Using the AI Scripting Reference manual

[sPretzel]

Hello,

Apparently, it is not possible to set an artobard's artboardRect property individually, for example artboardRect[0] for the left position of the artboard. The artboardRect property must be set all at once to take effect, in other words, an array with four values corresponding to [left, top, right, bottom] must be passed to it. Assuming this is true, how am I supposed to gather this requirement when reading the Scripting Reference manual? The manual just reads:

artboardRect    rect    Size and position of the arboard.

In fact, how am I supposed to gather from the Scripting Reference manual that rect for rectangle is defined by the following parameters [left, top, right, botom]?

Obviously, I feel a lot of other items in the document lack the necessary information for correct usage so I thought perhaps I am not using that document properly.

This is for CS4.

Thanks.

[Steven Charles-Charlery]

Hello hello, if you want change one border only for example left border, you can write it :

var myArtboard = app.activeDocument.artboards[0];

myArtboard.artboardRect = [

  100,

  myArtboard.artboardRect[1],

  myArtboard.artboardRect[2],

  myArtboard.artboardRect[3]

];

[sPretzel]

Hi Steven. You are assigning all four values. Try myArtboard.artboardRect[0] = 100 and see if it takes the value!

[Steven Charles-Charlery]

Maybe, I misunderstood your question ^^. I think you can't assign one value for one item only, when property accept one Point value or Rect value, you reassign others value in same instruction.

[femkeblanco]

Unfortunately, that's the way it is with the scripting references.  To make ​matters worse, there are things left out of the references completely, even though they have been an open secret for years.  I suspect that this is apathy rather than cynicism.  On a positive note, this forum will more often than not give you the answer you're looking for. 

Edit:  Similarly, I seem to remember that the x and y elements of the "position" property cannot be assigned individually, i.e. "position" must be assigned an array [x, y].  

[sPretzel]

Hi Femke,

You must be right. I struggle to get my head around this reference document sometimes (most of the time, I should say). Some of the entries have examples but many don't. It's unfortunate because the presumably missing information really reduces the value of an otherwise well-intended document. As usual with such things, I uncover the issue through an error and waste time trying to figure out whether I am doing something wrong or if it's a bug! Well here, it seems I was doing something wrong thanks to a lack of explanation, at least it's not a bug.  😉

[bdgeorge2017]

The documentation is terrible, and in some ways getting worse as I don't think there's even been an official update for AI since 2017 - I guess all their efforts are being directed towards UXP.

So it's pretty much been left to the community! 

The best resources I've found are the open-source community-contributed docs here: https://docsforadobe.dev/

Then @CarlosCanto  updates these forums with everything new he is able to reverse engineer from each release:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/what-s-new-in-illustrator-scripting-cc2021/m-p/11530254?p...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/what-s-new-in-illustrator-scripting-cc2020/td-p/10772375?...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/what-s-new-in-illustrator-scripting-cc2019/m-p/10086254?p...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/what-s-new-in-illustrator-scripting-cc2018/td-p/9422236?p...