Bridge Scripting Capabilities (CS3 Javascript)

Report · Jun 10, 2010

Hi -- We have many users at our company who need to edit metadata in images (primarily jpegs, but some tifs). These users do not have access to Photoshop but do have access to Bridge.

I have written a script in Bridge that opens a dialog window for them to edit certain metadata. It is accessed through the tools menu.

The problem is I need to further automate the process but am unsure what the capabilities of Bridge are.

What I would like to try to do:

Currently the user would need to open Bridge, select the item (or drag the item onto the Bridge shorcut) and choose the script from the tools menu. Would there be any way to automate this further, maybe through some sort of folder action, or a trigger when the user drags a file onto the shortcut. Or is there anyway to assign shortcut keys in Bridge to Scripts?

Also, is there anyway to script Bridge so that the files will be copied (and renamed) to a specific folder (again, without photoshop)?

Any ideas would be appreciated. I have not used Bridge that much, so if I am going the wrong direction with this, please speak up. If anyone wants to point me in another direction, that would fine.

thanks

Report · Jun 17, 2010

Hello,

I'm a Bridge Quality Engineer.

If you want to write the scripts to auto your cases, please firstly download Bridge SDK and read the DOM API of Bridge. I believe these documents will help you a lot. Please download the SDK from http://www.adobe.com/devnet/bridge/, and read the doc in folder 'docs'. The API provided are described in Bridge CS3 JavaScript Reference.pdf.

After read it, you will find you can call the API to auto the process instead of 'through some sort of folder action, or a trigger when the user drags a file onto the shortcut'.

And you can also get help by launching Adobe ExtendScript Tooolkit, which is installed automatically when Bridge is installed. By select menu Help-> Object Model Viewer, you can get info of Bridge DOM API, and also Core JavaScript Classes and Script UI Classes.

Please check the API of File and Folder(in Core JavaScript Classes), and you can find File has copy() API, by using which you can copy files to a specific folder.

If you have further question, please send it out.

Thanks for support!

BR,

Chun Xia