executeMenuCommand() Command List

[jduncan]

While building Ai Command Palette I found a great list of executeMenuCommand() values extracted by Shalako Lee from the 2017 SDK. As you might imagine, some of those commands no longer work, and since I'm about to release v0.2.0 of Ai Command Palette I've been testing them all and keeping track of the results in this Google Sheet.

I'm sharing this here because I figured this might be useful to some of you who write scripts for Illustrator. The sheet includes the Original List of commands from Shalako and a working list of the commands that I'm testing in Ai v26.3.1.

Right now I'm about halfway through the original 506 commands from Shalako's list. So far, I've found about 90 that no longer work. I've also updated any verbiage that may have changed in the menu system (since 2017) and updated the ordering to match Ai v26.3.1.

I also, made a simple script to test the commands below if you want to test any yourself. I'm trying to test each command in context to ensure they are working correctly.

Let me know if you have any other that I may have missed... Cheers!

P.S. There is another list on this forum (posted in 2014) that I have yet to review but I am aware of it and plan to compare it with Shalako's.

var result = prompt("Enter Command To Test", "", "Test Built-In Commands");

try {
  app.executeMenuCommand(result);
} catch (e) {
  alert("Error executing command:\n" + result + "\n\n" + e);
}

[jduncan]

Another great list! I went through all of yours and added the ones I didn't have. Thanks so much!

[rcraighead]

I was not aware of the "app.selectTool()" command! Thank you.

[krasnovpro]

Command has been updated to AI 2023.

Also, maybe someone will need a list of aliases – commands from the kys file and their counterparts for executeMenuCommand:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0rl0lzy6a1aswoh/kysalias.txt?dl=0

[CarlosCanto]

thanks for the update!

[krasnovpro]

I thought a bit and made a draft of the commands change log:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nkzyv483dr4tx0t/modifiedcommands.json?dl=0

The log is inaccurate, but perhaps someone will clarify and supplement it.

[jduncan]

Yeah, so I built a new spreadsheet for my latest version of Ai Command Palette which you can see here. It has the min and max versions for menu and tool commands that I was last aware of. I plan to go through your list and add them there as well. It has a bunch of other stuff, including the localization for DE and RU. This python script I created ingests these spreadsheets (as CSV's) and creates JavaScript objects very similar to your last post (see below).

Ai Command Palette uses this to know which menu commands and tools should be available for each user depending on their system. It would be great if we could all work together to try and complete this list as much as possible. I did a bunch of testing for the last version and plan to do the same for this one when I have time.

// generated localized commands data object
{
  tool: {
    "tool_Adobe Add Anchor Point Tool": {
      action: "Adobe Add Anchor Point Tool",
      type: "tool",
      minVersion: 24,
      maxVersion: null,
      loc: {
        en: "Add Anchor Point Tool",
        de: "Ankerpunkt-hinzufügen-Werkzeug",
        ru: "Добавить опорную точку Инструмент",
      },
    },
  },
  // ...
}

[jduncan]

@krasnovpro, I went through your updated lists and got everything I didn't have added to my spreadsheet. Ai Command Palette is updated with these in v0.4.1 too. Thanks!

[CarlosCanto]

awesome work, thanks to all that contributed to put the list together.

[Disposition_Dev]

So many great resources here. Thanks to everyone for contributing and compiling these lists and even testing them in different versions.

On the topic of menu commands, my biggest gripe has always been the naming convention of the commands. In many cases, the argument required for app.executeMenuCommand() is cryptic, nonsensical, or not at all descriptive of what the command does. Additionally, the variable naming convention makes it very difficult to remember how to format the argument for the command you need. And incorrectly formatting your menu command argument brings about the dreaded MRAP/PARM. 

Would there be any interest in, or do you think you might use some kind of framework for app.executeMenuCommand() allowing the freedom to effectively namespace "app.executeMenuCommand" with a custom function name (personally, id choose emc("commandName"); but any user could choose whatever function name they want. Then within the function, the custom arguments are assigned to the appropriate argument for executeMenuCommand(). Errant arguments could also be handled more gracefully and with more useful info than a generic mrap.

This also gives freedom to the user to customize their command/argument pairs to best suit their workflow. As an example, to select all same fill colors, the default argument is "Find Fill Color menu item" in a frustrating variable letter case scheme.. I'd like to call that command with emc("sameFill"); so in my emc() function, i'd assign "sameFill" to "Find Fill Color menu item", then input the appropriate argument into executeMenuCommand();

It would also be possible to include custom logic before/after the actual menu command for certain commands. As an example, the live pathfinder effects often need to be expanded. But not always. emc() could accept another argument for enabling or disabling the paired functionality, or even just passing it in as one of the parameters. perhaps an object literal for feeding custom params to different functions.

You could also bind multiple menu commands together for common tasks, all while keeping your main code nice and tidy (a big priority of mine after many years of writing disgusting spaghetti code) with menu command arguments that make sense to YOU and are customizable for your own workflow.

If optimization is desired.. I.E, not including a giant function with 500+ commands to every script just so you can use one or two.. The commands could be split into smaller chunks by category like "File", "Edit", etc. Or even compact custom sets for production that only include the commands your code actually uses.

What do you guys think? I know extendscript/scripting-as-we-know-it is dying anyway and transitioning to UXP.. But I think this would be a pretty straightforward build that could still be useful in the interim.

[Sergey Osokin]

Small emc() chunks can be manually written for the current task. I haven't seen any scripts that use a lot of different app.executeMenuCommand().

ES will not die as long as there are users of old versions of Illustrator. And there are a lot of them, because Adobe updates are unpredictable, break paid plugins and user workflow.

[EyeballDoc]

Thank you so much for all your work!

[schroef]

Nice, i jsut noticed that some columns are hidden For instance the English column

[jduncan]

Hmm, I'm not sure why they were hidden. There were some columns also missing for additional languages. The linked Google Sheet pulls from another Google Sheet where I track more stuff for one of my projects and I had an error in the importrange formula. Cheers!

[schroef]

Is that perhaps why your palette does not "show all menu commands" as in one of your videos. If i search for it, it doesnt appear. If i go into the preferences, the initial menu item which shows, it doesnt show neither

[jduncan]

That was a built-in command that I removed a few versions ago. You can access any menu command by just searching for the command name, or the latest version has a new feature that enables searching on the command type. If you "Enable Searching on Command Type" which can be searched for or found in the "Ai Command Palette Settings..." command. After enabled, you can search for "menu" and all menu commands will show up in the results. Searching on type is disabled by default and can be toggled anytime in the palette settings. Hope that helps. Cheers!

[schroef]

Yeah found that. Pretty cool tool by the way. Very impressive since I read you started development in 2020. I guess by that you meant learn to code right?

Ps do you know of the website by Jonas to create dialog layouts for scriptui. It's super handy for creating precise and much shorter code for dialogs

Checkout out: scriptui.joonas.me

[Sergey Osokin]

I disagree with you about the short code in scriptui.joonas.me. After export you can refactor and shorten the dialog code by removing unimportant parameters, properties of dialog objects. I use it to quickly create a visual structure, but then I clean up the code afterwards. As a tool, this dialog builder is certainly good.

[schroef]

@Sergey Osokin 

Ow yeah I remove that restore section. But otherwise, it's way easier to work with vs those old files like we see in photoshop. Where each prop always has the parent prop etc etc before it. It makes referencing a bit more complicated 

[jduncan]

Really glad to hear you found the tool handy! And yes, I use scriptui.joonas.me often, mostly as a visual layout tool and reference. I typically still write most of the UI code by hand because I enjoy pain 🤣.

[schroef]

Ow really, that's a waste of time. I mean I remember prior to finding that, that checking layout takes so much time