Hi,
Besides offering frontend-backend integration and an improved developer’s interface, what capabilities does UXP provide that ExtendScript/CEP did not?
For example, does it grant access to Premiere functionalities that ExtendScript lacked? And if so, which ones?
Or is the goal of UXP to basically mimic what Extendscript does — simply in a more efficient and integrated way?
I’m trying to figure out whether there are immediate rewards in switching to UXP right now, in terms of sheer scripting capabilities (deeper level of control over Premiere, etc.) or if using UXP is “simply” a matter of transitioning to a more modern language stack, with no actual additions.
Short answer, yes! Please consider trying UXP because we are going to grant more access to Premiere functionalities in UXP. While we try to reach the parity for existing CEP functionality, we welcome any feedback on new API that could be implemented for plugin development in UXP for future.
For example, one of the immediate benefits available in UXP and not in CEP is the ability to do a group of actions. Specifically, in this post we discussed about the ability of UXP to do a set of add video effects actions together and allow user to undo them with single control/command-z, which is impossible in CEP.
No, there are no immediate rewards to moving to UXP right now. However, CEP is already being deprecated across Adobe’s applications, and UXP is definitely the future.
Trying UXP now, and making us aware of what you think is missing or necessary, is the best approach to making sure that, on the day that CEP does get officially deprecated in PPro (no dates yet!), you will already be familiar with UXP…and hopefully, almost done porting your previous CEP+ExtendScript extensions, to UXP plugins.
The problem with switching to UXP is obviously that it’s still more limited than CEP in many respects. Hence, fully converting existing CEP extensions to UXP is often not feasible.
To begin transitioning to UXP, I would have to find a way to merge CEP and UXP (calling CEP whenever UXP can’t do the job). Does CSInterface work in a UXP context?
Or the other way around: integrating small UXP components in a CEP extension. But that seems even harder to achieve.
If such a CEP/UXP hybrid is somehow possible, answers like @CathyDong’s would be useful, because she highlights a specific area where UXP can bring something new and more powerful.
This provides more incentive to experiment with UXP in existing extensions.