How to move and align objects with scripts?

Question

How to automatically move and align objects with scripts as below shown? Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks in advance!  Final effect:

Disposition_Dev · Accepted Answer

I actually created some alignment utilities for public use a while back. Given a "key object" and an array of objects you want to align, it handles all the positioning quirks (including the visible bounds thing that @jduncan mentioned).

The initial implementation was pretty clunky and awfully repetitive. So I just took some time and simpilified it. It used to be discreet functions for each different alignment option... silly. So i condensed it all down to one function called align() which takes 3 required arguments: align(key:any pageItem or artboard, otherObjects: array of pageItems you want to align, alignType: string representing the alignment option(s).

Key objects can be an artboard, pageItem, pathItem, groupItem, compoundPathItem, placedItem, linkedItem, etc. any item that falls under the umbrella of Document.pageItems.

The array of otherObjects can contain one or more pageItems. (no support for artboards yet.. i don't know if it's necessary?).

The alignType string can be one of the following: "center", "vcenter", "vtop", "vbottom", "hcenter", "hleft", "hright", "botleft", "botright", "topleft", "topright", "leftcenter", "rightcenter", "topcenter", "botcenter"

source code located here:

https://github.com/wdjsdev/public_illustrator_scripts/blob/master/alignment_functions.js

and the dependency code here:

https://github.com/wdjsdev/public_illustrator_scripts/blob/master/object_bounds_data.js

This is the code that handles the visible bounds quirks that vasily and josh mentioned.

Silly-V · Answer

Given simple line-art you can simply loop the items to correct their .top and .left properties. As these objects are the same dimensions with the example they will by definition already be aligned centrally to the targets.

Assuming that your layers are just as you have them:
var targetObjects = doc.layers.getByName("Target Position").pathItems;
var objectsToMove = [
doc.layers.getByName("To move aligned objects").layers[0].pathItems[0],

doc.layers.getByName("To move aligned objects").layers[1].pathItems[0],

doc.layers.getByName("To move aligned objects").layers[2].pathItems[0]
];

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

objectsToMove[i].top = targetObjects[i].top;

objectsToMove[i].left = targetObjects[i].left;

}

This is a very rudimentary example and it can work with your specific situation because of the object dimensions and the order of target and source items is the same. The order actually does not have to be the same in the layers, as long as you ensure to put them into the same order within your code so when the loop runs, it will be directed to match the proper target and source items.

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