A Guide To Building CEP Extensions For Adobe Creative Cloud Apps

All-day workshop.

Thursday, June 13, 2019 – Westin Hotel, Seattle, 9:00AM – 4:00PM.

This workshop helps you get started with enhancing Creative Cloud apps (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop…). You will learn how to add custom-made user-interface and custom scripts.

Why CEP?

CEP = Common Extensibility Platform

https://github.com/Adobe-CEP

CEP is old hat. It is on the way out. Adobe is very clear in their desire to push the UXP platform and their XD app. And make no mistake: UXP looks great!

https://medium.com/adobetech/xd-and-creative-cloud-extensibility-faq-e615dd6ecbfe

But if your job is to support creative users of InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver… then UXP is like a carrot, just out of reach.

Even though CEP is on the way out, Adobe has publicly stated it will be around for a fair bit of time to come.

At the present time, CEP is the most efficient way to build third-party automation user interface.

It’s not shiny and new, but it works.

Many people writing code for Creative Cloud apps have never made the jump to CEP. They are still plodding along with older platforms. ExtendScript, AppleScript, VBScript, ScriptUI, C++ plug-ins…

As of today, it still makes sense to invest a bit of time and effort into CEP.

Replace that old ScriptUI interface with a more modern HTML5/CSS panel.

Or make that custom ExtendScript a little bit more user-friendly by adding a configuration dialog.

Furthermore, many of the techniques presented in the workshop will help future-proofing your code. If and when UXP becomes a viable platform, you can minimize the effort to make the switch.

Who Should Not Attend?

This workshop is not for you if you don’t know some basics of JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

This workshop is not for you if you know your way around CEP, have no trouble mixing and matching ExtendScript with JavaScript, know your persistent from your non-persistent engines, and have figured out how to create installers for your extensions…

Who Should Attend?

This workshop is for you if you have some experience in automating the Adobe Creative Cloud apps. You’ve used ExtendScript, AppleScript or VBScript, but you’ve never made a CEP panel or you’ve only dabbled a bit.

Or, you might come from the other side of the fence. You have experience with web-based stuff like HTML5/CSS/JavaScript/Node.js/… but you’ve never automated a Creative Cloud app like InDesign or Illustrator before.

You can benefit from attending if you want to understand the differences between ExtendScript and JavaScript, and how you can efficiently write shared code that runs in both environments.

Get a better understanding of the installation process if you have trouble getting your extensions to install properly. Code signing stuff, and so on.

This workshop is for you if you want to learn how to debug your code, how to make your code more robust and resilient, and how to manage your code so that there is less room for error.

The CEP Workshop Is Embedded Into CreativeProWeek

CreativeProWeek is on, in the Westin Hotel in Seattle between June 10 and June 14, 2019.

Most of the content of CreativeProWeek is targeted to creatives – users of various visualization and layout applications.

On June 14, we also have the Creative Developer Summit, a hotspot for I.T people and software developers people whose roles are to support creatives in their endeavours. Click below for more info:

Most of the applications used in the audio-visual media area are created by Adobe. There is a strong Adobe-tinge and a Creative Cloud-taste to the Creative Developer Summit.

Last year, during the Creative Developer Summit, a number of attendees voiced an interest in making the jump from plain ExtendScript or AppleScript.

Because the Friday of the Creative Developer Summit is already chockfull of interesting content, I set up this full-day workshop about CEP the day before the Creative Developer Summit, in the same premises.

Note: the ‘A Guide to Building CEP Extensions’ is not part of the CreativeProWeek conference.

Instead, I’ve managed to sort of tag along, and use the same premises as CreativeProWeek.

This greatly reduces my worries when it comes to logistics, and I can focus on the workshop instead of the logistics.

How To Attend ‘A Guide to Building CEP Extensions’

This workshop is not covered by a pass for the Creative Developer Summit on Friday.

To attend this tutorial, you must purchase a Thursday, June 13 pass to CreativeProWeek and register ahead of time with me, Kris Coppieters ([email protected]).

Breakfast and lunch will be provided as part of your CreativeProWeek pass.

I’ll provide handouts.

As I am travelling in from far away, I need to know beforehand how many people will attend my workshop.

Check in with me ([email protected]) to see if I still have seats available. The room for the workshop is small and I can only accommodate a limited amount of people.

If I still have room for you, you’ll need to purchase a pass for CreativeProWeek on Thursday.

If you also intend to attend the Creative Developer Summit, you need a two-day pass, which covers Thursday and Friday.

Let me know you’ve purchased your Thursday pass, and that completes your registration for the workshop.

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