InDesign Script is not working any more with update 2020 to 2021 on InDesignServer

Hi together,

I came accross an issue that perhaps is related though, I see it in the current dektop version of my German InDesign 2023 on macOS ( had no chance to test with earlier versions or with a Windows version; will do later ) .

There is this feature Merge Swatches in the GUI. And also method merge() with Colors and Swatches in ExtendScript.

If you do this with unused swatches the remaining swatch in NOT listed in the unusedSwatches array.

The GUI will not select the remaining swatch as unused with menu command Select All Unused in the Swatches panel.

To see this with a new, default document:

[1] Add a new document.

[2] Open the Swatches panel.

[3] Use the menu command "Select All Unused".

[4] Use the menu command "Merge Swatches".

All selected swatches will be merged to one of the selected ones.

In our default document with a default German InDesign the remaining swatch of all removable swatches will be:

"C=0 M=0 Y=100 K=0".

[5] Use the menu command "Select All Unused".

Result: No swatch will be selected.

Is this a bug? And if not, where is the remaining swatch used?

Inspect the array app.documents[0].unusedSwatches.

The color named C=0 M=0 Y=100 K=0 is not listed.

Note: The array is perhaps not empty, because there could be unnamed colors that are not used and therefore are listed.

What I also tried in the GUI:

Find Colors > C=0 M=0 Y=100 K=0

Result: There are no instances found where the color is in use.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

The code looks fine and as you say it works on CC2020 then this makes it more interesting. As @m1b mentioned did you do some more debugging around this issue. Predominantely the following are the points that I would look into before coming to a conclusion that this is a bug.

• Did you try the same code snippet on the same InDD document on both CC2021 and CC2022 IDS versions? We need to make sure that even the document on which the code is working is the same across our tests
• Does CC2021 give a valid list of unsusedswatches or is the list empty?
• Any message on the console when you execute the remove method. Maybe you could use a try catch block and log message in the catch section?
• Are you able to delete swatches at all in CC2021 IDS? Or is this problem restricted to just unusedswatches?

Hope looking at these points and what @m1b pointed we more closer to a conclusion.

-Manan

Hi @Nobat5C29, I've never used Indesign Server, so we might have to wait for an expert, but a perhaps there's a couple of things you could try. One is to write to the console to check that anything is happening, eg. maybe it isn't storing unused swatches? Another is (long shot!) to copy the Document.unusedSwatches to a normal array before removing it in case there is a referencing problem as the swatches are removed.

- Mark

var myDoc = app.documents.firstItem();

// copy to an array
var unusedSwatches = [];
for (var i = 0; i < myDoc.unusedSwatches.length; i++) {
    unusedSwatches.push(myDoc.unusedSwatches[i]);
}

for (var i = unusedSwatches.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {

    // this line should write to the console in Indesign Server
    app.consoleout("Removing unused swatch " + unusedSwatches[i].name);

    unusedSwatches[i].remove();
}