Validating Data in ScriptUI

Report · May 25, 2023

I was referred to @Peter Kahrel excellent tutorial on ScriptUI located here https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/scriptui.html, but I am having a few issues with my scripts:

On page 93, he has an example with this code:

w.input = w.group.add ('edittext {characters: 10, active: true, justify: "right"}');

I don't see where "characters: 10" is explained. I thought it would limit the input to 10 characters, but it does not seem to, either in his example or in my testing. Is there a way to do this? One of my input fields needs to be 7 characters and one of them needs to be 8 character date in format YYYYMMDD.

For the field that needs to be 7 characters, I use an Apply instead of an Okay button and I used his red-background code (and modified it to NOT allow commas or decimals). But I don't want the apply button enabled unless the field has seven characters - not 8 or 6. I tried this and it doesn't work:

            win.Panel2.txt2.onChanging = function () {
                var valid = /^[\d]+$/.test (win.Panel2.txt2.text);
                this.graphics.backgroundColor = this.graphics.newBrush (this.graphics.BrushType.
                SOLID_COLOR, valid ? [1, 1, 1, 1] : [1, 0.5, 0.5, 1]);
                win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled = valid && win.Panel2.txt2.text.length=7;              
                }

Similarly for the date field, I found this: https://www.scaler.com/topics/date-validation-in-javascript/ and I verified Date.parse() generates NaN for an invalid date in the format above and a number for a valid date. I want the apply button to be enabled only if I have a valid date in the field, and I want the red text if the field contains anything besides numbers. I tried this and it doesn't work - the Apply button is never enabled:

            win.Panel2.txt3.onChanging = function () {
                var valid = /^[\d]+$/.test (win.Panel2.txt3.text);
                this.graphics.backgroundColor = this.graphics.newBrush (this.graphics.BrushType.
                SOLID_COLOR, valid ? [1, 1, 1, 1] : [1, 0.5, 0.5, 1]);
                var valid2 = Date.parse(win.Panel2.txt3.text);
                win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled = !valid2==NaN;              
                }

I'll probably have more questions as I get further into my script, and I'll add them to this thread, if that is okay.

(The forum gave me an error about invalid HTML that it removed, but I'm not seeing what it changed).

Thanks in advance!

Report · Jun 14, 2023

@Marc Autret (or others)

Funny how things work - or maybe not if you are religious!!! Anyway, I was getting really frustrated and typed up a long post. I hit preview and walked away from my computer and never posted it. I couldn't see the forest for the trees, but I solved the problem!!!

This will be a long post, but it should help some people.

The main problem I was having had to do with "partially valid" regex. I have enough trouble coming up with "fully valid" regex - although I think I have that down. Short question - let's say my proprietary regex is K-50dd (K-5011, K-5024, etc.). It isn't really, but ... My fully qualified regex would be /^K-50\d\d$\. What would I use for the partially valid regex for "contains anything other than K, dash, or a number?" I tried if(/[^K-]\D/.test(t)) - never replaced anything and if(!/[^K-]\D/.test(t)) - stack overrun. If I can figure that out, I think I can adapt it to what I really need.

Answer was right in front of me. If you can figure out your replacement regex (i.e. anything other than this gets replace by ""), you can use that for your partially valid test regex.

I didn't understand how Marc was using BH as an array variable - pretty clever.
The variable "t" seems to start out as a string variable, and then change to a Boolean variable. Pretty clever and I guess if you are used to JS, it is fine. From VBA, it seems wrong to me.

Anyway, here is Mark's original script.

var w = new Window ('palette');
// Marc's Original - works.
w.group = w.add ('group');
w.group.add ('statictext {text: "Enter a valid 7-Digit number Anything other than a numeral will be ignored:"}');
w.input = w.group.add ('edittext {characters: 10, active: true, justify: "right"}');
w.clear = w.group.add ('button {text: "Clear"}');
w.buttons = w.add ('group {alignment: "right"}');
w.ok = w.buttons.add ('button {text: "OK", enabled: false}');
w.buttons.add ('button {text: "Cancel"}');
   // Predeclare brushes
   var gx = w.input.graphics;
   var BH =
   [
   gx.newBrush(gx.BrushType.SOLID_COLOR, [1.0, 0.5, 0.5, 1]), // KO
   gx.newBrush(gx.BrushType.SOLID_COLOR, [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1])  // OK
   ];
// Text changing handler
   w.input.onChanging = function(  t)
   {
      t = this.text;
      if( !/^\d{0,7}$/.test(t) )
      {
         t = t.replace(/\D+/g,'').slice(0,7);
         this.text = '';
         this.textselection = t;
      }

      t = 7===t.length;
      w.ok.enabled = t;
      this.graphics.backgroundColor = BH[+t];
   }
 w.show();

And here is a modification, which made it easier for me to see what was really happening. (This also works):

var w = new Window ('palette');
// Marc's Modified - works.
w.group = w.add ('group');
w.group.add ('statictext {text: "Enter a valid 7-Digit number Anything other than a numeral will be ignored:"}');
w.input = w.group.add ('edittext {characters: 10, active: true, justify: "right"}');
w.clear = w.group.add ('button {text: "Clear"}');
w.buttons = w.add ('group {alignment: "right"}');
w.ok = w.buttons.add ('button {text: "OK", enabled: false}');
w.buttons.add ('button {text: "Cancel"}');
   // Predeclare brushes
   var gx = w.input.graphics;
   var BH =
   [
   gx.newBrush(gx.BrushType.SOLID_COLOR, [1.0, 0.5, 0.5, 1]), // KO
   gx.newBrush(gx.BrushType.SOLID_COLOR, [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1])  // OK
   ];
// Text changing handler
   w.input.onChanging = function(  t)
   {
      t = this.text;
      if( !/^\d{0,7}$/.test(t))
      {      
         t = t.replace(/\D+/g,'').slice(0,7);
         this.text = '';
         this.textselection = t;
      }
      if(/\d{7}$/.test(t)){
      w.ok.enabled=true;
      this.graphics.backgroundColor = BH[1];
      }
      else{
      w.ok.enabled=false;
      this.graphics.backgroundColor = BH[0];       
      }
   }
 w.show();

Initially, I tried to use the same lower valid fully qualifed regex in both if statements, and got the stack overrun error. That somewhat makes sense in hindsight, b/c basically I am saying "If this … If not this, else - which is the same as the first statement.

Finally, here is the working K-50xx solution. I still don't FULLY understand it, but I can make it work for what I need it to do - hopefully others can as well:

var w = new Window ('palette');
// Marc's Modified - proprietary - Works!!! 
w.group = w.add ('group');
w.group.add ('statictext {text: "Enter a valid code as K-50dd. Anything other than K, dash, or a numeral will be ignored:"}');
w.input = w.group.add ('edittext {characters: 10, active: true, justify: "right"}');
w.clear = w.group.add ('button {text: "Clear"}');
w.buttons = w.add ('group {alignment: "right"}');
w.ok = w.buttons.add ('button {text: "OK", enabled: false}');
w.buttons.add ('button {text: "Cancel"}');
   // Predeclare brushes
   var gx = w.input.graphics;
   var BH =
   [
   gx.newBrush(gx.BrushType.SOLID_COLOR, [1.0, 0.5, 0.5, 1]), // KO
   gx.newBrush(gx.BrushType.SOLID_COLOR, [1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1])  // OK
   ];
// Text changing handler
   w.input.onChanging = function(  t)
   {
      t = this.text;
      if(/[^-0-9K]+/.test(t))
      {      
         t = t.replace(/[^-0-9K]+/g, '');
         this.text = '';
         this.textselection = t;
   }
      if(/^K-50\d\d$/.test(t)){
      w.ok.enabled=true;
      this.graphics.backgroundColor = BH[1];
      }
      else{
      w.ok.enabled=false;
      this.graphics.backgroundColor = BH[0];       
      }
   }
 w.show();

Thanks for all assistance!!!

Report · Jun 20, 2023

@Marc Autret (or others), sorry to keep bothering you, but I have one field in which the Stack Overrun problem is re-occurring and I can't figure out how to work around it.
For this field, there will likely be dashes and numbers, and all letters should be uppercase, except the letter "v" which should always be lowercase. And I want to remove the letter X as it is initially in the field, but is not used. It should never be more than 30 characters, but it could be less.

I'm using this code without the textselection and it works, except it wraps back to the beginning of the field:

    win.Panel2.txt1.onChanging = function(t){
        win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled = false;
        win.Panel2.CancelBtn.enabled = true;
        t = this.text;
        t=t.toUpperCase();
        t=t.replace(/V/g, "v");
        t=t.replace(/X/g, "");
        win.Panel2.txt1.text = t
        t = this.text;
        if(t.length>30){
            t=t.slice(0,30);
            this.text = '';
            this.textselection =t;
        }
        win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled = true;
        }

This gives me the stack overrun error (I tried a lot of variants with no success, but this is one of them that fails):

 win.Panel2.txt1.onChanging = function(t){
        win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled = false;
        win.Panel2.CancelBtn.enabled = true;
 t = this.text;
        if(/\w+/.test(t)){      
            t=t.toUpperCase();
            t = t.replace(/V/g, "v");
            t=t.replace(/X/g, "");
            this.text = '';
            this.textselection = t; 
        }
        t = this.text;
        if(t.length>30){
            t=t.slice(0,30);
            this.text = '';
            this.textselection =t;
        }
         var valid1 = /[^-0-9]+/.test (win.Panel2.txt1.text);
        this.graphics.backgroundColor = this.graphics.newBrush (this.graphics.BrushType.
        SOLID_COLOR, valid1 ? [1, 1, 1, 1] : [1, 0.5, 0.5, 1]);
        win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled = valid1;   
        }

Assistance will be greatly appreciated!!!

Report · Jun 20, 2023

Hi @Marshall_Brooks

Sorry I don't understand your code 😕 I'm afraid I've already detailed everything I can say about my own approach, so the code below basically just repeats the same logic.

Some advice to prevent infinite loops and other errors: Keep your objects encapsulated, only play with text/textselection once (and only if needed!), do not take the risk of reintroducing a changing event while you modify the text, do not resolve again the EditText instance (it is and remains this within the event handler, that's all you need), avoid external object references as much as possible, work with local strings until you have to finally update—once!—the text of the control.

Steps: 1. normalize the input (remove junk characters, adjust letter case, size, etc); 2. if the normalized string is not the input string, update this.text through the textselection trick; 3. then, check whether the string is strictly valid and update the button state accordingly.

    <yourEditText>.onChanging = function(t,s)
    {
         t = this.text;

         // Normalize.
         s = t && t.slice(0,30).toUpperCase()
         .replace(/[^-0-9A-WY-Z]+/gi,'')
         .replace(/V/gi,'v');

        // Need filtering?
        if( s !== t )
        {
            this.text = '';
            this.textselection = s;
        }

        // Valid?
        t = 30===s.length;

        <yourOkButton>.enabled = t;
        this.graphics.backgroundColor = BH[+t]; // Using the [OK,KO] brush array.
    };

There are certainly other ways to approach the question. If my scheme doesn't work for you, I'm sure my colleagues on this forum will provide you with better options.

Best,

Marc

Report · Jun 20, 2023

AMAZING!!!

It works perfectly. For anyone following along, I made some minor changes, basically I left off this part of it:

  // Valid?
        t = 30===s.length;

        <yourOkButton>.enabled = t;
        this.graphics.backgroundColor = BH[+t]; // Using the [OK,KO] brush array.
    };

And the OK button.enabled is always true for this function.

As I understand it (scary to say that), your code would only allow the OK button when the code reached 30 characters and I need it to be UP TO 30 characters, which the code already does.

And for this section, there really was no such thing as invalid input - or there is, but there is no way to predict it or limit it with filtering.

Again - much thanks and I would never have figured this out on my own!!!!

Report · Jun 05, 2023

> Can I call a universal function - i.e.

> w.input.onChanging = DoSomething();

> function DoSomething(){
> }

Yes.

> does ScriptUI (or more likely ESTK) support optional variables for functions

Yes. How it works exactly you can look up or determione by experiments.

Report · Jun 05, 2023

Thanks! Does anyone know how to put the ScriptUI pop-up window on the second monitor if FM is on the second monitor?

Report · Jun 05, 2023

The trouble is that (as far as I know) you won't be able to figure out whether FM is on the second monitor. Once you figured that out, then yes, you can place a window on any screen.

Report · Jun 05, 2023

Does what I posted in the other thread help? I can tell the resolution of the monitor that FM is on or that the document is on. If monitor 2 was a different resolution than monitor 1, I could test for that.

But for me, both monitors are the same resolution and if I am writing for other users, I have no way to know what resolution they are using ...

(But I could guess ... i.e. is screen0.bottom == App.ScreenHeight, display on screen 0, else if screen1.bottom == App.ScreenHeight, display on screen1.)

But again, fails if screen0 and screen1 have the same resolution.

Report · Jun 05, 2023

> if I am writing for other users, I have no way to know what resolution they are using

Well, there's your answer. You can't tell which screen FM is on, so you can't decide where to place the script window.

Report · Jun 05, 2023

I'm afraid you are correct.

It seems pretty basic to want to be able to display a window on the same screen as the application is running on.

I found three things, not sure any of them are useful:

app.ScreenHeight and app.Screen Width refer to the FM window, not necessarily the FM monitor - i.e. if my monitor is 1920x1080, but I have FM scaled down to 800x900, the app.ScreenWidth is 800.
There is an app.DisplayName, but I don't know how it works. alert(app.DisplayName); showed a blank message.
There is an app.IsOnScreen - returns 1 if the app is visible - but I don't know that that means you can use something like If (Screen0.app.IsOnScreen){}

Report · Jun 07, 2023

Is there no way to maybe use the windows API's to figure out what monitor FM is running on?

Something similar to Approach 3 on this page, but that is VBA for Microsoft Office: https://bettersolutions.com/vba/userforms/positioning.htm ?

Report · Jun 05, 2023

What I would do is this:

- Assume that a user will have the application (FM) always on the same screen.

- The script looks for a config file. When it first runs the config file isn't there, so it places its window at the centre of the first screen (wherever, really, doesn't matter).

- The user drags the script window to some other place.

- When the use clicks OK, before executing whatever needs to be done, the script writes a text file that contains the location of the window. And you can add all the user selections.

- Next time the script runs it reads the config file and places the script window where the user last put it. And adds all the selections the user made earlier.

Report · Jun 05, 2023

@Peter Kahrel - That is clever. That is very, very clever. Unfotunately, I see quite a few problems with it:

I don't think assuming FM will always be on the same screen is a valid assumption. Lots of our users use laptops, sometimes with an external monitor, sometimes not. It might or might not work for me. Screen0 works for me, b/c I have the laptop screen turned off when I use the (dual) external monitors. But if I had a single large screen montior, I would probably use FM on it, but still have the laptop screen up - possibly with the laptop as Screen0.
I don't think most users are going to think to drag the script window to some other place. I think they will be similar to either "Where was the window?" or "Oh, it's on the smaller screen. I thought it would be on the main one. Oh well ..."
If the user does drag the window to the larger external monitor and then starts again with the laptop only, I "think" the script will read the info from the text file and display the script window on the large screen that is not connected and thus not visible.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think my best option is to display the window on Screen0 and if someone uses a second display and uses FM on it, they'll have to adjust to the window being on the wrong screen - which is what happens when I have the window auto-center without specifying parameters.

I appreciate the thoughts and feedback, though!!!

Report · Jun 06, 2023

Ran into another snag. I'll try to be brief.

I have a pop-up palette window with radio buttons on the left and input boxes and an apply button on the right. You click a radio button and the script reads values into the input boxes and you click Apply and it writes the input box values to variables. That works fine.

I wanted to add a "MouseOver" function so that if the apply button was enable, but was not clicked, you would get a confirmation dialog to drop the changes BEFORE the button click was applied.

The "click" code looks like this:

win.radioPanel.rad01.onClick = win.radioPanel.rad02.onClick = win.radioPanel.rad03.onClick = function () {

		if(win.radioPanel.rad01.value) { 
// Do stuff;
}
}

I tried to add something similar for the first button:

      win.radioPanel.rad01.onMouseover = function(){
          if (win.radioPanel.rad01.value){
            alert("mousedover!");
            }
}

But it doesn't seem to be doing anything - I never get the alert - unless I made a typo.

I tried onmouseover and onMouseOver and without the if statement and no luck - but no real error messages either.

Report · Jun 06, 2023

onMouseover is not a radiobutton event. . .

Report · Jun 06, 2023

That would explain it!!!

I can do it from the click event.

Complicated question:

User clicks Button 1 and makes changes. Apply button is enabled. User does not click Apply. User Clicks Button 2.

else if(win.radioPanel.rad02.value) { 
            if (win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled){
            if (confirm("Do you want apply the changes?") ===false) {
                win.Panel2.ApplyBtn.enabled = false;
            }
            else{
                return;                             
            }
         }

I want to replace the return statement with the same steps as the reply button.

If I can't, it works, but it shows Button 2 selected with the Button 1 info in the input boxes. If there anything simple like Return that would change it back to Button 1 (or the previously selected button?)

Report · Jun 21, 2023

@Peter Kahrel - I ran into a new issue, and I hope I'm missing something obvious, but I'm somewhat afraid I'm not.

Now that the code is pretty much working, I decided I might try making the window borderless.

I looked at Pages 8 and 9 of the guide.

I can make the window borderless, but I agree, it looks plain with no border on it.

I tried:

w = new Window ("dialog", undefined, undefined, {borderless: true});
w.margins = [0,0,0,0];
myPanel = w.add ("panel");
myPanel.add ("statictext", undefined, "borderless: not quite true");
w.show ();

And it looks like Peter's example. There is a THIN gray border around the window, but not really noticeable compared to no border at all. (It also locks up FrameMaker and when I click the blue square, it says FM did not respond and I have to close and re-open it manually).

I tried:

w = new Window ("dialog", undefined, undefined, {borderless: true});
w.margins = [0,0,0,0];
myPanel = w.add ("panel", undefined,"",{borderStyle:'black'});
myPanel.add ("statictext", undefined, "borderless: not quite true");
w.show ();

And that gives me more what I am looking for (and also locks up FM).

However, I have a bounded window since I wanted my panels side-by-side, so my window looks like this:

var win = new Window("palette", "Update Document Variables:", [$.screens[0].right/2 - 255,$.screens[0].bottom/2 - 143, $.screens[0].right/2 + 255, $.screens[0].bottom/2 + 143],{borderless:true}); // bounds = [left, top, right, bottom] Width - 505 Height 285
    win.margins = [0,0,0,0];
//    myPanel = win.add ("panel", undefined,"",{borderStyle:'black'});    
    myPanel = win.add ("panel",[0,0,200,200],"",{borderStyle:'black'});
    win.radioPanel = win.add("panel", [5, 5, 230, 250], "");
    win.Panel2 = win.add("panel", [235, 5, 505, 250], "");
    win.okBtn = win.add("button", [187,255,277,280], "OK"); //Centered on divider
	win.okBtn.Active="True"
    win.defaultElement=win.okBtn;
	win.okBtn.onClick = function() {
	    win.close();
     }    
    win.show();

The commented line didn't seem to do anything. The new bounded panel looks like what I want, but it is covering over my other panels and controls.

Is there a way to make the new panel transparent?

If not, I think I can get the effect I want by:

Changing the panel name to P3.
Expanding the bounds of P3 to match the window dimensions.
Moving all my controls to be on top of P3 by doing a find and replace on "win." and carefully replacing with "win.P3." (So win.Panel2 becomes win.P3.Panel2.), while being careful to NOT change lines like win.Close(); and win.Show(); to win.P3.Close();

Is there an easier solution?

Report · Jun 21, 2023

Disregard, I figured it out - I had to make the panels (and maybe the window buttons) part of the new panel, but not the controls - i.e.
win.P3 = win.add ("panel",[0,0,510,285],"",{borderStyle:'black'});

win.Panel2 = win.P3.add("panel", [235, 5, 505, 250], "");

win.Panel2.txt1 = win.Panel2.add('edittext', [5,25,190,45], '');

Blue text didn't need to change, only 3 lines needed to change.

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Validating Data in ScriptUI

4 Correct answers