Automatic instance names when importing from Photoshop

Actually it is possible.

Because luckily Animate sets the layer name of each imported asset to the original PSD layer name and also keep the imported objects selected. So all we have to do is to save the selection and set each selected item name to its corresponding layer name.

So here is the code:

function renameInstances(importToLibrary, showDialog, showImporterUI)
{
    if (importToLibrary === undefined) importToLibrary = false;    
    if (showDialog === undefined) showDialog = true;    
    if (showImporterUI === undefined) showImporterUI = false;
    
    var doc = fl.getDocumentDOM();
    var selection;
    var uri = fl.browseForFileURL("select", "Import File");
    doc.importFile(uri, importToLibrary, showDialog, showImporterUI);
    selection = doc.selection;
    doc.selectNone();
    for (var i = 0; i < selection.length; i++)
    {
        var name;
        var validName = /^[$A-Z_][0-9A-Z_$]*$/i;
        
        selection.selected = true;
        
        name = selection.layer.name;    
        
        if (selection.instanceType != "symbol")
        {
            doc.convertToSymbol("movie clip", name, "center");
            
            if (validName.test(name))
                doc.selection[0].name = name;
            
            doc.selectNone();
            
            continue;
        }
        
        if (validName.test(name))
            selection.name = name;
        
        selection.selected = false;
    }
}
renameInstances(false, true, false);

Please notice some things:

- The script makes a basic name validation. So make sure to not name your PSD layers to invalid names for AS3, like names starting with number, that have blank space, special characters or reserved words like "var" or "Number". If the name is invalid, the script will leave the instance name empty.

[OPTIONAL]

- The last line (43) is where the function is called: renameInstances(importToLibrary, showDialog, showImporterUI). The three arguments you can pass are:

• importToLibrary: if the imported assets will be added to stage or not. To add them to stage, set to false;

• showDialog: wheter or not to call the Import dialog box. Set to true to show it.

• showImporterUI: specifies whether to display errors visually (for example, using the Library Conflict dialog box). The default is false.

Download the script here: rename_instances_from_psd_layers.jsfl. To use the script, drag and drop over the Animate IDE or go to Commands > Run Command....

I hope it helps.

Regards,

JC

you can use jsfl to assign instance names to eligible objects, but what kind of eligible objects are you importing from photoshop?