Dealing with Compound Paths made of Groups

It's been years since I had to deal with this, and I'm surprised there isn't a working function posted here.

Anyway, here's what I came up with. Replace the argument in the function call to however you've defined your compound path (or group) item.

var i = {}, doc = activeDocument

firstPathInContainer( doc.selection[0] )



function firstPathInContainer( item ) {

  if( item.pathItems.length ) return item.pathItems[0]

  var path, sel, type

  doc.selection = item

  type = item.typename
  if( type == 'CompoundPathItem' ) 
    app.executeMenuCommand('noCompoundPath')
  else if( type == 'GroupItem' )
    app.executeMenuCommand('ungroup')

  sel = activeDocument.selection
  for( i.sel=0; i.sel<sel.length; i.sel++ ) {
    if( path = firstPathInContainer( sel[i.sel] ) ) break;
  }

  doc.selection = sel
  if( type == 'CompoundPathItem')
    app.executeMenuCommand('compoundPath')
  else if( type == 'GroupItem' )
    app.executeMenuCommand('group')

  return path
}

Hope you know how to install aip files.

Win only, 64 bit, CC-CC2015. Works with selection. Look at Objects menu.

Here it is.​

Seems the plugin works correctly, but I have not tested it much.

pesky compoundpath groups, you should Release CompoundPath, Ungroup, keep ungrouping until group count reaches zero, re-Make CompountPath...these days it's easy with ExecuteMenuCommand.

Ugh there are some ways - here is one: you select the compound path and then go through doc.pathItems and look only at the selected ones - then see each one's .parent property to see if it's a [GroupItem].

#target illustrator

function test(){

  var doc = app.activeDocument;

  var a = doc.compoundPathItems["A"];

  alert("A Path Items: " + a.pathItems.length); // does not reveal true pathItems contents as some are hidden inside a group!

  a.selected = true;

  var thisPath;

  for(var i=0; i<doc.pathItems.length; i++){

    thisPath = doc.pathItems;

    if(thisPath.selected){

      alert(thisPath.parent);

    }

  };

};

test();

I always thought this was a bug, so I tried to use Flatten Transparency whenever possible to eradicate such groups!