Hi everyone,
I'm working on a script, that imports xml file and checks for missing graphic files. They are placed on a server in certain locations and it might happen that some of them are gone or missing or not ready yet. If there are any missing links, script displays it as a list. Based on that list, I want to replace all missing links with single placeholder graphic file, which will be placed on a server.
The code so far is as below - checks for links, matches it with existing and displays list of missing files - not sure what to do next, how to alter the file to replace it with place holder, please help 
main();
function main(){
//xml - import options
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
var myXMLImportPreferences = myDocument.xmlImportPreferences;
myXMLImportPreferences.allowTransform = false;
myXMLImportPreferences.createLinkToXML = true;
myXMLImportPreferences.ignoreUnmatchedIncoming = false;
myXMLImportPreferences.ignoreWhitespace = false;
myXMLImportPreferences.importCALSTables = false;
myXMLImportPreferences.importStyle = XMLImportStyles.appendImport;
myXMLImportPreferences.importTextIntoTables = false;
myXMLImportPreferences.importToSelected = false;
myXMLImportPreferences.removeUnmatchedExisting = false;
myXMLImportPreferences.repeatTextElements = false;
//open xml file
var lista = "";
var file = File.openDialog("Open file *.xml","*.xml",false);
if (file != null) {
file.open("read", "text");
testq = file.read();
file.close();
} else
return false;
var grafiki = testq.match(/(S|W).*?\d+\.(pdf|tif|eps)/g);
//no graphic file
if (grafiki === null) myDocument.importXML(File(file), false);
else {
for (i=0; i<=grafiki.length-1; i++) {
plik = File(grafiki).exists;
if (plik == false)
lista += grafiki.replace(/S:\/(pdf)\/\d\/\d\//g, "") +"\n";
}
// List of missing files
if (lista == "")
{
myDocument.importXML(file, false);
return false
}
alert_scroll ("Missing links:", lista);
function alert_scroll (title, input) { // string, string/array
if (input instanceof Array)
input = input.join ("\r");
var w = new Window ("dialog", title);
var list = w.add ("edittext", undefined, input, {multiline: true, scrolling: true, canCancel: true});
list.maximumSize.height = w.maximumSize.height - 100;
list.minimumSize.width = 250;
w.add ("button", undefined, "Continue", {name: "ok"}); //continue
w.add ("button", undefined, "Cancel", {name:"Cancel"});
w.orientation = "row";
if (w.show () == 1){
//import xml
if (lista != null) {
tablica = lista.split("\n");
for (i = 0; i >tablica.length-1; i++) {
testq.replace(tablica, "/S:/Brak_pliku.pdf");
// tablica.xmlElements.item.contents = "/S:/Brak_pliku.pdf";
}
??
myDocument.importXML(file, false);
}
}
else exit();
}
}
}
6
Replies
Hi,
It looks like you have a bigger issue waiting for you. I did some experimentations and here are some conclusions :
1) You can't import a xml file with missing links through Scripting. I mean it's just not allowed. I thought maybe you could import while preventing alerts and do the image replacements after the import. But you can't even get to this point.
SO you need to replace the urls prior to import, BUT :
2) if you instantiate a XML object, replace urls, and output a new XML, it's likely that you will alter the xml architecture that may output weirdly later within InDesign.
3) I also thought about some XSL file you could create on the fly and call in the XML import process but it looks like XSL 1.0 doesn't allow String replacement (bad luck InDesign XSL support is 1.0).
THEN what solution remains ?
Maybe loading XML file as regular text, replace contents there and save your new xml file to use. You may want to take care of the encoding then and also use a copy not to corrupt the original xml file.
I guess you are expecting code rather than verbose digression but I just wanted to let you know what I observed so you don't loose time on bad leads 
FWIW,
Loic
Eventually I came up with two solutions - neither of them is perfect:
one is mentioned by Loic - to replace links, and save it as a temporary xml file - works fine but it changes the structure. And after a second thought I'm not ok with that 
.
The second option is to create missing file on the fly and save it on a server in the exact location - works also but there is danger that these operation will occur while file is being send to a server and valid file will be overwritten...
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