ExtendScript asynchronous

Hello,

I have 2 blog posts that might help you solve this:

1. How to run recurring tasks
2. How to run system.CallSystem() asynchronously

In this example below, we will schedule a task to run ever 3 seconds and then stop after 9 seconds. 
The task is set to create a text document on your Desktop that says "Hello world!". If you delete the text file, it will automatically be created 3 seconds later in the background.

Cheers,

Breton

var seconds_run = 3; // run every 3 seconds
var seconds_stop = 9; // stop after 9 seconds


// Function that contains the command to be executed after the delay
function delayedCommand() {
    var command = 'echo "Hello world!"';
    var outputFile = "~/Desktop/output.txt";
    system.callSystem('nohup ' + command + ' > ' + outputFile + ' 2>&1 &');
}

// Stringify the function to be passed to app.scheduleTask
var recurringTaskString = delayedCommand.toSource() + "()"; // Adding code between this line and your delayedCommand function might break ExtendScript.


// Schedule the recurring task (third argument true for repetition)
var taskId = app.scheduleTask(recurringTaskString, seconds_run*1000, true); // Repeat every 5 seconds

// Cancel the recurring task
var cancel_task = "app.cancelTask(" + taskId.toString() + ")";
app.scheduleTask(cancel_task, seconds_stop*1000, false); // Repeat every 5 seconds

There is no async capability at all in FrameMaker or ExtendScript.

You can do a wait with $.sleep() but this is blocking.

There is an event loop in FrameMaker though, which can be used to trigger code based on the user (or another plugin) triggering certain events. Look into the Notification() and Notify() functions.

There is not a lot of info in the scripting guide on this, but if you look at the same functions in the FDK documentation, there is a decent overview of how the notification system works.