No Comments

August 22, 2008

InDesign Server == Programmer Tool

If you're involved with integrating the Creative Suite with an in-house workflow, you'll eventually need to produce some sort of output. And if you're in the publishing industry, it's likely you'll be required to produce high-quality pages combining fine typography and images across multiple pages.

That's why InDesign Server exists - and there's a lot of industrial strength tools available that you might not be aware of. Fortunately, there are sessions at MAX that will show them off...

More…

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August 5, 2008

XMP FIleInfo SDK now available.

The XMP team has just posted the SDK for building custom metadata panels in Flex and XML. Although the program is primarily focused on developers, we welcome anyone interested in metadata as it relates to workflow, rights, tagging, and asset management.

More…

11:42 AM | Permalink | No Comments

July 30, 2008

CSBU Quarterly Developer Update

Heads up! The Quarterly Creative Suite Developer Update is happening August 7th at 9:00 am Pacific time. If you are developing products, plug-ins, integrations or scripts that utilize any of the Creative Suite API's, SDK's or pages on Labs.adobe.com, you'll want to attend for the latest information.

More…

12:25 PM | Permalink | No Comments

June 18, 2008

SwitchBoard is in the wild!

SwitchBoard is a nifty little helper that allows you to automate the Creative Suite using Adobe AIR. And we've moved it out of pre-release, and up a notch to labs.adobe.com

Yep - you can use Flex to create automations for InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Version Cue, Bridge.

Is this cool or what?

Try it out - when you make something interesting, let us know in the SwitchBoard Forum.

MNR

9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments [1]

May 28, 2008

Getting Started with InDesign Programming

Ok - this is pretty dang cool.

Getting started on the InDesign SDK requires a fair amount of horsepower. There are lots of resources on devnet - but here's a book, published by Kris Coppieters, that approaches the subject from the perspective of someone who learned it from scratch, and is using and teaching the material.

You can get your own perfect-bound, glossy cover copy for a measly $89.50 USD from Lulu. Here's the link

More…

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