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gisteppen
gisteppen
Known Participant
February 5, 2014
Question

Is Find() dependable or should I use something else?

  • February 5, 2014
  • 1 reply
  • 867 views

I'm trying to use Doc.Find() to find paragraphs that have changebars. Is Find() advisable generally or should I spend my time using some other method, like iterating through Pgf objects?

I'm also assuming that the place to look for changebars is the Pgf objects (Pgf.ChangeBar), not the TextItem objects. Am I on the right track?

Thanks,

Mark

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1 reply

frameexpert
Community Expert
frameexpertCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 5, 2014

I don't like to use Find in FrameScript for this type of thing, so I wouldn't recommend it with ExtendScript either. I prefer to inerate through paragraphs, then check each paragraph for CharPropsChange text items. You can't just look at the paragraph level, because you could have text inside the paragraph that has change bars applied. Rick.

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gisteppen
gisteppenAuthor
Known Participant
February 6, 2014

So is this a reasonable way to find a changebar:

var doc = app.ActiveDoc;

var pgf = doc.MainFlowInDoc.FirstTextFrameInFlow.FirstPgf;

while(pgf.ObjectValid()) {

    var textitems = pgf.GetText(Constants.FTI_CharPropsChange);

   

    for (var i=0; i < textitems.len ; i +=1)

    {

        var x = textitems.idata & Constants.FTF_CHANGEBAR

        if (x == 0) {

           $.writeln ('I have a changebar');

        }

    }

    

    pgf = pgf.NextPgfInFlow;

}

gisteppen
gisteppenAuthor
Known Participant
February 6, 2014

My code above was not correct, it did not find changebars. I had to discover some arcane (to me at least) bitwise operator knowledge that is not included in the Fm docs. I realized that to find a changebar, the result of ANDing TextItem.idata and Constants.FTF_CHANGEBAR must be greater than 0. So my code worked when I changed this line:

     if (x == 0) {

To this:

     if (x > 0) {

Here is the working code (corrections and suggestions welcome!):

var doc = app.ActiveDoc;

var pgf = doc.MainFlowInDoc.FirstTextFrameInFlow.FirstPgf;

while(pgf.ObjectValid()){

    var textitems = pgf.GetText(Constants.FTI_CharPropsChange);

   

    for (var i=0; i < textitems.len ; i +=1)

    {

        // The result of the AND must be greater than 0 or no changebar.

        var x = textitems.idata & Constants.FTF_CHANGEBAR;

        if (x > 0) {

           $.writeln ('I have a changebar');

        }

    }

    pgf = pgf.NextPgfInFlow;

}

Now what the significance of the TextItem.idata field is, is still beyond me. The docs say it is "The ID of the object if the text item is an object." But why would you need to AND that ID with some constant?  Mark

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