Moho Animation Forum

I've been thinking about this for a while. Some users of Anime Studio stay away from script enhancements for various reasons:

difficulty in installation
Fear of something "complex"
"Scripting" means it's only for "experts"

I was thinking that maybe Smith Micro should call this something else like:
plug-ins
Extensions
Enhancements
Custom Tools

A name that wouldn't scare people off and would give the impression that some of these scripts aren't just for experts but can be used by anyone to enhance the use of both Pro and Debut. This could be a rebranding of one of the best features of Anime Studio that sadly just isn't "pretty" enough to get asked out on dates every weekend. You know, Scripting for Anime Studio is just like the smart girl who wears glasses and baggy clothes and keeps her head down, but is actually very beautiful and then by the end of the movie she gets a makeover and becomes really popular.

Any thoughts? Does anyone think this could change the impression of scripting as a feature?

-vern

p.s. Or possibly at the end of the movie she becomes telekinetic and destroys everyone with her mind. It could go either way with scripting.

Scripting is a desired feature that a lot of people look for in professional software - take that name out and you'll lose the pro market.

What COULD work however is for the popular scripts to be packaged in an easier to use way BY SMITH MICRO so that they can be installed easily (no copying into scripts folders) and that they feel more "official".

They also need to be documented better (i.e. not in a user-driven website forum).

Call the popular script package Enhancements and you're good to go. They're still scripts, they're still editable, they're still optional, but they FEEL like features in their own right, and they're not scary.

+1 to better documentation - that would make the whole concept / technique more accessible to more people... don't really care what it's called... a rose by any other name...

+1 to better installation methods too .... (especially a method that doesn't wipe out your customisations across releases of the product)

I've always been partial to the term Add-on, like Mozilla and Blender use. SM would have to define for a format for an Add-on package that would include scripts and resources. There could then be a built-in Add-ons manager that would let you install/update Add-ons from an online repository or local disk. I agree that they should be installed to a separate folder, so you can reinstall AS without losing them. If there were any changes made to AS that stopped them from working then you would have to rely on the Add-on maker to release an update for it.

I was going to say, "Photoshop doesn't use the term scripting." In one of those whiny snarky voices... until I noticed that there there has been a "scripts" menu in photoshop since CS... so the idea of scripting for pro software is a good thing. Even Adobe jumped on that bandwagon, probably from users begging for it.

Photoshop as well as the other Adobe apps, still have more powerful professional "plugins" that are "installed". Those are compiled mini applications that can't be edited by the user of course unlike ASP, making them different from scripts. In my mind the scripting in Anime Studio is becoming more like those types of plugins, small applications that run inside the app. I just finished a major menu script and spent as much time on the GUI so it "looks good" in AS as I did on the functionality.

I agree that scripting in a pro app is a great feature. In my opinion the name is irrelevant to pro users. Pro users who want to script an application could care less what it's called. It's not the name it's the marketing. As long as the "pros" know that an "ASP Widget" or "Add-on" is simply a text file with some code, then the name itself won't scare off those who don't know anything about programming.

Don't forget, ALL of the TOOLS in Anime Studio are simply scripts. In the tutorials it doesn't say "Select the Translate Points Script". I just keep thinking that "Scripts" menu should be called something else more friendly... like Happy Joy Joy Magic Beans or Captain Jack's Nuggets of Animation Gold

What brings this up is that scripting is not a big attractive feature for big version updates. They need the cool pretty spokes-model fancy features to sell copies. At the end of the day, they have to sell product to keep it going. "We added new scripting features!!" isn't going to sell products and I agree and understand completely with this. But if the NAME was different "Anime Studio v12 has 500 time saving Magic Widgets available!!!" now THAT would get some attention.

Working on a fairly big project over the weekend, yesterday I wrote 3 new scripts in about an hour. Just banged them out, simple tiny tool scripts that do one thing way way faster than doing it "by hand":
1. Load all top layers into a group with the name of the document (for fast easy import).
2. Select all points NOT PEAKED so I can adjust the curvature.
3. Translate all selected points to the center of the layer with one click.
These are small tiny little things that don't seem like much unless you have to do it 5 BAZILLION TIMES in one session. My fingers were getting numb from all the clicking.

A big part of improving the script feature's image would be a download/installation location with TRACKING OF DOWNLOADS AND STATISTICS. The only way we could know if scripting is popular is to know how many people use them. the best way to get them on board is promote them not as "scripts" but as cool new TOOLS. Of course vetting of scripts is important. If it's broken or doesn't work it's useless. All scripts will have to follow specific rules.

My feeling is this is only a "what if" type discussion. I doubt very much that Smith Micro will be changing the name of scripts any time soon. I am just trying to see if there might be a way to soften the impression of scripting and make it more "mainstream". This is a long term goal. Make scripting something the ordinary user KNOWS and UNDERSTANDS so it gets attention during update time.

-vern