Hi everyone, I have exciting news to share about the forums.
The background
Over the last couple of years, these forums have become a great place for developers like you to come together to ask questions and share tips, to show off the great work you do with UXP Plugin APIs, and share feedback with Adobe staff. We’re so proud of this community that has been essential to the beginning of Adobe XD’s extensibility story; our plugin ecosystem and developer community are better off thanks to your contributions and participation.
As we approach MAX 2020, Creative Cloud is taking the first steps to a future where UXP Plugin APIs will be available in more apps, starting with Photoshop this month. Also this fall, we’ll be introducing more API offerings that allow developers to bring Creative Cloud services directly into their own standalone products and services.
As such, it’s important that we start to create a home where developers can connect as they begin to build on these newer offerings, while also making it possible for us all to search and traverse community conversations across APIs.
As an easy example, having UXP-related conversations in the same forum instance is bound to be useful, even if you personally happen to be focused on a single host app. But there are even more benefits waiting to be had from facilitating easier cross-pollination, and we’re all excited to enable this by making space for more developers focusing on a wider variety of Creative Cloud APIs.
What’s happening
In the next few days, you’ll start to see some changes coming to these forums to help move us toward this goal.
First up, the new URL for the forums will be forums.creativeclouddeveloper.com. The current domain will begin to redirect this week.
Then—and this is the core of the update—you will see that these forums have been up-leveled to offer categories for APIs that span Creative Cloud. Not all API offerings will be represented here on day one, but to start you’ll see categories for these APIs:
- Adobe XD
- UXP Plugin API*
- Cloud Content API
- Photoshop
- UXP Plugin API
- CC Libraries API
* Naturally, the vast majority of the content currently in these forums will be available in Adobe XD > UXP Plugin API.
Some existing categories, such as “JavaScript”, “HTML”, and “CSS”, will be converted to tags. These taxonomies will remain associated with their original topics, just with the distinction that they will now be tags instead of categories.
Finally, since this is an in-place update, your content, as well as your forum identity and standing come along for the ride.
Our ask to you
To start, please give us your feedback. We’ll have a top-level category for forums feedback as we have had in the past. We don’t expect things will be perfect out of the gate, but with your feedback, we can make necessary improvements over time.
Next up, to help this community continue to grow and flourish, please welcome new folks who are joining. Given how cordial and helpful these forums have been over the last couple of years, it may seem unnecessary to ask for this. But it is important to acknowledge that we will, over time, have more developers working on different APIs who are seeking knowledge and community here. If your focus as a developer happens to remain exclusively on Adobe XD, great! Let’s at least make space for others, and do our best to be welcoming. Like you, these new developers are excited to be a part of the Creative Cloud extensibility story as it continues to evolve.
Finally, let’s keep this great thing going. I’ve heard some folks express concern that adding too many API communities to these forums could dilute the tight sense of community that you all have created here. To be sure, this is a risk, but one we can overcome over time in smart ways. Remember that while the organization of the forums is changing this week, the same people you’ve been working and sharing with while building Adobe XD plugins are still right here. And again, the door is always open for your feedback on how we can help preserve and support individual Creative Cloud product-focused communities, even as the broader API platform and developer community grows.
Thank you for being a part of our developer community. We’re excited to grow together with you into a new era of extensibility for Creative Cloud.
- Ash, and the CC Platform & Ecosystem team
