Adobe Illustrator CS6 has been available since late April 2012, so more and more users were starting to wonder when Scriptographer for CS6 will finally be released.

Aware that it is time for an official answer, I am finally taking time to formulate one. It was far from easy, but a decision has been made: I am not able to spend more time on making CS6 a reality, and instead will focus my time on creating a very decent alternative and escape route with Paper.js, a JavaScript library for the open web and the HTML5 canvas element that Jonathan Puckey and I have launched in 2011 and are very actively developing since.

The idea for Paper.js grew out of a research and teaching project at ECAL that we have been conducting during 2008 - 2011, in which we used Scriptographer to teach programming to visually thinking students in blocks of one-week workshops. In parallel to these workshops, as part of the research project we continuously improved, streamlined and simplified Scriptographer's API, added new functionality based on observations from the classes and wrote many tutorials and materials to facilitate the teaching. All this material has partly lead to Paper.js' success, since it allowed us to provide great documentation from day one.

Based on these experiences, we are now in the process of planning an online coding environment using Paper.js that sports a subset of the features that the Illustrator interface is offering, which was so beneficial when teaching programming since it allowed the inspection of the visual elements that the code produces.

I am currently using an early version of this environment for teaching at UCLA in Los Angeles, and results are so encouraging that we believe in a couple of months we will not be looking back anymore, and will be able to offer a decent replacement to the environment you came to love working with, with plenty of options to import and export graphics.

Since CS3, I have been regularly reaching out to Adobe, proposing to join forces in some way, as I thought they should be interested in our efforts. Unfortunately, they did not seem to be, or did not have the resources to spare. And with their own scripting environments based on automatic wrapping of native API still not receiving the love and attention to detail it deserves (their API is unstructured and hard to use), I just don't think that Adobe sees the necessity to invest energy there at this time. Personally I believe that is a mistake, and I have been trying to tell them so on multiple occasions. But given the quite fundamental changes that many of their applications have been undergoing in the past revisions, it is understandable that there were many more pressing issues.

For example, during the last decade, Illustrator for Mac went from OS 9 to OS X Carbon (yes, early versions of Scriptographer still run on Classic Mac OS!), from CodeWarrior to XCode, and now finally from 32 bit Carbon to 64 bit Cocoa. In CS5, the coordinate system was vertically flipped.

All these changes meant that with each new version, there was an increasing amount of time and effort to be spent to get Scriptographer functioning again. And unfortunately, the changes required to make Illustrator CS6 work on 64 bit Cocoa lead to the complete removal of ADM (Adobe Dialog Manager), the API that Scriptographer's whole user interface is built with. Even worse, there is no new API to replace it, developers are encouraged to either build UI in Flash, or use another cross-platform framework of their choice, and figure out how to integrate it in Illustrator, which is far from trivial.

So a large amount of time would have to be spent to port Scriptographer to CS6, work that will neither be pretty nor fun. Many people have suggested launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to facilitate such a transition. I considered doing so for a while, but then realised that with all other projects and commitments, I simply do not have the time to spare to do so, even with sufficient funds, as employing a programmer and coordinating it all would still be a huge effort.

But with all the source code open-sourced and available over at GitHub, anyone with the energy and time at hands to do so should feel free to take on the project and make it live on. I would be more than happy and willing to outline the changes required for CS6 which I have pretty much mapped out in my head already, and assist the process.

Developing Scriptographer has often been painful and more hard labor than anticipated, due to its ever changing host. While working on Paper.js with Jonathan, I came to realise again how much fun programming can and should be.

While it is hard to abandon one of my darlings, the benefits from doing so simply overweight the downsides, and it is with an unburdened heart that I look forward to the new endeavours.

Many thanks to all of you who supported this platform over the years! We hope we are not losing you as users. Why don't you move along with us to the new platform that is shaping with Paper.js!

To those who now feel betrayed or see the base for their work in danger: There is nothing wrong with using CS5 for the time being, which is what we will have to do as well, since many of our own works depend on it to function.

I apologize for the bad news, and hope you can all appreciate this decision.

PS: I have removed the donation button from this website now. If anybody has recently donated money in the hope of fueling the transition to CS6, please get in touch and I will send you a refund.

I think it's too early to rise white flag yet. Yes cs6 is out; yes, Sg it's not getting an update. All this is not the reason not to keep AI cs5 with the latest sctiptographer on it - right? All I'm trying to say is that it's not 1990's when one would have to count every megabyte on hard drive and making tough decisions whether to keep an older software installed or not.

My only concern is that most of the script writers will stop contributing because many people make it sound so dreadful... In my opinion, the scriptographer hasn't yet reached the point to become obsolete and more developers understand this the healthier this project will get.

Although I knew this before I got CS6, I still came here just now to see if there was any hope of an updated version.
Oh well, nothing says I can't have both CS5 and 6 installed at the same time!

Good luck with paper.js and all that, and thanks.

I hope someone takes on this task to make Scriptographer possible for CS6, its such a shame to see such an amazing creative tool go to waste :(

I agree with previous commenters, this is sad but not shocking news. It will be hard to decide between focusing efforts on familiar environments, javascripting within AI, or new platforms. Good luck wishes, hoping the community takes over the code and moves it forward, and that we can port existing code to still be useful. Stay in touch!

_m

Thanks a lot for Scriptographer. It's such an amazing tool, and even if there won't be a CS6 version, Sg is not dead ! Good luck for Paper.js, no doubt it's going to be a huge thing. Thanks again from France.

At first I was like :( but then I was like :) !

You're a great person Jürg! Thank you very much for Sg.
And long life to Paper.js!

Cheers,
digitalpetra

Unfortunatley I have CS6 only.
I can't believe 11 years of hard work are dropped.
Adobe's javascript tool is partially implemented, so Sg is the only one to use all the Illustrator's features.
Can't Sg be dumbed down to avoid using the gui?
At least could run some scripts would be fine for the start.
Somebody said Inkscape is the solution. It is a great tool, but not adopted by our employers. It has scripting features, but not documented at all.
Sg has no building guidelines also, so there is no way to have it working on CS6 without a big dig in the code.
So, so sad.

There nothing like using Scriptographer in Illustrator... it reaches out to designers worldwide

I just read this after reacting to a 'feature request for CS6'. This is sad although I have to say I have no experience with paper.js yet.
I suppose it's up to a developer to either continue or move on to something else. We can't blame him from 'suffering' from his decisions although I really love the fun and extremely useful tools that Scriptographer had to offer all this time.
Maybe the developers and contributors could be paid by us, who love Scriptographer, to cooperate and start a 'global company'. That would be great and we would all benefit. If someone is interested in starting this I would be happy to donate and invest in this cause.

Scriptographer must live on. Its a great tool that inspired so much. I call for a project reboot of some sort. We don't have to rely on its ever changing host illustrator but maybe have it stand on its own two feet with its own UI. That doesn't have to be the most elaborate polished UI. Just a user friendly UI that gets the job done where paper.js lacks.

I am happy to be a contributing partner if we get the right team together!