[ESTK] Very fast way to delete a huge list with ExtendScript - HowTo

Report · Dec 01, 2019

I had trouble deleting a list of many items (over 200) with ExtendScript. FrameMaker has not responded for a very long time or is frozen.
I found a way to speed up the process considerably.

I hope that it will help some of you.

In the example more than 2000 items are built and deleted.
Of course you can adjust the counter.

var MyArray = ["A","B","C","D"];
var MyArray2 = ["Ax","Bx","Cx","Dx"];
var MaxCount = 2000;

for (var i = 0; i < MaxCount; i++)
    {
     MyArray.push("AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" + i);   
    }

var oDia = new Window("dialog","RemoveItems",undefined);

oDia.OuterBox = oDia.add("panel",undefined,"FRAME");
oDia.OuterBox.size = [300,350];
oDia.InnerGroup = oDia.OuterBox.add("group",undefined,"");
   
oDia.ItemList = oDia.InnerGroup.add("listbox",undefined,MyArray);
oDia.ItemList.size = [250,300];
var dButtonR = oDia.add("button",undefined,"RemoveAll");
dButtonR.onClick = AllRemove;

var dButtonR = oDia.add("button",undefined,"Remove(quick)");
dButtonR.onClick = KillList;
oDia.layout.layout (true);

oDia.show();

function KillList()
{
    oDia.OuterBox.remove(0);  
  
    oDia.ItemList = oDia.OuterBox.add("listbox",undefined,MyArray2);

    oDia.ItemList.size = [250,300];
   oDia.layout.layout (true);
   
   oDia.update();
}

function AllRemove()
{
    oDia.ItemList .removeAll();

    for (var i = 0; i < MyArray2.length; i++)
        {
         oDia.ItemList.add("item", MyArray2[i]); 
        }
}