Select item from item name on page

[HoochShepherd]

So I have a page, that has 1 layer containing 2 items:

-A group named Logo, and a textFrame named client.

Layer
    Logo

    client

I convert the textframe to outlines, and now I have:

-A group named Logo, and a group simply named <group>.

Layer
    Logo

   <group>

Assuming:

var currentPage = app.activeDocument.pages[i];

My problem is that while logic dictatates Logo would be currentPage.pageItems.item(0), that IS NOT always the case.  Sometimes it's 0, sometime it's 1.

What I'd like to do is 

      currentPage.pageItems.item(0).select;

but with the the item label

     currentPage.pageItems.itemByName("<group>").select()

But that does not work. 

I guess the issue is that "<group>" is technially not a label?

Any thoughts?

[Manan Joshi]

Yes you are correct the default names that appear on creation of any element are not actual names, so <group> can't be accessed via itemByName

How about iterating the groups collection and picking the one without name. Something like

currentPage.groups

P.S. :- Are you sure that the converted textframe is a group and not a compound path?

-Manan

[HoochShepherd]

You are correct. It is a compount path...  Does that make a difference in why it's not selecting it?

I'm wondering if maybe I understand select incorrectly.  If I select all

app.activeDocument.select(NothingEnum.NOTHING);

currentPage.pageItems.everyItem().select();

That all should be stored in selection[1], no?

[brianp311]

When you are calling createOutlines(), it returns a page item that you can then name. 

var out = someText.createOutlines();
out.name = "myName";
...
var itemAgain = currentPage.pageItems.itemByName("myName");

[HoochShepherd]

That did not work.?

[Manan Joshi]

Seems the createOutline method returns an array rather than an object, so the following should work

var out = someText.createOutlines();
out[0].name = "myName";
var itemAgain = currentPage.pageItems.itemByName("myName");
itemAgain.select()

Can you post the code that you have if you still have issues, the code pieces that we are sharing are disconnected pieces there should be more elegant ways of integrating it into your codebase if we can have a look at it.

-Manan

[brianp311]

I forgot we were doing createOutlines on multiple frames at once using aPage.textFrames.everyItem().texts.everyItem().createOutlines();

Yeah, that would create an array; each frame would constitute its own set of outlines. 

[rob day]

Could you use a script label? A logo could be assigned a script label, which would be embedded if you save the logo as snippet, or library item:

var pi = app.documents[0].allPageItems;
for(i = 0; i < pi.length; i++){
    if (pi[i].label == "Logo") {
       pi[i].select();
    }
}

[HoochShepherd]

It doesn't seem so...

The issue is I am converting text to outlines and tring to get the geometricBounds

I seem to only be able to se it with the textbox but not the item in the layers window. When I convert to outlines it's gone.

[Manan Joshi · Accepted solution]

If you use the code that you posted i.e.

app.activeDocument.select(NothingEnum.NOTHING);
currentPage.pageItems.everyItem().select();

All items on the currentPage will be selected and the items can be iterated by the collection app.selection. To check the no. of selected objects use

app.selection.length

So each object would be stored as an element of app.selection array, hence to iterate you use something like

for(var i = 0; i < app.selection.length; i++)
{
 var selObj = app.selection[i] //This is the object that is selected
}

Hope this clears things out

-Manan

[HoochShepherd]

It does. I found something similar. It does what I want with out accessing a name, but imagine there is a clean one liner..

                for(var z = 0; z < currentPage.allPageItems.length; z++ ){
                    //ignore non-objects
                    try{
                        gb = app.activeDocument.selection[z].geometricBounds;
                        if(gb[2]>lowerLimit){ lowerLimit = gb[2] }
                        if(gb[3]>rightLimit){ rightLimit = gb[3] }
                    }catch(e){continue;}
                }