Get object of items by script label

Hi Rob,

I could be wrong on this, but my explanation why allPageItems is very fast would be:
allPageItems is not created by the ExtendScript architecture that is on top of everything else but allPageItems is directly done and exposed to the scripting layer with CC++ code.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Michael said:

We have legacy applescript code (CS 5.5) that allowed to create an Object of items by a specific Script Label.

Can you share that code?

Maybe we can then see if it is possible or efficient to port it to ExtendScript.

Hm. That said: Does your legacy code use the allPageItems array?

And you are lookin for a faster way to do things?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Are you trying to move the Applescript to Javascript, or just get the AS to run faster?

In AppleScript I can’t use a whose qualifier on all page items to get a limited list—it returns an error and I’m forced to loop thru the entire list:

tell application id "com.adobe.indesign"
	set api to all page items of active document whose label is "red"
	--returns "Can’t get all page items of active document of application \"Adobe InDesign CC 2018\" whose label = \"red\". Access not allowed." number -1723
end tell

I can use whose with every page item, but that only gets the top items and skips things like nested groups and anchors. So this only returns 2 of the 6 items with a "red" label because I’ve buried 4 of them in nested groups and text frames.

What might help would be to get an initial list via every page item whose label is..., and the concentate the list by looking inside of groups and text frames, which all page items will get. So this gets a list that includes all 6 of the frames labeled "red"—I think this could be easily translated into JS:

tell application id "com.adobe.indesign"
	
	--gets the top level page items
	set r to every page item of active document whose label is "red"
	
	--all apge items and check by class where we can use every page item of x whose...
	set api to all page items of active document
	
	repeat with x in api
		if class of x is group or class of x is text frame then
			set nr to (every page item of x whose label is "red")
			
			--add the found objects to the list
			set r to r & nr
		end if
	end repeat
	
	get count of r
	--returns 6
end tell

Hi Michael,

the best strategy to reduce the numbers of page items you like to visit depends on where you like to look into objects. Do you like to look inside nested structures like groups or anchored objects as well? Also buttons and multistate objects? Note objects perhaps? Then even allPageItems will not get them all.

If you want to gather only "first class" items of the document without nested structures and check for a specific label you could do two things:

1. Option: Create an array with:

app.documents[0].pageItems.everyItem().getElements();

and loop that array. It's length should be shorter than app.documents[0].allPageItems if your document contains nested structures. However it will also take its time to create it vs. allPageItems that is "already" available.

2. Option: Set back the scripting environment temporarily to the one of InDesign CS4 and get all the objects with:

app.documents[0].pageItems.item( "labelvalue");

Sample code for option 2:

var labelContents = "FindMe" ;

// Store the version of the current scripting environment:
var currentScriptingEnvironment = app.scriptPreferences.version ;

// Set the scripting environment to the version of InDesign CS4:
app.scriptPreferences.version = "6.0";

// Do something in the old CS4 environment
// Something that can only be done in the old environment like this:

var foundByLabelArray = 
app.documents[0].pageItems.item( labelContents ).getElements();

// IMPORTANT: Set the scripting environment back:
app.scriptPreferences.version = currentScriptingEnvironment;

// Loop through the foundByLabelArray and do something to the found elements:

for( var n=0; n<foundByLabelArray.length; n++ )
{
	foundByLabelArray[n].fillColor = "Magenta";
};

If you need all nested stuff as well I fear you'd need either loop the allPageItems array ( that does not cover all elements ) or you have to loop through all pageItems by ID until really all page items are visited.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )