Thanks.  The key is "moveToBeginning," which is not documented.  It is mentioned under Brush in AICS5 Scripting Reference: Javascript.  With that piece of information, I found this thread that also explains it. ... View more

Thanks.  I guess I'll have to try something like that. ... View more

True, I could store the geometricBounds or visibleBounds, but these don't have the methods for top, bottom, right, left, width, height.  I tried to make a class, but ExtendScript tells me I'm making "illegal use of reserved word 'class,'"  so I haven't pursued that further yet. I would like to write a generic "align" routine that would align two objects, but some items have top and height while others have top and bottom, so the procedure to align depends on which kind of object is passed.  Putting a class wrapper around geometricBounds would do it since they all seem to have geometricBounds, but I haven't figured out how to do that either.  I could also use "geometricBounds[0]" etc, but that makes the code big and obscure. As you can tell, I'm new to javascript and this is my learning process.  Extendscript seems to differ somewhat from conventional javascript, making the effort a bit more difficult. ... View more

I am looking for a Rectangle that I can store in an array, not one in a document.  Maybe such a thing doesn't exist.  Specifically, I am trying to center text labels in circles when they are already in a circle.  I can get the geometricBounds or visibleBounds of each, but I don't know how to get that in an array.  Placing a Rectangle in the array would satisfy the need.  It would be nice to get the functionality of width, height, relative to top, bottom, left, right, that a Rectangle offers.  Oddly enough, text objects have different parameters of these available than do circles.  I would like a class Rectangle that tracks all these when I set them and ask for them. ... View more

At this point, I'm experimenting and trying to learn what can and cannot be done with scripts.  Mostly I'm finding thing I can't do.  I have about 50 symbols in my test drawing. I do mean the break link in the UI.  It is surprising that javascript doesn't have an equivalent, but I've been discovering a lot of shortcomings in js.  Maybe I should consider plug-ins instead. If I group the symbol first, I get a group within a group when I break the link. Thanks for your input. ... View more

Thanks for looking at these questions. I know about deleting the Symbol to break the link, but using delete symbol to break the link is incredibly inefficient.  My program is spending over 95% of the time on that one command.  CS5 has a break link command, but I don't know how to access it from javascript.  I was hoping that would be more efficient than deleting the symbol. When I delete the symbol, the instance is moved from the list of SymbolItems to the list of GroupItems.  It seems to end up as the last group in the layer, but I haven't seen any guarantee of this.  When using the break link command, CS5 creates a layer within a layer.  If the javascript equivalent does the same, I can "group" the layer, move the group outside the layer, then delete the layer.  I'm wondering if there's a better way. Is there any reason I might prefer a group over a layer?  If not, why have groups at all, just use layers? ... View more

I was able to make these accessible with this code:     app.documents[0]                     // Make Document available     app.documents[0].symbols[0]    // make Symbol object available I don't know how to make PageItem available using this technique.  If you try it, Extendscript seems to use the derivative object, not the PageItem.  It is necessary to touch the PageItem, not its descendent. This code has problems if the document doesn't have symbols or the document isn't open.  The extended code needs protection for these cases too. ... View more

Assuming I'm willing to take the risk, how can I extend the Document object?  It doesn't work like the Application object.  I tried all different types of prototyping, but nothing seems to do the trick.  This thread contains an explanation why you (Harbs) don't like to extend Object.  It also contains this example      // make global"Pages" object available       app.activeDocument.pages; that would indicate you need to somehow make the "Pages" object available.  I tried adding       app.activeDocument to make Document available, but it doesn't work.  It also doesn't work with Symbol.  It does work with Application.  What's the difference?  How do I get it working in these other cases? ... View more

Can you point me somewhere that explains "Don't!"  What kind of trouble?  Why is this any worse than having to use javascript at all? ... View more

Of the descendents of PageItem (CompoundPathItem, GraphItem, GroupItem, LegacyTextItem, MeshItem, NonNativeItem, PathItem, PlacedItem, PluginItem, RasterItem, SymbolItem, and TextFrameItem), only PlacedItem, RasterItem, and TextFrameItem have a matrix property.  For the others, how does one access the matrix values?  It's possible the plug-in libraries in C might work, i.e. AISymbolSuite, AIRasterSuite, etc..  Is it possible to access these from javascript?  How? ... View more

Objects do not have "matrix" values, but they do have controlBounds, visibleBounds, and geometricBounds.  Unfortunately, it is not possible to use these to distinguish whether the object is rotated 180 degrees, since the values of these will be identical at 0 and 180 degrees, or for that matter, any orientation 180 degrees apart from another orientation.  If the object has equal width and length, it is not even possible to determine whether it has been rotated 90 degrees.  Objects also have position, top, height, left, and width which can be derived from the above, so they don't provide any additional information.  Determining rotation from 0 to 180 degrees using the above requires using time-consuming trig functions, but you still cannot determine whether you are off by 180 degrees.  Illy knows how much the object has been rotated, but it does not appear willing to provide that information to the Javascript programmer. ... View more

Here is the code to view the components of a symbol: function unlinkSymbol(mySymb){      var symbLayer=findOrCreateLayer("SymbolsTemp-----")      var dupSymbol=mySymb.duplicate()            // Duplicate the symbol      symbLayer.visible = true                             // Layer must be visible and unlocked      symbLayer.locked = false      symbLayer.symbolItems.add(dupSymbol)    // Place duplicate symbol on symbLayer      dupSymbol.remove()                                   // Break the link      var myGroup = symbLayer.groupItems[symbLayer.groupItems.length-1]      myGroup.name = mySymb.name                // Name the group same as the original      symbLayer.visible = false                            // Hide the layer, delete it later      return myGroup } ... View more

I wrote this function which worked for me:     function findOrCreateLayer(layerName) {         try { var myLayer = app.activeDocument.layers.getByName(layerName) }         catch (err) {             myLayer = app.activeDocument.layers.add();             myLayer.name = layerName;          }         finally {             return myLayer;          }     } This works to get a layer:     var myColorLayer = findOrCreateLayer("Color") ; If the layer does not exist, it creates a layer with "layerName" as its name. ... View more