Scripting Community Hub - Share & Ressources

[Max Mugen]

After days of research, testing, and deep diving around scripting many different things for Illustrator,  I think I'm hooked!  it is not easy to code and I have to ask for help here but man, it's so powerful when incorporated into a workflow!

Thanks to the generosity and free-to-use mindset of many devs, I could find resources and packs of scripts directly from the coders themselves or awesome community posts here.

What would be the amount of interest to build a platform with a centralized list of scripts for Illustrator?
Besides some websites, which are often very old, I couldn’t find any kind of hub for scripting resources and lists

I'm thinking of going basic at first and just opening up a Google Drive with all  The Script I've gathered for now.

Also if people are into that I would love to collaborate and make this list grow if there are people willing to share resources and maybe do some kind of how-to and wiki basics.

If you happen to know some resources around scripting, feel free to share them here

[Met1]

Hey Max,

I love scripts, they can do things that take them minutes that would take me hours, so yes!

But I'm not a scripter, I would like to see some sort of tutorial - I've really been struggling to understand the syntax to build my own scripts - a long time ago I used to use a Mac and found appleScript very easy.

I bought Visual Blueprint for scripting in PS & AI (2003) a year or so ago from Thrift Books, the only book I could find that actually lead you step by step, went through the whole book, understood it, but still can't build my own scripts! Maybe just a failing in my old brain.

There's a lot of websites with very useful info but i still can't get my head around adding properties, values, methods and parameter types in a string to get a meaningful action.

[Jason Burnett]

Are you scripting in Javascript? Because it is a great language that should be pretty easy to understand at any age, really. Understanding the basics of Javascript helps a lot with the kinds of misunderstanding you claim to have. I'd be willing to bet that you got it, you're just having problems with syntax or some little hitch that once you get past it, you'll have no problems. Can you describe what you mean by adding properties methods, values and parameter types in a string? Example, maybe?

[Mario Arizmendi]

Completely agree with you, a platform to centralize all the scripts will be great... 

I am not a programmer but I like the great job some scripters do around to enhance the functionality of Illustrator, great idea

[Jason Burnett]

• Though the idea is sound, there are a lot of things you are going to have to consider and eventually you could find that it takes more time to manage such a listing than you are willing to put into it.
  (below, when I say you, i mean either you or someone working with you)
  You are going to have to test every script. If you don't every time someone posts a rogue script that destroys their artwork, your site becomes useless. 
• You should have a requirement that offers rudimentary support for a script if someone provides it. It's going to be hard for someone who has moved on from their script that is totally useful when they start getting a ton of questions via email because your site made their script popuilar.
• You could make it hands off, here are the scripts, take em or leave em, but it will be difficult to tell which ones are valid and which aren't.
• You'd be better off having a comment or rating system for each script so we can avoid the ones that don't work the way you want them to.
• You are going to have to check licensing for every script as it is posted. The harsh reality is that some people make money off their commercial scripts and as soon as you post someone's reverse engineered version of a commercial script for free, you get sued.
• Your other option is to do some for-profit resources where you tack on a small percentage and sell copy-protected and licensed scripts for people.But that's a huge time investment.

What I think would be similar but a lot less risky would be to keep the links hosted wherever you found them and just provide reviews and descriptions with links to those other sites. It limits your liability and provides the central library you are looking for. Automated scripts can maintain active links for you. 

But then you could have a development section that would contain things like "Empty Plugin Core" that had the key functionality of a plugin, script, etc. Or maybe a default dialog box codeset that would allow you to copy the code into your script. By identifying code sections that could be quantified for copy and paste, you could make it a lot easier to code a custom script for yourself. Kind of a Roll Your Own system where people would grab the pieces they want and link them together with "download" button to secure all the text. 

I'm not trying to discourage you. I just have talked to some of the older script developers about this and they have been wonderfully supportive in the past, but also pretty apprehensive. If you come out with a good plan and have the time to dedicate to it, I'll do whatever I can to help. Best of luck to you.