Programmatic access to formula parameters

Is there a way to set formula parameters programmatically, be displayed in the GUI and allow further manual tweaks?

Eg I have a formula parameter set q1,.., q8 which I give random values programmatically but then want to tweak manually.

Here's an example of what I think that you want to do.

In the init section, q1 is set to a random value. The value used in the formula is tweaked by the dq1 parameter, which you can change manually.

example {

init:
  int s = random(@seed)
  complex q1 = (-0.5,-0.5) + (abs(s) + flip(random(s)))/#randomrange
  q1 = q1 + @dq1

loop:
  z = sqr(z + q1) + #pixel

bailout:
  |z| <= @bailout

default:
  title = "example"
  complex param dq1
    caption = "add to q1"
    default = (0,0)
  endparam
  int param seed
    caption = "seed"
    default = 123456789
  endparam
  float param bailout
    caption = "Bailout value"
    default = 4.0
    min = 1.0
  endparam

}

Yes that workaround is what I do now but I don't want to.

In your example I want a parameter @q1, filled with that calculated vale, and showing up in GUI for further tweaking.

My question is is there a way to programmatically do the equivalent of assignments like @q = value? No, I think, but asking anyways.

At the moment there is no way to do that. I've got a feature request about this on my list already.