Scripting

[WaveF]

A language this messy has dominated web graphics and animation for almost 30 years — and we’ve never seen Python even come close to replacing it in this area. 

If JavaScript was truly that bad, it should’ve collapsed after the first wave. But not take over ActionScript 3 and expanded into so many areas of development.

Saying “JavaScript is still that same mess from 1995” is like saying “you were born poor, so you’ll always be worthless.” That’s not criticism — that’s just lazy thinking.

I used to be a Flash animation/game developer, so I went through the whole rise and fall of Flash. During that time, I saw a lot of really creative designers using JavaScript to build amazing stuff / plugins. So yeah, I’ll admit I have a bit of a bias toward JavaScript, especially because I think it has a natural edge when it comes to UI work.

That said, I also use Python for batch tasks and automation. But honestly, I just don’t see that many people in the design world using Python. More than JS? I really doubt it.

To be fair, I don’t think Affinity choosing JS over Python (or the other way around) would make that big of a difference in terms of extension maintenance. I mean, are you guys planning to build full-blown apps inside Affinity or what?

[Krank]

Jesus, is this thread devolving into a language war now? I thought most programmers understood by now that the language is just a tool and that you use the tool that's best of those available to you to do any specific job?

Javascript and Python are both fine languages. They have their challenges, they have their advantages. Do I love either one? No, if I'm choosing a language completely freely my personal preference is C#. But it's not going to be a problem for me to switch to Python if I need to in order to build what I want.

A lot has happened in the Javascript space the past decade or so. Things are a lot more standardized and those of us who enjoy strong typing use Typescript which we then compile to whatever flavor of Javascript our specific application warrants. Time moves on; Javascript is not in the same place it was when you tried it 15 years ago. I mean, we're programmers – we know everything constantly shifts and changes, yeah? Time moves on, languages are invented, mature, live on, change. Some are discarded, others live forever. This is how it works, and how it's going to work.

Python or Javascript or C doesn't really matter. It's mostly just syntax. As a programmer you shouldn't limit yourself to learning or writing code in just one language. That's like learning Word '97 and then claiming it'd "too hard" to use OpenOffice or Google Docs. It's the same basic principles, if you learned the first program properly then you'll be able to transfer 99% of your knowledge to the new environment.

Sometimes my students ask what the best language to learn first is. I usually answer "it doesn't matter; use whatever motivates you". Because once you've learned to program, you can learn new languages easily.

[Petar Petrenko]

5 minutes ago, Krank said:

Python or Javascript or C doesn't really matter. It's mostly just syntax.

If so, why don't you try to make OS or AutoCAD... with Python or JavaScript?

[Krank]

5 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

If so, why don't you try to make OS or AutoCAD... with Python or JavaScript?

…The whole point of my post was to use whatever language fits your application. It shouldn't matter to me, the programmer. I should work with whatever language and paradigm the situation warrants. Limiting myself to just one language, refusing to learn or work in multiple languages, is what I'm criticising.

When writing an OS, use C or C++ or Rust or something. When writing a web app, don't whine about not being able to use C. Just use whatever is available and suitable. Switching between languages shouldn't be a big deal.

[myclay]

13 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

why don't you try to make OS "" with Python or JavaScript?

I would have come in and said something about high level /low level languages...

Cross language code(one language wrapped in another) is often a possibility so I would for sure love to see python being integrated and if you communicate with files and folders from 2D/3D apps and Folder access etc,   having python would make pipeline building easier.
 

[Krank]

Here's hot take: I think the Affinity devs should choose whatever language that allows them to ship the feature as soon as possible and with as few teething problems as possible. Whatever they feel comfortable with, whatever they feel enthused by.

The rest of us will adapt to whatever language they allow us to use.

It looks like they've chosen Javascript and have made a lot of progress with that. Switching to something else at this point would create delays. I'd rather have this feature SOONER but with a language that's not my favorite than have it LATER with something else.

Language wars are as pointless as spaces vs tabs or which editor to use. Use whatever works. And if entering a project where initial conditions have been set (language, indentation style etc) just follow those initial conditions. Not every project you work on has to be in the same language or using the same code style.

[Seneca]

8 hours ago, Krank said:

Here's hot take: I think the Affinity devs should choose whatever language that allows them to ship the feature as soon as possible and with as few teething problems as possible.

The developers have already announced that JavaScript is the language they are going to provide for scripting the Affinity Apps.

The also said that they are going to provide an SDK written in C/C++. If anyone wants to implement another scripting language on top of that it will be able to do so without any problem. As a matter of fact, their JavaScript implementation is on top that same C/C++ SDK. So no need for language wars. 

[DaiG]

2 hours ago, Seneca said:

The also said that they are going to provide an SDK written in C/C++.

I missed that. So... if they follow through and do produce a C/C++ SDK, then that also negates the lack of DDS export because that is easy to implement in C++. I've done it, using Intel's DDS SDK. In fact, that SDK is so complete it pretty much gives you almost all of the code that you need in a copy'n'paste format.

[kimtorch]

On 6/23/2025 at 4:06 AM, Seneca said:

The developers have already announced that JavaScript is the language they are going to provide for scripting the Affinity Apps.

^^^^ This. Thank you @Seneca!!

I'll never understand why people continue to thrash on about their favourite language when the decision was made years ago. It would be far more valuable to describe what features would be useful rather than droning on about x vs y languages. What are you scripting now and how do you see it happening in Publisher?

[kirk23]

I just hope chat GPT  would be ok with Affinity scripts.     It's what made Blender so  easy to use recently and so much ahead of paid software.   Almost everything Chat writes for Blender works .    It can modify the software  way beyond default capabilities.  I actually half way on modifying Blender to a "perfect" 2d raster/vector hybrid.   Like  Expression once promised.    With cryptomatte support   and all other things we asking  here for years.

   But when I try Chat to write something  for Adobe or 3d max and  it  never works.     Other day I asked chat to write me a simple frequency separation  tool  in Affinity style for Phtoshop + a few extra things like specific kinds of blurs.  It couldn't . I had to do the  action  manually.      But python + pillow +a few other image tools  and Chat GPT does wonders.   It wrote me all possible freq separation types  ever existed found  from some obscure  research publications , some working slow as hell .    A one  separating vertically looking details from horizontal  I am still not sure I understand how it works.     

I very much hope  there will be a mechanism to assess pixel and vector layers data to some quick data save to process them  with GPT made  Python scripts  and bring back .  Maybe by saving super quick  uncompressed tiffs or RAW in temp folder and then read back .    That approach works with Photoshop for me.    

   

[acsr]

On 6/22/2025 at 8:06 PM, Seneca said:

The developers have already announced that JavaScript is the language they are going to provide for scripting the Affinity Apps.

The also said that they are going to provide an SDK written in C/C++. If anyone wants to implement another scripting language on top of that it will be able to do so without any problem. As a matter of fact, their JavaScript implementation is on top that same C/C++ SDK. So no need for language wars. 

Good to know, I missed that in the bloated thread. As long as I have an API/SDK I am free to do what I like. But I think about the poor pixelschubsers out there.

[Krank]

4 hours ago, kirk23 said:

I just hope chat GPT  would be ok with Affinity scripts.     It's what made Blender so  easy to use recently and so much ahead of paid software.   Almost everything Chat writes for Blender works .    

The reason it works is because there's a lot of existing Blender scripts out there, made by hard working programmers who actually cared and who donated their time to creating not only working scripts, but also tutorials and guides. All of which have been gobbled up by the environment-destroying plagiarism machines. So unless a lot of people create a lot of Affinity scripts for the machines to gobble up, it's not going to work very well. Hopefully this will encourage more people to actually just… learn to actually code, instead of relying on ChatGPT.

[carl123]

8 minutes ago, Krank said:

Hopefully this will encourage more people to actually just… learn to actually code, instead of relying on ChatGPT.

Just had this conversation with ChatGPT

Me: "When affinity introduces scripting how long will it take you to understand it and to be able to write scripts people ask you for?"

ChatGPT: "As soon as Serif releases official Affinity scripting with public documentation, I (and by extension, models like me) will be able to analyze, learn, and generate working scripts almost immediately, assuming the scripting language and structure are clearly documented"

 

Note: The Bold text in ChatGPT's answer was done by ChatGPT, not me.

 

[Peter Kahrel]

The important part in ChatGPT's promise is 'analyze, learn'. Before it can actually generate working scripts it needs lots of examples, which must necessarily be written by humans.

Compare with InDesign: when you ask ChatGPT for a JavaScript to do this or that in InDesign, it gives you an ExtendScript, not a UXP script, because there are zillions of ExtendScripts around and (by comparison) hardly any UXP scripts.

[carl123]

5 minutes ago, Peter Kahrel said:

The important part in ChatGPT's promise is 'analyze, learn'. Before it can actually generate working scripts it needs lots of examples, which must necessarily be written by humans.

ChatGPT does not mention needing humans

The important part is...

"As soon as Serif releases official Affinity scripting with public documentation"

And assuming Serif uses something like Python as the scripting language (or something non-proprietary) I doubt it will take ChatGPT any time at all to start generating scripts, once it has had access to the public documentation.  

[kirk23]

Well,  with scripts writing  AI is at least doing exactly what you  you need it to do  contrary to image generation AI which always does  something  partly  blurry and never what you wanted exactly.   Just useless fancy pictures in same recognizable styles.  AI material textures  are so ugly an unusable for instance.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

assuming Serif uses something like Python as the scripting language (or something non-proprietary)

Serif have indicated that the scripting capability which is under development uses JavaScript, not Python.

[CM0]

3 hours ago, carl123 said:

ChatGPT does not mention needing humans

The important part is...

"As soon as Serif releases official Affinity scripting with public documentation"

ChatGPT doesn't know what it is talking about. It is just making stuff up. Nonetheless, it is partially true. In order to be very good, it will need many human examples. However, considering the base language is javascript and there are plenty of examples of coding in javascript. If you feed the model the API documentation it will probably do somewhat ok.

But you can't ask the model what it can do. Models do not know. FYI, I write extensively on this topic.
For anyone interested, BTW all illustrations done with Affinity  - Explanation of the lack of reasoning in LLMs

[EricP]

Quote

But you can't ask the model what it can do. Models do not know. FYI, I write extensively on this topic.
For anyone interested, BTW all illustrations done with Affinity  - Explanation of the lack of reasoning in LLMs

That's a great article (and I've read a few on this topic). Nice illustrations too

[carl123]

30 minutes ago, CM0 said:

ChatGPT doesn't know what it is talking about. It is just making stuff up. Nonetheless, it is partially true. In order to be very good, it will need many human examples. However, considering the base language is javascript and there are plenty of examples of coding in javascript. If you feed the model the API documentation it will probably do somewhat ok.

But you can't ask the model what it can do. Models do not know. FYI, I write extensively on this topic.
For anyone interested, BTW all illustrations done with Affinity  - Explanation of the lack of reasoning in LLMs

I asked my AI to respond to this as I'm just heading out for a sandwich, here is its response...

"While the model possesses no self-awareness or intrinsic understanding, it can articulate its intended capabilities by generating responses that reflect patterns present in the language data on which it was trained. In essence, when asked about its abilities, the model produces an answer not from conscious introspection, but from statistical associations learned during its development. These responses can often be accurate and useful, though they do not constitute genuine knowledge or awareness in the human sense."

 

[kirk23]

So why I am paying 20 a month  for chatGPT 4.5  "advanced reasoning" .  Feels better than free one .  Or is it just self persuasion and a mind trick ?

Sometimes it sounds  like it has a better idea of how things should work  than  my initial  one. 

 

 

[CM0]

6 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

So why I am paying 20 a month  for chatGPT 4.5  "advanced reasoning" .  Feels better than free one .  Or is it just self persuasion and a mind trick ?

Sometimes it sounds  like it has a better idea of how things should work  than  my initial  one. 

 

 

I don't know . But seriously, larger LLMs and "reasoning" llms do perform better at some tasks. But all of the machines are essentially probability machines. That doesn't mean they are useless, but it does place limits on their capabilities. They require immense training data for any capability you want to produce. The AI Labs are selling us mostly hype when they talk about "reasoning" and AGI. They have to keep the money flowing for these expensive machines that still are not profitable.

They can become really good at some tasks, but the tendency for them to make strange and unexplainable errors, hallucinations, is not going away. Hallucinations are simply the result of a machine that doesn't have true understanding and is only constructing its output from probabilities of text patterns.

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, CM0 said:

But you can't ask the model what it can do. Models do not know. FYI, I write extensively on this topic.
For anyone interested, BTW all illustrations done with Affinity  - Explanation of the lack of reasoning in LLMs

 

2 hours ago, EricP said:

That's a great article (and I've read a few on this topic). Nice illustrations too

What he said! 

[kirk23]

Well,  at least  paid GPT recently became  increasingly  appreciative and flattery not missing a chance  to tell you how great and pro  your ideas are.   Untill, you turn "Monday" version on and there it tells you what it really think about your brain capacity 😁