Have problems assigning fill color via script

[JO_15]

I am having a bear of a time changing the fill color of a polygon object. The polygon object has a name of "Ribbon". Here is the code I am using to try and change it along with the errors I receive in the comments:

var gDoc = app.activeDocument;
var myPages = gDoc.pages;
myGroupItems = myPages[0].allPageItems;

if (gDoc.pageItems.item("Ribbon").isValid) {
gDoc.pageItems.item("Ribbon").fillColor = templateDoc.colors.item("myTabColor").colorValue; // Invalid value for set property 'fillColor'. Expected Swatch or String, but received (34, 0, 9, 0).
gDoc.pageItems.item("Ribbon").fillColor = templateDoc.colors.item("myTabColor") // Invalid value for set property 'fillColor'. Expected Swatch or String, but received Color
gDoc.pageItems.item("Ribbon").fillColor = templateDoc.swatches.item("myTabColor"); // Invalid value for set property 'fillColor'. Expected Swatch or String, but received Color.
}

On the command line of the debugger I tried the following: 
templateDoc.swatches.item("myTabColor")
[object Swatch]
templateDoc.swatches.item("myTabColor").isValid
true

So you can see that templateDoc.swatches.item("myTabColor") returns a swatch object.

So why does gDoc.pageItems.item("Ribbon").fillColor = templateDoc.swatches.item("myTabColor"); not work if I am assigning a swatch value?

I have tried so many different variations and none have worked. I never thought it would be this hard to change the color of a polygon. 🙂

Thank you in advance for any help provided.

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

If you select the polygon on the page you could best check what kind of code with assigning a color to property fillColor will work. After you mastered this, look for the other issue, how you can find the named page item in your document.

Hints:

var myColor = app.documents[0].colors.itemByName("myTabColor");
alert( myColor.isValid );

// Further when the polygon object on the page is selected:
app.selection[0].fillColor = myColor;

If there is only one single page item named "Ribbon" that is not nested in a structure like a group or is anchored you can get it like this:

var myItem = app.documents[0].pageItems.itemByName("Ribbon");
// Did you expect the next line?
alert( myItem.isValid );

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[JO_15]

Hi Uwe, 

Thank you for the information! I was able to successfully change the polygons fill color by selecting it and then changing the fill color of the selection.

So I can hopefully solve these types of problems on my own in the future, can you explain to me why I need to select the polygon to assign the fill color? Why can I not choose the polygon directly and assign the fill color? Something like:

app.activeDocument.polygons.itemByName("Ribbon").fillColor

That property in the object model is listed as read/write. 

Thank you again for all your help!

[Laubender]

There is no need to select an object.

It's just the easiest method for testing simple sample code.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )