How to access rotation angle of group via scripting

[skivvie]

How do I access the rotation angle of an object, specifically a group, via script? I've tried BBAccumRotation tag and selectedObject.rotation, but I keep getting errors. I know the value exists in Illustrator as shown in the Properties tab:

I'm trying to write a script that take the rotation value of a selected object and applies the negative of that value to the second selected object. 

All help appreciated. Thanks!

[femkeblanco · Accepted solution]

I think a group doesn't have a BBAccumRotation tag , but paths within a group do.  Assuming that paths within a group will have the same tag, you can access the first one (selection[0] is a selected group):

alert(app.selection[0].pathItems[0].tags[0].name + ": \
" + app.selection[0].pathItems[0].tags[0].value * 180 / Math.PI);

(Courtesy of Silly-V).

[skivvie]

Great! That seems to return a proper value... 

Would you be so super kind as to help with the rest of the script? I'm a total scripting hack and while I can generally read what's going on I'm having a hard time getting it to work. This is what I was dealing with previously from ChatGPT:

// Check if a document is open in Illustrator
if (app.documents.length > 0) {
    // Get the active document
    var doc = app.activeDocument;

    // Check if exactly two objects are selected
    if (doc.selection.length == 2) {
        // Get the first selected object
        var selectedObject1 = doc.selection[0];
        // Get the rotation angle of the first selected object
        var rotationAngle = selectedObject1.rotation;

        // Get the second selected object
        var selectedObject2 = doc.selection[1];

        // Apply opposite rotation angle to the second selected object
        selectedObject2.rotate(-rotationAngle);
    } else {
        alert("Please select exactly two objects in Illustrator.");
    }
} else {
    alert("Please open a document in Illustrator.");
}

That's the jist of what I'm trying to do. Much appreciated!

[femkeblanco]

Note that "the first selected object" refers to the topmost of the two selected objects.  (If this doesn't have a rotation tag, an error will occur.)  If you want it the other way around, swap the 0 and 1 in doc.selection[0] and doc.selection[1]. 

// Check if a document is open in Illustrator
if (app.documents.length > 0) {
    // Get the active document
    var doc = app.activeDocument;
    // Check if exactly two objects are selected
    if (doc.selection.length == 2) {
        // Get the first and second selected objects
        var selectedObject1 = doc.selection[0];
        var selectedObject2 = doc.selection[1];

        // Get the rotation angle of the first selected object
        var rotationAngle = selectedObject1.pathItems[0].tags[0].value * 180 / Math.PI;

        // Apply opposite rotation angle to the second selected object
        selectedObject2.rotate(-rotationAngle);
    } else {
        alert("Please select exactly two objects in Illustrator.");
    }
} else {
    alert("Please open a document in Illustrator.");
}

[skivvie]

!! Awesome! That works great! Thank you so much. This will save me time as this is a often repeated step in a production path for fabric panels I deal with all day =]

One last thing... I noticed that the second object, after being rotated, does not show a rotation value in the properties panel. I usually use this to set the rotation back to zero after applying some other processes to that object. Any idea how to apply the rotation so that it shows as a property?