[JS] [CS3] How do you find an insertion point's paragraph index #?

The unexpected higher number is exactly the problem. The paragraph index property has nothing to with the paragraph array position; it's the index of the first character of that paragraph. (Sorry -- you'll have to re-read that post ...)

Fortunately you can still use the returned number. Using the handy function everyItem() on the text frame's Paragraphs collection, you can gather all "first character" indexes into an array. Then it's only a case of testing your InsertionPoint index against the values.

Suppose you copy this post into InDesign and inspect each of the paragraph's indexes. You would get an array like this:

[0, 237, 238, 508, 509 ]

The first value points to the start of the first paragraph in "character count mode". The second value points to the empty line below the first paragraph (I suspect it points to the Return character in InDesign). Since there is nothing else on that line, the next paragraph starts exactly one character after that.

I think the following script does what you need -- but beware! It works, just as you asked, on individual text frames. It even works correctly if the text frame starts in the middle of a paragraph in the previous linked textframe, and this paragraph will correctly be reported to be "#0" of the current frame.

ip = app.selection[0].insertionPoints[0];
parIndex = getParIndex(ip);
alert (parIndex);
function getParIndex (someIp)
{
     var allPars = someIp.parentTextFrames[0].paragraphs.everyItem().index;
     var loopy;
     for (loopy=allPars.length-1; loopy > 0; loopy--)
          if (someIp.index >= allPars[loopy])
               return loopy;
     return 0;
}