Introducing… Adobe SwitchBoard!
With the introduction of Adobe AIR last year, we gained the ability to create stand-alone applications – leveraging our ActionScript skill sets – using Flash CS3, Flex Builder and the Flex Builder SDK. With all of the functionality that Flash brought us online, combined with the level of control on the desktop, AIR opened the door for developers to create a wide variety of applications that could easily do things like drag-n-drop images from the desktop, write a wide variety of files to the local drive and more.
With SwitchBoard (SB), the AIR applications we create can now establish two-way communication with applications within Adobe’s Creative Suite like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. I simply can not stress enough how significant this release is: if you are like me, prior to this release you had to hack and hack away in order to get your AIR applications to communicate (in)directly with the target Adobe Creative Suite application of your choice… but now… it’s as easy as writing an ExtendScript to communicate with Photoshop, Illustrator and/or InDesign assuming you’re comfortable using Flex Builder or the FB SDK. [As a disclaimer, due to my mad scientist experiments late last year – thanks to John Nack – I had the distinct privilege of kicking the tires on SB and truly admire the work that Bernd Paradies has done with it.]
From a designer perspective, this essentially enables a much larger amount of developers to begin to create the next generation of plug-ins that can automate your workflow and enhance what we are currently capable of creating. I optimistically look forward to seeing what grows from this new tool.
More info on SwitchBoard is here.
Stay tuned to my blog… I will be making another announcement very soon. 
Stumble it!
June 16th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
How soon will this other announcement be made?
Cheers
Gareth.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Hey D.W., thanks to your presentation I got hold of John Nack and I’m currently kicking some tires on SwitchBoard myself. Looks very promising indeed.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Could you give us an example or scenario where this could be used?
As a lowly designer, would I ever use this, or is it mainly for “developers to begin to create the next generation of plug-ins…”? (is this for AIR developers only?)
June 19th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
[…] Now, if the programming side get’s your fancy - check out Switchboard at the Adobe Labs site. Switchboard lets you leverage Flex Builder to create AIR applications to have 2 way communications with Adobe apps. Think about it! You can create a desktop app that can drive specific things in Photoshop. This is really envelope pushing stuff, and I encourage you guys to check out John Nack and Dr. Woohoo’s page and see what they are cooking up. […]
June 24th, 2008 at 6:07 am
jim;
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good morning – and sorry for the delay in my response.
you’re right about switchboard (sb) – it is a code library aimed at air developers, but i anticipate that designers will benefit from this announcement in the long run. i would be willing to bet there are more developers who are coding with ActionScript 3 in either flash, flex sdk and/or flex builder than there are traditional 3rd party plug-in developers. it will be interesting to see how many decide to begin developing tools for the creative suite and what those tools are.
on a side note, i started off as strictly a lowly designer
with photoshop 2.0 but there were times where i needed to automate some tasks and quickkeys saved the day back then. today of course, we have recordable actions but if you find yourself wanting to automate more tasks and the scripts/tools are not available, i highly recommend taking a look at writing an ExtendScript in ExtendScript Toolkit first. the DYI model in relation to writing scripts for the creative suite allows you to shape the applications into the form you prefer.
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woohoo!
d.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:21 am
gareth;
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within the week?
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woohoo!
d.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:30 am
timbot;
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i would love to see what you create with sb. feel free to give me a heads up and i’ll share it – and that’s an open invitation to everyone.
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woohoo!
d.