What is the fastest way to select next x number of lines?

[ali u]

I want to select x number of lines starting from the line that the cursor is on, or the first line of selected text frame if a text frame is selected.

I got together this very slow script that does the job, but there has to be a better way. My understanding of indesign scripting is very limited so I wanted to ask the elite.

I couldn't use textFrame.lines because i want to continue selecting lines from the next frame, also I couldn't use paragraphs.lines because the start may be in the middle of a paragraph.

var numLines = 5; // Change this to the number of lines you want to select
var selectedLine = app.selection[0].lines[0].index;
var firstChars = getFirstChars(numLines);
var start = selectedLine;
var end = firstChars[numLines - 1] - 1;

var secilecek = app.selection[0].insertionPoints[0].parent.characters.itemByRange(start, end);
secilecek.select();

function getFirstChars(numLines) {
var firstChars = [];
var nextLine = app.selection[0].lines[0].insertionPoints[-1].lines[0];
for (var i = 0; i < numLines; i++) {
nextLine.characters[0].select();
firstChars.push(nextLine.characters[0].index);
nextLine = app.selection[0].lines[0].insertionPoints[-1].lines[0];
}
return firstChars;
}

[Peter Kahrel · Accepted solution]

This is probably quicker:

1. Get the number of the current line, which you do by counting the number of lines between the start of the story and the insertion point.

2. Then select the number of lines from that line.

story = app.selection[0].parentStory;

// Get the selected line's number

lineNumber = story.insertionPoints
  .itemByRange (0, app.selection[0].index)
  .lines.length-1;

// Select from it plus the following n

story.lines.itemByRange(x, x + numLines -1).select();

Peter

[ali u]

Yes, this is way faster, thank you very much.

[rob day]

Hi @ali u , Try this:

var nl = 5;
var ps = app.selection[0].parent.lines;
var ss, se;
for (var i = 0; i < ps.length; i++){
    if (ps[i] == app.selection[0].lines.lastItem()) {
        ss = ps[i+1]
        se = ps[i+nl]
    } 
};   
app.select(ps.itemByRange(ss,se))

[ali u]

@rob day Thank you, this works faster if there is one or two pages, but when I run it at page 150 it waited quite a bit.

[rob day]

Maybe limit the loop to the text frame of the selection:

var nl = 5;
//var ps = app.selection[0].parent.lines;
var ps = app.selection[0].lines[-1].parentTextFrames[0].lines;

var ss, se;
for (var i = 0; i < ps.length; i++){
    if (ps[i] == app.selection[0].lines.lastItem()) {
        ss = ps[i+1]
        se = ps[i+nl]
    } 
};   
app.select(ps.itemByRange(ss,se))

[ali u]

Yes, this makes it faster but then if I want to select more lines than the selected text frame has it doesn't work.