Communications overview¶
Scripts written for any message-enabled application can communicate with other message-enabled applications in two ways; through directly calling functions defined in a remote application, and by sending messages and receiving responses from a remote application. A specific syntax is provided for identifying applications unambiguously.
Remote function calls¶
A limited set of basic functions (the cross-DOM) are common across all message-enabled applications, and allow your script to, for example, open or print files in other applications, simply by calling the open or print function for that application.
Cross-DOM functions describes the usage of this feature. Cross-DOM API reference provides reference details for the functions of the basic cross-DOM.
Each message-enabled application can also export a set of functions to provide a selected set of application-specific functionality; see Application-specific exported functions.
For example, an Adobe Bridge script can request a photo merge in Photoshop by calling photoshop.photomerge(files). The set of functions available for each application varies widely.
Messaging framework¶
The interapplication messaging framework is a JavaScript application programming interface (API) that allows extensive control over communication between applications. The API allows you to send messages to other applications and receive results, and to receive messages sent by other applications and return results. Typically the data passed between applications are JavaScript scripts. However, the messaging framework is extensible. It allows you to define different types of data to send between applications, and to specify how they are handled.
Communicating through messages describes the usage of this feature. Messaging framework API reference provides complete reference details.
Identifying applications¶
When calling external functions or exchanging messages, you must identify particular applications using namespace specifiers. A specifier consists of a specific name string (such as photoshop), and optional additions that identify a particular release or locale version. Application specifiers are used occasionally in other contexts as well. For details of the syntax, see Application and namespace specifiers.
Regardless of which method you use to perform interapplication communication, you must place your script in a location where the application you want to run it can see it. There are different locations for the startup scripts of the applications themselves, and for scripts provided by developers.
Because all JavaScript-enabled applications look in the same locations for scripts to run, the scripts themselves must be explicit about which application they are meant for. A script should check that all applications it needs to communicate with are installed with the correct version, and that any other applications that might be installed do not run the script. For details, see Scripting for specific applications.