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everyone. I am a graphic designer, and thought I would start to learn coding to write scripts for Adobe Illustrator in ExtendScript/JavaScript. I started some beginner tutorials and have been making progress. A response to a question I had posted on a JavaScript forum suggested I use Visual Studio Code as a writing environment, so I downloaded it. It seems to be very advanced, and I can't figure out how to use it. I watched some of the introductory videos and they seem to start with an assumption of some experience.

My question is does anyone know of any resources for someone just starting out with Visual Studio Code? I did some searching and couldn't find anything suitable.

Thanks for your time. Joe

Radius
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2 Answers2

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Thanks to the popularity of VSCode, there are tons of YouTube videos on setup. You did not mention whether your platform is MacOs or Windows, but there are plenty for both.

One suggestion:

If you're getting started with Illustrator scripts for the first time, it can be helpful to check out AI's preset scripts, already loaded on your machine when you install the program. Play with them, break them, fix, and see how they work.

You can copy the script, save under a new name in the same directory you found them, and they'll be available in your AI scripts menu. In other words, you can use VSCode to edit, and execute that code within illustrator.

On a Windows machine, you might find them here:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2020\Presets\en_US\Scripts

I hope this helps you get started.

Milo Persic
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  • Hello, sc_props. I am running windows 10, but also have a Mac. Thanks for your help! I will do some more searching around on YouTube. I use Illustrator at work, so I can use the ExtendScript Toolkit app that is available with a Creative Cloud license. Unfortunately, I don't think I can use it on my home machine. I have looked at those scripts, and the more I learn about JavaScript the more sense they make. – Radius May 31 '20 at 20:47
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It is not easy for beginners but you try next steps (if any of steps will look complex, start again):

1) Open Visual studio code

2) Go to menu File -> new File

3) Rename file to somename.js

4) Write code in it

(if you reached this text it means you succeded)

Dmitry Reutov
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  • Thanks, Dmitry. I can get to this point. I guess I need to do some more intensive searching for some rudimentary tutorials. – Radius May 31 '20 at 20:53