Is there an option for a non-public way to distribute a plugin via Creative Cloud or Adobe Developer?

UXP Developer Tool
1

I’m work on converting the InDesign scripts that I developed originally in ExtendScript, into a UXP plugin. One reason was to have a better way to distribute those tools in an easier way. With our current codebase, a team member currently needs to use VS Code to clone our repo into their InDesign scripts folder, so that in order to distribute updates, all someone needs to do is just sync their repo when updates have been pushed.

The UXP plugin information had me hopeful we would be able to push updates to the plugin through the Creative Cloud plugins section which would make the initial setup and updates much easier for those who don’t have programming experience ( I am new to programming as well and have learned it specifically for my work ), but the docs say the only two ways to distribute it are publicly on the Exchange Marketplace, or by passing around the .ccx file.

Is there a private way to publish a plugin, the way Unity or Apple Developer allows so that we can utilize the Creative Cloud plugin platform without having to create a public facing marketplace item?

2

I am not any kind of expert/authoritative answer, but my understanding is no. You may be able to script or automate zipping the CCX file once there are updates and then just upload it to your repo and have some kind of update checking on the users that are not making edits? Because I think if you just double click the new CCX it should replace the old one (although I haven’t tested). Good luck and perhaps others will have more information.

3

its looking like this is going to be the direction we go, of developing our own pipeline to packaging and distributing the plugin (luckily we have some engineers here that are much more experienced than myself who will help out).

about the double clicking the ccx file though, the curious thing is that didnt work at all for me initially, no program was set up to run the plugin, and only after scrubbing the net for a bit did i find a solution to setting up the correct default application for installing them. And yes, it does recognize that you already have the plugin installed and asks if you want to reinstall the later version.