batch pattern creation and naming

I hadn't thought calling a script could be recorded into an action! Well thanks a lot Herb, it works great! you saved me a ton of work :)

I think when I have time I'll have to look into learning some scripting.. It looks incredibly useful!

cristina

Thanks a lot for your reply, Herb. However, as I said this is my first time dealing with scripts and I'm not sure I understand how they work. What I did is save the text to a file named "DefinePattern.jsx", and then run it via scripts, browse, etc., on an open document. But I get an error:

Error 1220: Illegal Argument
Line: 8
> var id18 = charIDToTypeID( "Mk " );

do you know what could be wrong?

and second question.. even if this worked, I assume I have to apply the script to an open document at a time, right? Would there be a way to further automate the process in order to apply this to a whole folder of documents at once?

thanks again for you help. :)

cristina

Hello Cristina.

This is perfectly the right place to ask, I think. The following is a
script to call in your action instead of the built-in menu item "define
pattern". What it does is to get the filename from the active document
and hand it to a "define pattern" call recorded with ScriptListener.

Herb


// DefinePattern.jsx
#target photoshop

function definePattern(patternName)
{
// ScriptListener output with only pattern name replaced
// =======================================================
var id18 = charIDToTypeID( "Mk " );
var desc3 = new ActionDescriptor();
var id19 = charIDToTypeID( "null" );
var ref1 = new ActionReference();
var id20 = charIDToTypeID( "Ptrn" );
ref1.putClass( id20 );
desc3.putReference( id19, ref1 );
var id21 = charIDToTypeID( "Usng" );
var ref2 = new ActionReference();
var id22 = charIDToTypeID( "Prpr" );
var id23 = charIDToTypeID( "fsel" );
ref2.putProperty( id22, id23 );
var id24 = charIDToTypeID( "Dcmn" );
var id25 = charIDToTypeID( "Ordn" );
var id26 = charIDToTypeID( "Trgt" );
ref2.putEnumerated( id24, id25, id26 );
desc3.putReference( id21, ref2 );
var id27 = charIDToTypeID( "Nm " );
desc3.putString( id27, patternName );
executeAction( id18, desc3, DialogModes.NO );
}

var doc = app.activeDocument;
definePattern(doc.name);