UXP Plugin: A command that runs automatically when the plugin starts

[vnh68]

Some questions for the UXP developers about presetting the plugin.
Let's assume that the plugin should build a separate submenu on the main InDesign menu at the start. This is an unconditional action that is executed in every session of the plugin.
The idea is to execute a certain "command" only once at the beginning of a session without user involvement, i.e. programmatically.
The regular menu is more manageable than the list of commands in the plugin panel: items can be disabled depending on the state of the active document, which is not provided in the plugin command panel.
When the plugin exits, a similar automatic command should be executed to destroy unnecessary menu items created by the plugin, etc.

[Dirk Becker]

Read about entrypoints.

Specifically, you need entrypoints.plugin.create and entrypoints.plugin.destroy.

From there it works the same way as in ExtendScript.

To work around the currently missing "$ID/" translation, you can pass objects from ExtendScript.

let scriptPanelMenu = app.doScript('app.menus.item("$ID/ScriptPanelPopup")',ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT);

[vnh68]

Thank you, I'm getting distracted... Yes, it really works!

[sttk3]

I am doing that with a plugin currently in development actually. It is possible. However, cleaning up the menu when quitting InDesign has been a challenge. Here’s a helpful note.

Completely remove submenu added by script

[vnh68]

It is also advisable to clean the menu immediately before building it. Sometimes the InDesign session crashes and the menu remains. A double cleanse will make it permanent.