Why are Adobe scripting docs like for Illustrator vague on Applescript's file open?

[man9ar00]

From the Adobe scripting reference for Applescript, for Illustrator (I believe is same for other products too), I see code example snippets like:

on openFile(fileToOpen)

    tell application "Adobe Illustrator"

        activate

        open POSIX file fileToOpen as alias with options

    end tell

end openFile

Why does it leave us to figure out the (string) value of fileToOpen? Understandable that that is Applescript specific, but that is more work for those of us not familiar with Applescript to do more research.

Is "as alias" really needed? I'm having trouble with this. Omitting "as alias" gets Applescript error: "Adobe Illustrator got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." Keeping "as alias" results error saying it can't create alias to the path, which for some reason looks like it's formatted as Applescript path even though specified as POSIX (e.g. ":~:Documents:Temp:someFile.ai" instead of "~/Documents/Temp/someFile.ai").

Tried the straightforward example

open POSIX file "~/Documents/Temp/someFile.ai"

as well as

set pfile to "~/Documents/Temp/someFile.ai" as POSIX file

open pfile without options

set pfilepath to "~/Documents/Temp/someFile.ai"

set pfile to POSIX file pfilepath

open pfile as alias without options

nothing seems to work so far. Such a pain.

[CarlosCanto]

in javascript, "fileToOpen" expects an actual File Object, not a string.

var file = new File( "C:/Users/carlos/Documents/Illustrator/Forum Questions/missingFontAparatija.ai");
var idoc = app.open(file);

[man9ar00]

Thanks, I'll do more research. Unfortunately, it's not very clear in the Adobe Applescript docs. It doesn't appear to be a file object (and not sure if there is file object in Applescript), so it seems more like string there.

[man9ar00]

Turns out had to do something like this:

set pfilepath to POSIX path of "~/Documents/Temp/test.png"
set pfile to POSIX file pfilepath as text
tell application "Adobe Photoshop CS6"
   activate
   open file pfile without options
end tell

from MacScripter / Pass POSIX file path to Adobe Illustrator to run ExtendScript

[W_J_T]

Thanks for sharing your findings with the community, sadly there is not much happening anymore around here concerning Applescript questions and answers, MacScripter‌ is the go to resource if you have questions for Applescript.

[CarlosCanto · Accepted solution]

That's kind of what I mentioned...it needed a file object

[hhas01]

man9ar00 wrote:

Turns out had to do something like this:

1. set pfilepath to POSIX path of "~/Documents/Temp/test.png" 
2. set pfile to POSIX file pfilepath as text 
3. tell application "Adobe Photoshop CS6" 
4.    activate 
5.    open file pfile without options 
6. end tell 

set pfilepath to POSIX path of "~/Documents/Temp/test.png"
set pfile to POSIX file pfilepath as text
tell application "Adobe Photoshop CS6"
   activate
   open file pfile without options
end tell

from MacScripter / Pass POSIX file path to Adobe Illustrator to run ExtendScript

That code is very confused and incorrect.

Ignoring Photoshop, as its `open` command is notoriously broken, your original problem is a simple one: AppleScript only understands absolute paths, and does not recognize Unix shell-isms like `~/`. Therefore, you need to write:

    set pfile to POSIX file "/Users/NAME/Documents/Temp/test.png"

    tell application "Adobe Illustrator"

        activate

        open pfile

    end tell

replacing `NAME` with your home folder name. Or, if you don't want to hardcode the home folder name, use:

    set homepath to POSIX path of (path to home folder)

    set pfile to POSIX file (homepath & "Documents/Temp/test.png")

[man9ar00]

Well, I will say that I tried the long POSIX path too rather than "~" shorthand. That didn't work either with the previous code attempts. The final code posted was what worked.

Thanks for the Photoshop open issue, good to know. I recall that was indeed still broken, so I tested against Illustrator, which is what I'm primarily coding for.

[hhas01]

man9ar00 wrote:

Well, I will say that I tried the long POSIX path too rather than "~" shorthand. That didn't work either with the previous code attempts. The final code posted was what worked.

Thanks for the Photoshop open issue, good to know. I recall that was indeed still broken, so I tested against Illustrator, which is what I'm primarily coding for.

Using AI CS6 here too. I've *never* had any problem using `POSIX file "/full/path/to/file"`, though I always keep it outside of the `tell application...end tell` block as `POSIX file` specifiers are an AppleScript feature, not a reference to an object in the application's own object model.

(One of AppleScript's myriad warts is the way that AppleScript-specific `date`, `alias`, `POSIX file` specifiers are evaluated outside versus inside of `tell application` blocks. In the first case, you're saying `POSIX f "..." of AppleScript`, which is what you want. In the second, you may be saying `POSIX file "..." of application "..."` without realizing it - the rules by which AppleScript evaluates such specifiers are ridiculously convoluted, with various special-case exceptions and version-specific differences, and all hopelessly undocumented. Huge PITA.)

Occasionally you may run into an older Carbon-era app that absolutely insists on receiving a typeAlias descriptor (supported since System 7), and throws an error if given a typeFileURL ("POSIX file") descriptor instead (introduced with OS X, IIRC), in which case you need to cast it to that type yourself: `POSIX file "/full/path/to/file" as alias`. However, a correctly designed application should not do that: it should tell the Apple Event Manager exactly what type of descriptor it requires (e.g. typeAlias) and let the AEM coerce whatever value the user gives it to that type before unpacking it (or raise an error if the coercion fails). But AI isn't that shoddy AFAIK, so either type should be accepted just fine.

Other than that, make sure you've typed the file path correctly, of course. Sounds obvious, but AI's error reporting isn't always the best, so when an `open` command does fail it gives no clue why. (Drives me up the wall, this one does.)

[man9ar00]

Thanks for the insight hhas01, that will be useful to know. I had no idea being inexperienced with Applescript.

[DBLjan]

Hey, im always struggeling with POSIX vs apple, "/" vs ":"

Im more of a tryNerror-codesample-architect, but in the end we have a good script.

Can someone help me out, I need to save a file to our afp-server, but it has a "/" in the filename.
I had me…

tell application "Adobe Illustrator"

    set mydocc to current document

    set newFP to "/Volumes/srvmar101_01/123/myTest.ai"

    save mydocc in newFP

    close mydocc

end tell

…working, but cant get it done with apple references. Just changing…

set newFP to "Volumes:srvmar101_01:123:myTest/99.ai"

doest do the trick. Any quick help?

[Dirk Becker]

Posix paths translate the slash in filenames as a colon.

Drag your file to a terminal window and you'll see the whole path.

To translate that to the HFS notation, you also omit the "Volumes:" prefix.

For an automated translation, open AppleScript Editor, and run the single line

get (POSIX file "/Volumes/RAMDisk/s:lash") as alias

to see the output

alias "RAMDisk:s/lash"

Of course substitute your path obtained from the terminal above.

[DBLjan]

Thank you Dirk, that helped to understand.

I also stumbled upon a as-function, that helped me out quickly to…

		set newFPafs to "Volumes:myNAS:test/file.ai"
		save mydoc in (POSIX path of newFPafs)

…switch from "Volumes:myNAS:test/file.ai" to "/Volumes/myNAS/test:file.ai"

but to illustrate, how less I know what am I doing, the line

set the label index of (((POSIX path of newFPafs) as POSIX file) as alias) to 2

i think is more complicated than it should be, but that worked and speed doesnt really matter