Bolt CEP

A lightning-fast boilerplate for building Adobe CEP Extensions in React, Vue, or Svelte built on Vite + TypeScript + Sass

Features

• Lightning Fast Hot Module Replacement (HMR)
• Write Modern ES6 in both the JavaScript and ExtendScript layers
• Type-safe ExtendScript with Types-for-Adobe
• Easily configure in cep.config.ts
• Setup for single or multi-panel extensions
• Comes with multi-host-app configuration
• Optimized Build Size
• Easy Publish to ZXP for Distribution
• GitHub Actions ready-to-go for ZXP Releases

Full Blog Post: https://hyperbrew.co/blog/bolt-cep-build-extensions-faster/

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Quick Start

yarn create bolt-cep myApp --template react

or

yarn create bolt-cep myApp --template vue

or

yarn create bolt-cep myApp --template svelte

• Create Extension

cd myApp

• CD into Directory

yarn

• Installs all dependencies

yarn build

• Runs initial build
• Creates cep folder structure
• Creates symlink to extensions folder

yarn dev

• Runs in dev mode with HMR Hot-reloading.
• Both JS and ExtendScript folders re-build on changes
• Viewable in browser via localhost:3000/panel/
  • (e.g. http://localhost:3000/main/, http://localhost:3000/settings/, etc.)

yarn serve

• Serve files after running yarn build
• Viewable in browser via localhost:5000/panel/
  • (e.g. http://localhost:5000/main/, http://localhost:5000/settings/, etc.)

yarn debug && yarn tools

• Adds snippet for debugging with React Dev Tools
• Launches standalone React Dev Tools

yarn zxp

• Builds and bundles your project into a zxp for publishing in the dist/zxp folder

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Config

Update your CEP build and package settings in cep.config.ts safely typed

Start building your app in src/js/main/index(.tsx or .vue or .svelte)

Write ExtendScript code in src/jsx/main.ts

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CEP Panel Structure

Each panel is treated as it's own page, with shared code for efficiency. The Boilerplate currently comes with 2 panels, main and settings. These are configured in the cep.config.ts.

Each panel can be edited in their respective folders:

src
 └─ js
    ├─ main
    │   ├─ index.html
    |   └─ index.tsx
    └─ settings
        ├─ index.html
        └─ index.tsx

To add panels, add an item to the panels object in cep.config.ts, and duplicate the folder structure and adjust as needed.

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ExtendScript

ExtendScript can be written in ES6 and will be compiled down to a single ES3 file for compatibility.

JSON 2 is included by default, and any external JS libraries added with the include directive will be bundled as well:

// @include './lib/library.js'

App-specific code is split into modules for type-safe development by the application's name as seen in the index.ts.

aftereffects >> aeft/aeft.ts
illustrator >> ilst/ilst.ts
animate >> anim/anim.ts

Write your app-specific functions in each of these separate modules, and they will be required per each application.

To add support for additional host apps:

• Add additional app module files (aeft.ts, anim.ts, etc).
• Extend the main switch() in scr/jsx/index.ts with your additional.
• Add the host to your cep.config.ts file.

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Calling ExtendScript from JS

As demonstrated in main.tsx, ExtendScript functions can be called with the evalES() function that will append your panel's namespace in the background to avoid namespace clashes.

console.log(await evalES(`helloWorld("${csi.getApplicationID()}")`));

If you wish to skip this scoping and call a global function directly, simply pass true to the second parameter:

evalES(`alert("Hello from ExtendScript :: " + app.appName + " " + app.version)`, true);

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GitHub Actions ZXP Releases

This repo comes with a configured GitHub Action workflow to build a ZXP and add to the releases each time a git tag is added.

git tag 1.0.0
git push origin --tags

Then your new build will be available under GitHub Releases.

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Copy Assets

If you have assets that you would like copied without being affected by the bundler, you can add the optional copyAssets:[] array inside your cep.config.ts to include files or entire folders.

  copyAssets: ["public", "custom/my.jsx"],

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ExtendScript Scope

This boilerplate is flavored for a single JSX object attached to helper object $ for all your panels to prevent pollution in the global namespace. If you prefer to include your own raw JSX, include it in the Copy Assets object (above), and add the optional scriptPath object to your cep.config.ts file.

  panels: [
    {
      name: "main",
      scriptPath: "custom/index.jsx",
      [...]
    },
    {
      name: "settings",
      scriptPath: "custom/settings.jsx",
      [...]
    },
  ],
  copyAssets: ["custom"],

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Troubleshooting Modules

Node.js Built-in modules can be imported from the src/js/lib/node.ts file.

import { os, path, fs } from "../lib/node";

To use 3rd party libraries, first attempt to use with the standard import syntax.

import { FaBolt } from "react-icons/fa";

If the import syntax fails (typically with modules that use the Node.js runtime) you can resort to the Node.js require() syntax,

const unzipper = require("unzipper");

The build system will detect any non-built-in Node.js modules using require() and copy them to the output node_modules folder, but if a package is missed, you can add it explicitly to the installModules:[] array inside your cep.config.ts file.

  installModules: ["unzipper"],

Also if they're Node.js-specific modules, it's best to place the requires inside functions so they are only required at runtime and don't break your panel when previewing in the browser.

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A Note on Routers

If you would like to set up a routing system like react-router, be aware that you'll have to make adjustments for CEP. React Router for instance bases the router path off of window.location.pathname which in the browser resolves to the page:

/main/index.html

yet in CEP context resolves to the full system path:

file:///C:/Users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/CEP/extensions/com.bolt.cep/main/index.html

To solve this, you'll need to adjust the router basename for each context, here is one way of accomplishing that with the panel named main:

const posix = (str: string) => str.replace(/\\/g, "/");

const cepBasename = window.cep_node
  ? `${posix(window.cep_node.global.__dirname)}/`
  : "/main/";

ReactDOM.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <Router basename={cepBasename}>
    [...]
    </Router>
  </React.StrictMode>,
  document.getElementById("root")
);

Misc Troubleshooting

• If you're getting permissions errors running ZXPSignCmd on the latest Mac releases, try a fresh clone. If that does't work open the vite-cep-plugin/bin directory and run chmod 700 ./ZXPSignCmd.

Limitations

• Built for Adobe CC 2020 and up