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# Supported Scripting Languages

The ActiveX-compliant scripting languages supported by Softimage are:

VBScript

VBScript is the default scripting language used by Autodesk Softimage. The Softimage installation automatically includes VBScript on Linux and Windows, if it is not already installed. You can also download the Windows version and obtain further documentation from MSDN.

JScript

JScript is an ActiveX-compliant version of the JavaScript scripting language. The Autodesk Softimage installation automatically includes JScript on Linux and Windows, if it is not already installed. You can also download the Windows version and obtain further documentation from MSDN.

Important

MainWin, the Win32 emulator used to run on Linux, currently only supports version 3 of JScript. This is the version of JScript that was supported in Internet Explorer 4.

Support for error trapping (try/catch) was only added to the JScript language in version 5.

PerlScript

PerlScript is a version of the Perl scripting language that supports ActiveX. It is included in ActivePerl, which is available for Windows and can be downloaded from ActiveState. The recommended version for Softimage is ActivePerl-5.8.0.805.

Important

With PerlScript, the scripting engine does not stop on errors. You cannot terminate using Ctrl+Break.

Python

Python ActiveX Scripting is a version of the Python scripting language that supports ActiveX. Mark Hammond's script extensions for Python are required for Python ActiveX to work in Softimage and are bundled in a module called pywin32 (formerly called win32all or win32com).

Softimage installs Python and the pywin32 extensions automatically:

- For Windows the recommended version of Python is v2.6.4.

- For Linux the recommended version of Python is v2.5.2.

- The recommended version of the pywin32 extensions for both Windows and Linux is v214.

Note

If you want to use a different version of Python in Softimage than the one that was installed with Softimage, you can set the location of the Python directory to use with the PYTHONPATH user preference.

For more information on using Python with the Softimage SDK, check out the Python Scripting section.