A script to randomize decals' order

[Théo5CEC]

Hi everyone 🙂

I'm working on the following file, and to reduce the amount of work, I duplicated the "Groupe 1" group to fill all the space. But as I don't want to it to be repetitive, I rotated randomly the groups, but we can still see the patterns repetiting, so I would like to have the decals to be ordered differently, which could take me a lot of time to do myself.

I'm planning to learn to script, but it's not in today's todo list ^^'. So if someone would have under his hand a script to randomize the order of the decals within a specific group, that would help me a lot.

Thanks already !

[jazz-y · Accepted solution]

I didn't fully understand the task. Something like that?

doProgress('', 'main()')
function main() {
  var sets = [].slice.call((app.activeDocument.layerSets));
  do {
    cur = sets.shift();
    changeProgressText(cur.name)
    updateProgress(app.activeDocument.layerSets.length - sets.length, app.activeDocument.layerSets.length)
    if (cur.visible) {
      lrs = [].slice.call((cur.layers));
      do {
        (lrs.shift()).rotate(Math.random() * 360)
      } while (lrs.length)
    }
  } while (sets.length)
  app.runMenuItem(stringIDToTypeID('collapseAllGroupsEvent'));
}

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I think the OP might just have meant the Layer-order within the individual Groups. 

Though the rotation may be the better solution anyway. 

[jazz-y · Accepted solution]

doProgress('', 'main()')
function main() {
var sets = [].slice.call((app.activeDocument.layerSets));
  do {
    cur = sets.shift();
    changeProgressText(cur.name)
    updateProgress(app.activeDocument.layerSets.length - sets.length, app.activeDocument.layerSets.length)
    if (cur.visible) {
      lrs = [].slice.call(cur.layers);
      do {
       (lrs.shift()).move(cur.layers[(Math.random()*(cur.layers.length-1)).toFixed()], ElementPlacement.PLACEBEFORE)
      } while (lrs.length)
    }
  } while (sets.length)
  app.runMenuItem(stringIDToTypeID('collapseAllGroupsEvent'));
}

[Théo5CEC]

Yeah, this script make the groups rotate randomly, but I would need the decals themselves to be rotated (in this case) and not the whole group. I was looking for changing the order of the decals (or their hierarchy, don't know what the most proper word is), but the rotation could be good enough as well.

[jazz-y]

First script rotates each layer in each group by a random degree from 0 to 360. It does not touch the groups themselves.

[Théo5CEC]

Well, I tried it, and it rotates the whole group actually. And when I put the layers out of the groups, it displayed an error message.

Nvm, found why it rotates the group, because I grouped the groups in another one. Now they aren't anymore, it does work fine 🙂

Well, rotation isn't that much of a great idea, because it leaves a lot of holes between the triangles :

[c.pfaffenbichler · Accepted solution]

This is less elegant; it should shuffle the Layers in the selected Group. 

// shuffle layers in active group;
// 2021, use it at your own risk;
if (app.documents.length > 0) {
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
var aaa = getLayersInGroup ();
if (aaa.length == 2) {shuffleTheLayers (aaa[0].sort(randOrd), aaa[1])}
};
////////////////////////////////////
function getLayersInGroup () {
var ref = new ActionReference();
ref.putEnumerated( charIDToTypeID("Lyr "), charIDToTypeID("Ordn"), charIDToTypeID("Trgt") ); 
var layerDesc = executeActionGet(ref);
var theIndex = layerDesc.getInteger(stringIDToTypeID("itemIndex"));
var theSection = layerDesc.getEnumerationValue(stringIDToTypeID("layerSection"));
////////////////////////////////////
if (typeIDToStringID(theSection) == "layerSectionStart") {
// anumber is intended to keep track of layerset depth;
var aNumber = 0;
var theCheck = false;
var theArray =  new Array;
var thisIndex = theIndex;
while (theCheck == false) {
    thisIndex--;
    var ref = new ActionReference();
    ref.putIndex( charIDToTypeID( "Lyr " ), thisIndex);
    var layerDesc = executeActionGet(ref);
    var theIndex = layerDesc.getInteger(stringIDToTypeID("itemIndex"));
    var theIdentifier = layerDesc.getInteger(stringIDToTypeID("layerID"));
    var theName = layerDesc.getString(stringIDToTypeID("name"));
    var theSection = typeIDToStringID(layerDesc.getEnumerationValue(stringIDToTypeID("layerSection")));
    if (theSection != "layerSectionStart" && theSection != "layerSectionEnd") {theArray.push([theName, theIdentifier])};
    if (theSection == "layerSectionStart") {aNumber++};
    if (theSection == "layerSectionEnd" && aNumber != 0) {aNumber--};
    if (theSection == "layerSectionEnd" && aNumber == 0) {theCheck = true};
}
return [theArray, theIndex]
};
////////////////////////////////////
return [theIndex]
};
////////////////////////////////////
function shuffleTheLayers (theArray, theIndex) {
for (var m = 0; m < theArray.length; m++) {
    var idlayer = stringIDToTypeID( "layer" );
    var desc3 = new ActionDescriptor();
        var ref1 = new ActionReference();
        ref1.putIdentifier( idlayer, theArray[m][1] );
    desc3.putReference( stringIDToTypeID( "null" ), ref1 );
        var ref2 = new ActionReference();
        ref2.putIndex( idlayer, theIndex );
    desc3.putReference( stringIDToTypeID( "to" ), ref2 );
executeAction( stringIDToTypeID( "move" ), desc3, DialogModes.NO );
}
};
////// randomize array, thanks to Stephen Chapman, http://javascript.about.com/ //////
function randOrd(){
return (Math.round(Math.random())-0.5)
};

[Théo5CEC]

As long as it does the job, I don't mind the elegancy 😄

Thanks !