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Philip Muller
Participating Frequently
August 27, 2023
Answered

Scripts not appearing in file menu

  • August 27, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 4259 views

This seems like a simple issue but I can't figure out the solution. 

I've put .jsx files in my Presets>Scripts folder, but they don't appear there after restarting the program. When I created folders within Scripts, the folders appear, but my .jsx files never do. Only the three stock scripts appear.

 

I know the scripts work because I've executed them by dragging them into Illustrator. Do they need to be reformatted or is there something else I need to do to get the scripts to appear from within my File menu? Thanks.

    Correct answer Dirk Becker

    After a couple hours in chat with Adobe support, they didn't resolve the problem, but they forwarded me to this page: Automation with scripts in Illustrator (adobe.com). 

    The suggestion is to paste this line of code into scripts, so that when a .jsx file is dragged into the program, it runs without a warning dialog box.

    app.preferences.setBooleanPreference("ShowExternalJSXWarning", false)

    It's a small workaround, but it seems like there's some other problem besides access in system settings. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll continue to investigate it. 


    That setting is a preference, so it should stick until something bad happens to your prefs.

    No need to paste the line into all scripts, before it is reached there you'd already see the dialog.

    Just keep it in one separate script.

    4 replies

    D
    David Cardillo, PRH
    Inspiring
    March 28, 2025

    I ran into this issue recently and found this page (and a few others like it), but none of the suggestions provided fixed the issue. 

    Here's what we did to fix the issue:

    In our case, this was related to the eXtended ATTRibutes (xattr) for the JSX files. (Dirk Becker alluded to it.) And it was only present on an Intel Mac, not on an M1. (In our case, they were copied — via OneDrive — from an M1 where they were working to an Intel where they failed to show up in the list.)

    Looking at the file attributes via the Terminal (ls -la), you may see an ampersand (@) at the end of the permissions for the files. (e.g. -rw-r--r--@ )

     

    In the Terminal, use the command "xattr -c yourfilename.jsx" — that will remove the @ from the extended attributes, and the scripts will show up on the next restart of Illustrator.

      B
      billgregg
      Inspiring
      May 19, 2024

      Ever discover the solution? I'm experiencing the same problem.

        Monika Gause
        Community Expert
        Monika GauseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        May 19, 2024
        @billgregg  schrieb:

        Ever discover the solution? I'm experiencing the same problem.

         

        There are a couple of answers in this thread. Did you try out all of them?

        D
        Dirk Becker
        Legend
        August 31, 2023

        Open the files in BBEdit or another code editor, copy the entire text into a new .jsx file.

        If that works, and if you're curious, have a look at the Finder Info dialog. Compare to a working file.

         

        - file ownership, access flags

        - does it have some hidden extension beyond the .jsx ?

        - is it an alias?

         

        In Terminal:

        $ ls -l /drag/file/to/terminal/for/its/path.jsx

        Thrill seeker watch out for "xattr" on the file, e.g. start from the man page in terminal.

        $ man xattr

        ... plenty prose to learn or skip

        $ xattr -l some.jsx

        There is also the "file" command.

        $ file some.jsx

        Yields "UTF-8 Unicode (with BOM) text, with CR line terminators" in my case.

         

        In either case, not all differences are bad.

          M
          Community Expert
          Manan JoshiCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          August 28, 2023

          The correct location is Presets > {Your Language folder} > Scripts. I hope you are referring to this path. Another thing that I can think of is if you are on a MAC then check if Illustrator has access to this folder or not?

          -Manan

          -Manan
            P
            Philip MullerAuthor
            Participating Frequently
            August 28, 2023

            Hi. Yes, the file path is Presets>en_US>Scripts. I don't see any restrictions on Illustrator's access to files, but these folders are inside the application folder and the application alread shows them. I wouldn't think it would show any scripts if the application didn't have folder access.

            M
            Community Expert
            Manan JoshiCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            August 29, 2023

            Did you provide Full Disk Access to Illustrator and then check?

            -Manan

            -Manan
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