Do you know of an NLE that has good scripting built-in? Avisynth is a script-only, no-gui solution but I'd ideally prefer something that can switch between gui and scripting and is a little better developed than avisynth is, and can't sync in with Premiere for some plugins only available there.

As a programmer, video editing in premiere is frustratingly slow where basic concepts like looping (e.g. apply this intro sequence to each of these sequences) would make things so much faster and easier.

So, looking at other options. Does Avid have somin like that? Are there more pro NLEs have those? I heard of node-based editors...

Thanks in advance!

In the meanwhile I'm resorting to using AutoHotKey to simulate various keyboard shortcuts to achieve my ends. E.g. converting all named markers to unnumbered markers so I can batch automate to sequence a bunch of slides.

So far as I know, Vegas Pro has the most extensive scripting support. Having said that, it doesn't have anything like a command line interface - you write a script, you run it in the GUI.

Good support from Sony, including a forum at sonycreativesoftware.com that is dedicated to scripting.

There are many GUI interfaces that accept AviSynth, so you can view, and change on the fly...
AVIDemux is one that comes to mind...

Edit:
Sorry, i didn't realize you're looking to do scripting WITHIN an advanced NLE for preferences..

I'm not completely sure about this, but Blender has NLE functionality, and it can be integrated with Python. Possibility?

Thanks!

Seth Bloombaum, I'll look into Vegas more deeply for its scripting support.

Peter Manojlovic, I'll look more deeply into AviSynth. there's an outdated plugin for Premiere that doesn't seem to work with CS6. It might be useful to find an avisynth-to-xml parser to do a quick rough cut that outputs xmls that can be imported easily. I'll be looking into creating that cause it would be relatively simple to write for a basic implementation. Too bad AviSynth isn't as actively developed anymore...

Or just an XML editor of some kind. Perhaps, a plugin that does little more than export an XML, allow you to make changes within a Premiere panel and imports it back in. Sometimes just being able to copy-paste large chunks of xml is what I need to accomplish what I want.

Sareesh Sudhakaran, I'll look into Blender's video editing capabilities though I found Blender frustratingly difficult to understand where the brief time I looked at Cinema4D got me making changes pretty quickly...

Part of the reason I would like to be integrated with Premiere is cause of extensive plugin support. If there's an alternative with as many plugins available, please lemme know.

I'm not sure if this would be of interest. VirtualDub as an assistant application [Updated] (http://www.lwks.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=7&id=18664&Itemid=81)

A number of Lightworks users are coming up with various bits of software that can be used with this NLE.

BTW Lightworks isn't currently open source.