Link Place Date

[Narayan Sultania]

Hi,

On selecting a link in Links panel, we can see "Place Date" for the link. I want to get this date via scripting in jsx. There is "date" property in Link but it doesn't seem to be the place date. Can we get the place date?

Thanks,

Narayan

[rob day]

Right, the date property is the link’s modification date. You could probably have a startup script listen for the place event and insert the current date into the link’s label, then use the link’s label property to retrieve the date later.

[rob day]

Something like this saved to the startup scripts folder:

var myEventListener = app.eventListeners.add("afterPlace", placeDate );

function placeDate(evt){
    var d = new Date(); 
    evt.parent.images[0].itemLink.label = d.toString()
}

Then later select the placed image and this gets the place date 

var doc = app.documents.item(0);
var s = doc.selection[0];

$.writeln("Link was placed on: " + s.itemLink.label)
//Link was placed on: Fri Feb 05 2021 13:24:19 GMT-0500

[Narayan Sultania]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the reply. This will work with newly placed items. But won't be able to get place date for existing document with placed items.

Is there any method in the sdk to get place date of link?

Regards,

Narayan

[rob day]

You could add a return value to @SychevKA ’s excellent function and loop through the links. This returns the link name and place date:

var lnks = app.documents[0].links;
for (var i = 0; i < lnks.length; i++) {
    lnks[i].parent.select();
    var pd = GetPlaceDate()
    var n = lnks[i].name;
    $.writeln("Link name:" + n + "\nPlace Date: " + pd + "\n")
}


/**
* Gets the selection’s place date 
* @return the date as a string
*/

function GetPlaceDate(){
    var ds;
	try{app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/#LinksUICopyLinkInfoMenu').invoke()}
	catch(e){
		app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/Links').invoke()
		app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/#LinksUICopyLinkInfoMenu').invoke()
	}
	app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/Links').invoke()
	var tmp_tf = app.activeDocument.pages[0].textFrames.add()
	tmp_tf.parentStory.texts[0].select()
	app.paste()
	var tmp_content = tmp_tf.parentStory.contents
	tmp_tf.remove()
	app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/Selection Tool').invoke()
	for(var i = 0; i < tmp_content.split('\r').length; i++){
		if(tmp_content.split('\r')[i].split('\t')[0] == 'Place Date'){
            ds = tmp_content.split('\r')[i].split('\t')[1]
		}
	}
    return ds
}

[SychevKA]

No, that's bad idea.

app.menuActions.().invoke() - simulates user actions manually and takes too long. For example, my retail catalog contains more than 1000 links, above script worked about 30 minutes.

I think you can save time. First save document as .idml, then rename to .zip and unpack. There is "Spreads" folder containing all the link data you need. Parse .xml files as text. If links names contain only numbers and Latin letters, then you will not have problems with the encoding.

[SychevKA]

hi, i think you can do it, see below code

function GetPlaceDate(){
	try{app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/#LinksUICopyLinkInfoMenu').invoke()}
	catch(e){
		app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/Links').invoke()
		app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/#LinksUICopyLinkInfoMenu').invoke()
	}
	app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/Links').invoke()
	var tmp_tf = app.activeDocument.pages[0].textFrames.add()
	tmp_tf.parentStory.texts[0].select()
	app.paste()
	var tmp_content = tmp_tf.parentStory.contents
	tmp_tf.remove()
	app.menuActions.itemByName('$ID/Selection Tool').invoke()
	for(var i = 0; i < tmp_content.split('\r').length; i++){
		if(tmp_content.split('\r')[i].split('\t')[0] == 'Place Date'){
			alert(tmp_content.split('\r')[i].split('\t')[1])
		}
	}
}

app.doScript('GetPlaceDate()', ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'GetPlaceDate')

[Narayan Sultania]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. The workaround looks good. But to copy link info, the link has to be selected in Links panel. So let's say there are 10 links then I have to select each one by one and copy/paste link info.

I was thinking how/where link info is stored and if there is any method in the sdk to get place date of link?

Regards,

Narayan

[brianp311]

You could write a helper function to select the link and then call the above script, ie: 

var ags = app.documents[0].allGraphics;
for (var i = 0; i < ags.length; i++) {
try { 
ags[i].select();
GetPlaceDate();
} catch(e){}
}

Could also write a helper function log the result to a .txt or similar.