Assign an ID to an Element

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 20, 2018
2 replies
2339 views

When I right + click on an element, I can choose Assign ID to Element. Is there an ExtendScript function or method for doing this? Thanks.

Alternatively, is there a solid JavaScript algorithm for generating an unique value? -Rick

Scripting

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4everJang

Legend

No need for all kinds of code, Rick. Every object in FrameMaker has a unique ID. When you have the element object, you can read that unique ID from its Unique property. Note, however, that these are numbers. To make these valid IDs in XML you need to prepend them with a character, as IDs cannot start with a digit.

I have been using this for as long as ExtendScript exists and never found a duplicate ID.

Ian Proudfoot

Legend

Agreed Jang, which is what my answer (post 4) stated.

- Ian

4everJang

Legend

I overlooked that in the thread, just saw the XPath mentions and thought that is absolute overkill. :-)

Ian Proudfoot

Legend

ExtendScript supports XPath through the E4X extension. So you could use the XPath generate-id().

I believe that the FrameMaker Assign ID to Element command was originally part of the DITA add-in, so maybe it's possible to access it that way?

Ian Proudfoot

Legend

But of course there isn't a direct correlation between the FrameMaker object model and the E4X model...

frameexpert

Author

Community Expert

Hi Ian,

It looks like ExtendScript's xpath method returns an XML object, so I don't think I can use an xpath function to return a string value. Thanks for the reply.

Rick

www.frameexpert.com

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