Common Plugin Terms

These docs use a small, consistent vocabulary. This page defines the core terms so the rest of the guides read clearly.

Core terms

• Plugin: the unit you build and load. It bundles a manifest, your code, and assets.
• Manifest (manifest.json): declares the plugin's identity, the host it targets, and its entry points.
• Entry point: a declared way into your plugin, such as a panel or a command.
• Panel: an entry point that renders UI inside the host application.
• Command: an entry point that runs an action without a persistent panel.
• Script: JavaScript that drives the host through its APIs, with or without UI.
• Host: the Adobe application your plugin runs in, such as Premiere, Media Encoder, Photoshop, or InDesign.

data-slots=text

A brief history of the terminology

Over the years, Adobe Creative Cloud applications have supported ExtendScript Scripts, Flash Panels, CEP Extensions, and now UXP Plugins (either regular or hybrid) and UXP Scripts. Uniquely, Adobe Express deals with add-ons instead.

Most desktop applications also support a different kind of compiled plugin, often spelled Plug-ins, for example, Effects in Premiere or Filters in Photoshop. While that continues to be the case, these docs use plugins as a catch-all term for panels, extensions, and, eventually, scripts, to stay consistent with the other Adobe Creative Cloud applications that have migrated, or are migrating, to the UXP standard.

Mapping from CEP and ExtendScript

If you've built extensions before, this is roughly how the old vocabulary maps to UXP:

The mapping is conceptual, not line for line. For the practical migration path, see Migrate from CEP and ExtendScript.