User Scripts? That's not in the SDK...

[DawMatt]

Hi,

Have any of you plugin developers been paying attention to the Export Keywords problem? If not then you might want to now. A KB article (and fix) has been published about the problem and its worth checking out.

It delivers the fix (an SQL update) via a .lua file. While it has been compiled the way it is installed and what it is capable of is still interesting.

• It is installed into a Scripts directory in the Lightroom presets directory. In my case I had to create the directory myself
• Once restarted Lightroom now has a Scripts menu (to the right of the Window menu) and the first item is "Open User Scripts Folder"
• It presents a dialog box (with a few options) that runs the SQL then restarts the product

Why I'm interested is it appears the Lightroom team has already baked a User Scripting mechanism into the product, beyond the plugin SDKs that have officially been announced. This hints at wider capability for us to extend the product - that certainly grabs my attention.

What do you think? Given the importance of LUA to the product it was inevitable that a capability like this would exist, but this is the first time I've seen this publicly acknowledged (if indirectly). Does anyone know where to find documentation about User Scripting capabilities/SDK/etc? Can anyone glean additional information from the fix that was published?

It would be nice to have the opinions of some more LR development experienced minds about this matter. Anyone up to the challenge?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I think most of the developers are probably aware of this one. It's an undocumented and unsupported backdoor that may have potential for the future, but for the time being is best left well alone. It's not quite as exciting as it sounds - others have already figured out how to manipulate the database using SQL commands, but touching any of this is risky business.

 

[jslabovitz]

Great, but...

I appreciate being able to "hot patch" LR in this way, and I'm sure user-scripting will be useful and powerful (once documented...).

However, I fear this kind of updating is going to lead to the awful patch installation procedure of other Adobe products (in my experience, InDesign & Photoshop). I'm a technical consultant, and I find that people have a hard enough time getting around to a one-click upgrade install. Forcing users to create folders with certain names and then drag-and-drop script files is just a bad idea. I'd hoped LR would have been more immune to Adobe's "installer sickness."

I realize this is not an Adobe bug forum. But I just wanted make the observation of a future I really hope Adobe is avoiding...

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I wouldn't expect this to be the future of all patches - this is just a rather big bug that had an easy fix. It could have waited for a dot release, but those take much longer to put together, and all those people would be stuck with the bug in the meantime.

I'd also expect this fix to be included in the next dot release as part of the proper release, for those who haven't tried the script.

 

[Sean McCormack]

It's hardly surprising that a scripting facility exists, as jslabovitz mentions.
I suspect it might be a while before we see it documented though. The initial SDK only appeared in V 1.3, and the Web SDK was only added with V2.'..
Scripting would be a great addition to Lightroom though.

 

[DonRicklin]

From the Adobe Lightroom SDK User to User Forum:

Tom Hogarty - 12:28pm Aug 11, '8 PST (#1 of 1)
Matt,
At this point we won't be providing any more information about this scripting interface beyond what's available as a solution for the Keyword bug referenced in the KB article. It's an API that the development team can use for troubleshooting or solving specific issues.

The current Lightroom API has been documented as the SDK available for Web, Metadata or Export Plug-in extensibility only.

If you do have workflow scenarios that would require a different type of scripting interface, this would be a good place to discuss it.

Regards,
Tom

By 'here' he means that SDK Forum.
Don

 

[DawMatt]

Hi All,

The wonders of timezones - this whole conversation has transpired while I was asleep!

Victoria, I'm not expecting that people use this to start wholesale messing with the internal, undocumented database structure via this interface. That way lies much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But I think its great that the Lightroom team are starting to think about how users can extend the product beyond the three currently defined plugin types i.e. adding items accessible from the main UI. My understanding is iView/EM is pretty scriptable so its nice to see Lightroom considering this to. So I disagree with you on one front: this is exciting, but more for future product direction than a usable feature available today.

Sean I agree that we shouldn't get our hopes up about this being documented any time soon. I'm hoping it might make it into LR 3 but I'm not confident...

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Victoria Bampton]

So I disagree with you on one front: this is exciting, but more for future product direction than a usable feature available today.

Ok, I should have said YET! :lol: I'd agree it'll be a great feature in the future, but I simply meant for no one to get too excited too soon, as I'd expect it to be a fair while before we see any possibilities for third party developers to safely use it.