I started something I couldn’t finish
Gunar Penikis has posted a surprisingly-ugly but interesting example of using Flash for a Bridge panel:
Once loaded into the Bridge startup scripts folder, the BridgeExportToJPEG extension will demonstrate a Flash UI panel in Bridge that is functional in driving Bridge to create JPEGs and manipulate XMP metadata. All the thumbnails that are created in Bridge are JPEG based, so it is possible to export these thumbnails as JPEGs - for example if you want to create a JPEG catalog or quickly send JPEGs of your RAW files. I've also included the FLA file for tweaking. It's all available under a BSD license.
It would be great to see more Flash and Javascript developers build on the Bridge platform to develop their own features. Bridge also includes an HTML browser and HTTP and FTP services - so linking up to a web service can be accomplished. How about displaying GPS data in my photo as a Google/Yahoo map in Bridge?
I've actually had this little application for a while, and indeed it's interesting not for what it does but as an example of how people might expand Bridge's features.
I must admit to surprise at Bridge's improvement in CS3 (I quickly tired of Bridge 1) but I'm still not sure it has much of a place in my Lightroom / Photoshop / iView world. Lightroom has eclipsed it for editing, initial metadata entry and bulk adjustment, and iView for managing the archive, finding pictures, and generating web galleries. Bridge only really fits in as a component for reading and writing XMP metadata - for instance, I've a script to exchange iView Catalog Sets and custom fields and Lightroom hierarchical keywords. And that only makes me more irritated that Bridge CS3 is still hobbled by the introspective choice of JavaScript-only scripting - fine to integrate Adobe products but too messy for the big wide world.
But hey, learn Adobe Flash and Flash scripting too. Actually, that was something I planned to do. Then again, it has been so for the last 5 or 6 years, at least.
Via John Nack.