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J
jiggy1965
Inspiring
March 22, 2011
Question

startup plugins set

  • March 22, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 1085 views

I don't know whether its possible, but here it goes:

I would like to have two application icons of indesign in my dashboard. Kinda like two aliases to the same indesign application. But I want each of them to load a different plugins set upon startup. So "Indesign CS3" should startup Indesign with the default plugins set and "Indesign CS3 company" should startup Indesign with a custom made plugins set. "Indesign CS3" would visually have it's default adobe icon and "Indesign CS3 company" would have a custom made one (lets say the default one but with an orange background).

Is it possible to do this? Is it possible to put some script or command line option into a dashboard icon so that when I press icon A it loads indesign with plugins set A and when I press icon B it loads indesign with plugins set B?

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Mayhem SWE
Mayhem SWE
Inspiring
March 22, 2011

InDesign CS3 appears to store the active plug-in set in ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 5.0/PlugInConfig.txt so all you should need is a simple AppleScript which swaps this file out for one that matches your desired set, then proceeds to start up InDesign. If desired you could also have it verify whether InDesign is already running, ask you to quit it first, etc..

J
jiggy1965Author
Inspiring
March 22, 2011

I know where to put indesign script which launch automatically upon startup of Indesign. Can it perhaps also be scripted that the 'Configure Plugins' menu is opened? (or any of the default Indesign menu items for that matter)

If I were to put that javascript in the startup scripts folder, at least it would immediately open 'Configure Plugins' upon startup of Indesign. Then I could see which pluginset is selected and if needed change it. Don't mind if I have to restart Indesign then. The point is that I want be be sure I'm working in a specific plugins set.

J
jiggy1965Author
Inspiring
March 23, 2011

To to open the 'configure plug-ins'  window use this line:

app.menuActions.itemByID(45313).invoke();

To get a list of available menu actions (there are more than 3,200 of them!) and their IDs use this script:

var myActions = app.menuActions;
var myActionsList = Array();
var counter = Number(0);
 
for(var i = 0; i < myActions.length; i++){
    myActionsList.push(String(myActions.name));
    myActionsList.push(String(myActions.area));
    myActionsList.push(String(myActions.id));
}
 
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
var myTextFrame = myDoc.pages[0].textFrames.add();
myTextFrame.geometricBounds = app.activeDocument.pages[0].bounds;
 
var myMenuActionsTbl = myTextFrame.insertionPoints[0].tables.add();
myMenuActionsTbl.columnCount = 3;
myMenuActionsTbl.bodyRowCount = myActions.length;
myMenuActionsTbl.contents = myActionsList;

BTW this topic was discussed many times on the forum and I have a few similar scripts in my archive.

Here is the list I created on CS3 for Windows.

Regards,

Kas


Thanks! That worked.

Still would be nice though if upon clicking the Indesign application icon I could preselect which plugins set Indesign is supposed to start with. Or to have two application icons and each starting Indesign with a different plugins set. Now I start Indesign with the plugins set most recently selected, change the plugins set if needed and restart Indesign. By opening the 'configure plugins set' at startup I at least have a slight workaround.

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