Position object in Extendscript Toolkit not making sense.

[JustyCase]

I have an object selected in Illustrator.

It's X and Y are 264 and 625.

If I look at the properties of "position" in the data browser it says 102 for left and 906 for top.

If I set the selected object's top to 100 it will jump all the way down and off the artboard to 1431.101.

Any idea on how this is supposed to work?  I mean it seems straightforward, the width and height are perfect, but the location is not.

[pixxxelschubser]

Please check the artboard zero point and or the document origin

[JustyCase]

I have done so.

I will admit that artboard (a template I've been having) is different but even a new artboard does wacky things.

Here is the basic "hello world script and it's results":

var myDocument = app.documents.add();

var myTextFrame = myDocument.textFrames.add();

myTextFrame.position = [200,200];

myTextFrame.contents = "Hello World!"

[pixxxelschubser]

Do you use Artboard rulers or Global rulers?

var aDoc = app.activeDocument;
alert ("ruler origin "+aDoc.rulerOrigin);
alert ("page origin "+aDoc.pageOrigin);
alert ("artboard[0] ruler origin "+aDoc.artboards[0].rulerOrigin);

[JustyCase]

They all come up saying 0,0

Ruler Origin 0,0
Page Origin 0,0
artboard[0] ruler origin 0,0

My system is pretty default.

[Silly-V]

Sometimes I have to set the ruler origin to [0, -doc.height] or something like that.

And one very frustrating time I've had some art to paste into somebody's pre-made template which didn't seem to respond at all to the ruler origin and pasted the art half-way above every time. So, I had to just 'go with the flow' and do the next best thing, which is to create a rectangle the size of the target document in previous document, then duplicate it over in order to measure the y difference between where this rectangle landed and the target doc's artboard's top coordinates.

[JustyCase]

Sooo... "Sometimes" doesn't seem like a very good thing for writing scripts.

[JustyCase]

Pixxxel,

I was running the above script on a new blank doc.

I just ran it on the template that I really need to use this on and it comes up with something drastically different:

Ruler Origin 162, -161.727295914426
Page Origin -270,338
artboard[0] ruler origin 0, -0.000500000001

Why would that be and how can I "restore" it back and save it to my template (ait file)?

[CarlosCanto]

in this last document you posted, is your origin at (0,0) in the User Interface?

if not, you can restore it

aDoc.rulerOrigin = 0;

aDoc.pageOrigin = 0;

getting the right measurements is a bit complicated because Adobe changed the ruler origin from 1st quadrant (positive Y going up) to 4th quadrant (positive Y going down) back in CS5. On top of that, to avoid breaking existing scripts, new documents created by a script, would continue to use the old system positive Y going up (from bottom/left). Existing documents would use the new system, positive Y going down (from top/left).

to get consistent results, use artboard rulers, all values would be relative to the top/left corner of the artboard.

add this line at the beginning of your script

app.coordinateSystem = CoordinateSystem.ARTBOARDCOORDINATESYSTEM;

[JustyCase]

Ok... couple of things.

I am using rulers and they show 0,0 as the top left of the doc.

Are you saying that the new CS5+ method has the vertical (y axis) going negative as you move down from the top?  Because that is my experience on blank new files.

Now regarding my already existing template.

I added that line of code and the only thing that change from my last reported results is:

Page Origin -108,-1193.1006

Other than that things are still those same odd coordinances.

Now, if I add that bit of code to the top of my "hello world" new doc with 200,-200 coordinance it does act correctly.

If I don't use that code the new doc puts the "Hello World" at 200,992?!

app.coordinateSystem = CoordinateSystem.ARTBOARDCOORDINATESYSTEM;
Code below (as is, puts the text at 200,200 on ruler... but if I comment out that top line I get 200,992 as the place the text goes)

var myDocument = app.documents.add();

var myTextFrame = myDocument.textFrames.add();

myTextFrame.position = [200,-200];

myTextFrame.contents = "Hello World!"

I'm really confused.

[JustyCase]

Another curiosity,

I created this script:

alert(app.coordinateSystem);

app.coordinateSystem = CoordinateSystem.ARTBOARDCOORDINATESYSTEM;

alert(app.coordinateSystem);

It shows that it was using the "DocumentCoordinateSystem", then shows that it was changed.

But when I run it a second time, it still shows the first alert as DocumentCoordinateSystem.

Does the script not change that to the document permanently?

[CarlosCanto]

Hi, do you think you can share the file to analyze?

[JustyCase]

Can't figure out a better way to share it, but yeah it's simple enough.https://drive.google.com/open?id=1q-uj0bh4uibPlGiBmyJ9-7OFBAjarT04

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1q-uj0bh4uibPlGiBmyJ9-7OFBAjarT04

[JustyCase]

Carlos, did that work for you?