Place a layer in specific area on new artboard

[OhmsG]

I currently duplicate the contents of one document into another like so:

  // add selected to document
  if( docSelected.length > 0 ) {
    // move items to selected document
    // var newDoc = aDoc.documents.add();
    if( docSelected.length > 0 ) {
      for ( i = 0; i < docSelected.length; i++ ) {
        docSelected[i].selected = false;
        newItem = docSelected[i].duplicate( aDoc, ElementPlacement.PLACEATEND );
      }
    }
    else {
      docSelected.selected = false;
      newItem = docSelected.parent.duplicate( aDoc,
      ElementPlacement.PLACEATEND );
    }
  }

aDoc is the file where the content goes into.

All works.

After I place it or before (doesn't matter) I'd like to palce it at a specific area of the board.  In example

top = 0, left = 0.

My attempt:

  var activeLayer = aDoc.artLayers.getByName("Layer 1");
  activeLayer.top = 0;
  activeLayer.left = 0;

 Didn't work.  Any ideas how I could accomplish this?

[Disposition_Dev · Accepted solution]

the Layer object doesn't have "left" or "top" properties. You need to target the artboard directly to get the coordinates. Consider this very simple example:

#target Illustrator

//Description: 
function test()
{
	var doc = app.activeDocument;
	var item = doc.pageItems[0];
	var ab = app.activeDocument.artboards[0];
	var rect = ab.artboardRect;

	item.left = rect[0]; // Artboard.artboardRect[0] refers to the left edge of the artboard
	item.top = rect[1]; // Artboard.artboardRect[0] refers to the left edge of the artboard  
	
}
test();

[OhmsG]

Thank you so much.  If there's multiple pageItems is there away to group them all at once and then apply the left top or would I have to loop over each one?  @williamadowling

[Disposition_Dev]

when you have all your items selected, you can use this:

app.executeMenuCommand("group");

//do the transformation/alignment stuff

app.executeMenuCommand("ungroup");