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Max Mugen
Max Mugen
Inspiring
February 13, 2023
Question

Share Actions with scripts

  • February 13, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 1325 views

So what would be the most elegant way of dealing with sharing actions that run customs scripts inside of them?

If I have to share it with other people, I’d need to include,
1/ the AIA action,
2/ the Jsx scripts with folder structure
3/ some instructions on how to install scripts.

- Is it the only way to go?
- I’m not knowledgeable enough with JSX coding yet to create something as complex as actions, with scripting, at least for now. So can we somehow embed the JSX code somewhere else?
- About folder structure, I realized that a folder structure organization of script might work for me, but it is not practical for export as the user need to have the exact same path on his computer also.
So maybe next time, it would be best to organize scripts by action folder?
For example /User JSX Scripts for Actions > Action 01 > script 01, script 02, …


Any pointers on good practices would be great.


Also, I wanted to shout out a big thank you to the community here. You all are fantastic!! thanks for sharing knowledge, code, and more for free and super nicely, it was super duper helpful in my way of learning scripting.
I’m def hooked, I spent one-month learning code, and haven’t created any artwork since.
so thanks a lot!

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

S
sttk3
Legend
February 14, 2023

You want to call a script from an action, is that correct?

 

This is a recurring theme, as jduncan writes on the following page, someone crashes Illustrator and asks the forum for a solution, week after week. It would be better to stop.
Illustrator crashes when call action with app.doscript

 

See the topic here to find out why it wouldn’t work.
Using an Action to run JavaScript that runs another Action... or other solutions?

 

Calling an action from a script is more stable. Then, as m1b says, you can use dynamic actions to eliminate file dependencies.

    Max Mugen
    Max MugenAuthor
    Inspiring
    February 14, 2023

    thank you for the info 🙂

    -- maxmugen.com
    m1b
    Community Expert
    m1bCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 13, 2023

    Another element to this topic: dynamic actions—actions generated by a script. You can see an example in sttk3's "translateAction" function on this thread (you will need to follow the link in his snippet to get the full code). I haven't really used them myself, but it is a powerful technique when the scripting API is lacking something that actions can handle.

    - Mark

      Max Mugen
      Max MugenAuthor
      Inspiring
      February 14, 2023

      thank you for the pointers, I'll dig that too 

      -- maxmugen.com
      CarlosCanto
      Community Expert
      CarlosCantoCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      February 13, 2023

      hmm, there aren't many options here. For distribution and storage, actions and scripts can be saved anywhere but at the end of the day, Actions have to be loaded and scripts have to be installed. 

       

      Is that what you're asking for?

      Max Mugen
      Max MugenAuthor
      Inspiring
      February 14, 2023

      The simple answer, yes that was what I was asking for 🙂 

      It was obvious maybe but I wanted to ask because maybe I was not aware of other advanced processes around scripting. 
      Like encoding binary data into scripts, but that's another topic 😊 

      https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/js-cs3-4-scriptui-how-to-color-a-button/td-p/2198710

      -- maxmugen.com
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