List of Programming Environments for Designers
Yesterday I asked Twitter this question: "I'm looking for examples of software that comes close to the idea of an IDE for graphic designers. Anything comes to mind?".
I'm not as much interested in PD or MAX-like environments, as much as a "real" code editor merged with UI controls. Scriptographer is probably as close as you can come, but it's no longer maintained, and the programming environment is not integrated with the UI. I'd love to see a piece of software where you can:
- Generate and draw via code (just like Processing)
- Manipulate the generated shapes and colors via UI tools (just like Illustrator)
- Draw things with the mouse (just like Illustrator)
- Manipulate the shapes and colors via code
The basic idea is that "everything's an object", and can be manipulated via code or with the mouse at any time.
Most of these are also normal JS libraries, but a few of the suggestions were new to me:
Software
- Nodebox
- WebCodeApp
- Basil.js
- DrawScript
- Paintcode
- Houdini
- Microsoft Expression Blend
- Briefs video website
- Hype
- FormEntry
- Apple Quartz Composer
- Processing
- Scriptographer - no longer maintained - turned into paper.js
- Opacity
- Mr. Doob HTML Editor
- easel.io
- D3.js
Basil.js is for InDesign as Scriptographer was for Illustrator: http://basiljs.ch/