Feedback on Photoshop Scripting MVC-framework

[pascalculator]

Hello fellow scripters,

Edit: You can download the framework and read through the documentation on the Phrame.js website or you can just fork Phramejs on github.

ever since I found out about photoshop scripting, I've been lurking on this board (and others) quite frequently. So first of all, thank you for all the amazing insights! I decided the time has come to give something in return.

Here's the back story. The last couple of months I've been experimenting with automatically creating concentric shapes. Even though these weird shapes might seem a bit out there, this will probably sound familiar to all of you: In the beginning I had a small script, but as the weeks passed, my script grew longer and longer, eventually resulting in an incredibly verbose 1000 line file which was hard to read, maintain and update. If I wanted to expand my script any further and keep it maintable, readable and updatable, I needed to find a way to organize my code. The first thing I did was do some research, but as you also already know Photoshop scripting is a fairly small niche with nice, but limited community driven tools.

So I decided I would build something myself and I started experimenting with building a JavaScript MVC framework for Photoshop scripting. I based myself on the CodeIgniter (PHP)-framework, because of it's simplicity and transposed it to a very simplistic JavaScript version. I ended up with something that amazingly enough worked pretty well and did wat it was created for. After a few months of using it, it has proven to be quite robust.

The framework is written in JavaScript, is MVC-based with a single point of entry and has a separated application and system structure, allowing you to easily expand the script without fear of breaking the system internals. It has a very small library of functions which are useful for every photoshop scripter (but could use expansion) and it also has a very rudimentary database storage system based on the JSON-format.

I've talked about this with a friend and he told me I should release the framework. I thought about it and it indeed seems like a sensible thing to do, especially because I've been feasting on all this Photoshop Scripting knowledge, but never gave anything back to the community.

My future plans are providing the framework with adequate documentation and releasing it under an non-restrictive open source (probably MIT-)license. On one condition: gathering enough feedback to help me fuel this project. I want to make sure my contributing adds up to something and that's why I would greatly appreciate your feedback.

So, the question I'm asking here is would you be interested in testing a photoshop scripting framework (working title: Phrame.js) and provide me with feedback? Also, if you feel that this project has potential and you feel like contributing to it besides providing me with feedback: don't hesitate to contact me by sending a private message, replying or mailing me at info@pascalculator.be.

If you have any other questions, leave them here and I'd be more than happy to answer them. Thanks!

Cheers,
p.

[pascalculator]

Hallo again,

whew, it took me way longer than expected to get this thing on track, but I've finally managed to write up some documentation and put up a repository on GitHub. You can check out the website for Phrame.js where you can download the latest version and read through the documentation.
Or you can just fork Phramejs on github. Keep in mind: this is still an -alpha release-.

I'm planning on writing a tutorial somewhere in the feature, when I find the time. The feedback I already got was mainly that reading through the doc will explain how the framework works, but not what it's capable of. So, as stated before: feedback would be greatly appreciated and if you have any requests, feel free to contact me.