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R
Raymond ZJH
Inspiring
August 18, 2022
Answered

How to move and align objects with scripts?

  • August 18, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 4948 views

How to automatically move and align objects with scripts as below shown? Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks in advance!

 

 

Final effect:

Correct answer Disposition_Dev

I actually created some alignment utilities for public use a while back. Given a "key object" and an array of objects you want to align, it handles all the positioning quirks (including the visible bounds thing that @jduncan mentioned).

 

The initial implementation was pretty clunky and awfully repetitive. So I just took some time and simpilified it. It used to be discreet functions for each different alignment option... silly. So i condensed it all down to one function called align() which takes 3 required arguments: align(key:any pageItem or artboard, otherObjects: array of pageItems you want to align, alignType: string representing the alignment option(s).

 

Key objects can be an artboard, pageItem, pathItem, groupItem, compoundPathItem, placedItem, linkedItem, etc. any item that falls under the umbrella of Document.pageItems.

 

The array of otherObjects can contain one or more pageItems. (no support for artboards yet.. i don't know if it's necessary?).

 

The alignType string can be one of the following: "center", "vcenter", "vtop", "vbottom", "hcenter", "hleft", "hright", "botleft", "botright", "topleft", "topright", "leftcenter", "rightcenter", "topcenter", "botcenter"

 

source code located here:

https://github.com/wdjsdev/public_illustrator_scripts/blob/master/alignment_functions.js

 

and the dependency code here:

https://github.com/wdjsdev/public_illustrator_scripts/blob/master/object_bounds_data.js

This is the code that handles the visible bounds quirks that vasily and josh mentioned. 

2 replies

Disposition_Dev
Disposition_DevCorrect answer
Legend
August 18, 2022

I actually created some alignment utilities for public use a while back. Given a "key object" and an array of objects you want to align, it handles all the positioning quirks (including the visible bounds thing that @jduncan mentioned).

 

The initial implementation was pretty clunky and awfully repetitive. So I just took some time and simpilified it. It used to be discreet functions for each different alignment option... silly. So i condensed it all down to one function called align() which takes 3 required arguments: align(key:any pageItem or artboard, otherObjects: array of pageItems you want to align, alignType: string representing the alignment option(s).

 

Key objects can be an artboard, pageItem, pathItem, groupItem, compoundPathItem, placedItem, linkedItem, etc. any item that falls under the umbrella of Document.pageItems.

 

The array of otherObjects can contain one or more pageItems. (no support for artboards yet.. i don't know if it's necessary?).

 

The alignType string can be one of the following: "center", "vcenter", "vtop", "vbottom", "hcenter", "hleft", "hright", "botleft", "botright", "topleft", "topright", "leftcenter", "rightcenter", "topcenter", "botcenter"

 

source code located here:

https://github.com/wdjsdev/public_illustrator_scripts/blob/master/alignment_functions.js

 

and the dependency code here:

https://github.com/wdjsdev/public_illustrator_scripts/blob/master/object_bounds_data.js

This is the code that handles the visible bounds quirks that vasily and josh mentioned. 

    R
    Raymond ZJHAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 19, 2022

    Thank you @Disposition_Dev  very much for your explanation! You are my idol! 😊

    Ali Oliya
    Ali Oliya
    Inspiring
    January 9, 2023

    I don't know anything about Java and scripting. Does this work on below sample? 

    Your help would be greratly appreciated.

    Silly-V
    Silly-V
    Legend
    August 18, 2022

    Given simple line-art you can simply loop the items to correct their .top and .left properties. As these objects are the same dimensions with the example they will by definition already be aligned centrally to the targets.

    Assuming that your layers are just as you have them:
    var targetObjects = doc.layers.getByName("Target Position").pathItems;
    var objectsToMove = [
      doc.layers.getByName("To move aligned objects").layers[0].pathItems[0],

      doc.layers.getByName("To move aligned objects").layers[1].pathItems[0],

      doc.layers.getByName("To move aligned objects").layers[2].pathItems[0]
    ];

    for (var i = 0; i < objectsToMove.length; i++) {

      objectsToMove[i].top = targetObjects[i].top;

      objectsToMove[i].left = targetObjects[i].left;

    }

     

    This is a very rudimentary example and it can work with your specific situation because of the object dimensions and the order of target and source items is the same. The order actually does not have to be the same in the layers, as long as you ensure to put them into the same order within your code so when the loop runs, it will be directed to match the proper target and source items.

     

      jduncan
      Community Expert
      jduncanCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 18, 2022

      As @Silly-V noted, if the objects are simple it's the script can be simple. When I tackled this a while back, I found the objects I needed to align are rarely simple so I wrote MatchObjects.jsx. Basically, you pick a source object (either the top or bottom object of your selection) and choose how to "match" all of the other objects in your selection to it. It does more than just aligning, but it may get you headed in the right direction. @Disposition_Dev helped with some edge cases for the `getVisibleBounds()` that help with matching complex objects.

        jduncan
        Community Expert
        jduncanCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 20, 2022

        Unfortunately, after my simple test, for rename layers JSX，its search range is only the parent layer and cannot include all the sublayers. Is it like this? Or do I not set it correctly? Do you perhaps have an idea what I may be overlooking? Thanks @jduncan .


        So, I tried to piece together what you are looking to accomplish from the few different posts you have going right now. If you can get the layer duplication method (using actions) working that @Silly-V explained here, then with a slight tweak to my rename script will work for you.

         

        After following @Silly-V's advice, you should have a bunch of duplicate layers in your layers palette (like left side in pic). The script below renames all of your base layers from 1 to however many layers you have. Then it recursively goes through every sublayer within each base layer and removes the "copy" text that gets added when you duplicate a layer.

         

        Hope this helps!

         

         

        // Do all of the layer duplications first as explained by Silly-V

// grab the current document and its layers
var doc = app.activeDocument;
var layers = doc.layers;

// iterate through all layers from bottom to top
for (var i = doc.layers.length - 1; i > -1; i--) {
  doc.layers[i].name = Math.abs(i - doc.layers.length);
  // recursively remove "copy" every sublayer
  recursiveRename(doc.layers[i]);
}

function recursiveRename(parent) {
  for (var i = 0; i < parent.layers.length; i++) {
    parent.layers[i].name = parent.layers[i].name.replace(/\scopy.*$/, "");
    recursiveRename(parent.layers[i]);
  }
}

         

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