by Steven Nuyt, Head of Product, Enfocus
Enfocus Switch is a powerful print workflow automation platform. It can also be seen as a print automation development platform. As such, Switch is open to integration with as many print production systems as possible. It communicates with islands of technology to bring print business operations into a central conduit for job files and data. Enfocus has always promoted and relied upon the Switch community of integrators and end-users. You can use apps from the Enfocus Appstore, which contains more than 120 apps that people can use to seamlessly integrate with numerous solutions. Recent Switch releases have focused even more so on providing workflow creators and users with features that make workflow development easier and accessible.
The community can develop connectivity and functionality using Node.js, which is the scripting language that Switch understands. Enfocus adopted the use of Node.js for Switch based on the enormous resources behind it. Developers are free to work in their own familiar environment with a familiar language. Scripting in Switch opens a world of possibilities to workflow automation. Centering that scripting on Node.js removes limitations on what can be developed.
Enfocus is determined to create automation tools that are accessible to workflow developers. Following the addition of support of Node.js, it only made sense to start building repositories on GitHub and npm. Enfocus will commit internally developed script solutions to GitHub and maintain those packages as official Enfocus scripts. Nearly all npm packages can be used to build Switch scripts, but in further support of the workflow automation creators, Enfocus Solution Architects are giving back.
What is GitHub?
GitHub is a tool for collaborative coding. It’s a repository for large coding projects and code snippets. Some resources are made publicly available, free to use as open source. GitHub is a widely used, industry-accepted hosting service for developers. Over 65 million developers, 3 million organizations, and more than 200 million repositories make GitHub the largest in the world.
What is npm?
https://www.npmjs.com/org/enfocussw
Node package manager is at the center of JavaScript code sharing across the globe. Node.js is an asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime that is designed to build scalable network applications. The npm repository was acquired by GitHub in 2020 and has nearly 30 billion package downloads per week.
About the Switch Scripting Module
The Switch Scripting Module provides extensive integration possibilities. It allows for the creation of custom functionality by giving users the ability to run JavaScript within a Switch flow. If it can be scripted in Node.js, Switch can automate it.
