turn off layer isolation via script

[Evgenii Eth]

Guys is there a way to turn off layer filtering in photoshop via script? I used script listener to run menu item: select-isolate layers, if I run action again it cancels isolation - this is exactly what I need, but if I can the code from script listener again it doesn't cancels isolation, it only applies

 

[Stephen_A_Marsh · Accepted solution]

@Evgenii Eth 

Some menu commands need to be inserted into an action step to be successfully recorded by ScriptListener. Here is the SL code cleaned and put into a function:

isolateLayers();

function isolateLayers() {
	function s2t(s) {
        return app.stringIDToTypeID(s);
    }
	var descriptor = new ActionDescriptor();
	var reference = new ActionReference();
	reference.putEnumerated( s2t( "layer" ), s2t( "ordinal" ), s2t( "targetEnum" ));
	descriptor.putReference( s2t( "null" ), reference );
	executeAction( s2t( "isolateLayers" ), descriptor, DialogModes.NO );
}

Or you can just call the menu item as follows:

app.runMenuItem(stringIDToTypeID('isolateLayers'));

Hope this helps!

[Evgenii Eth]

Thank you, Stephen, for clearing this up for me! However my question was on how to undo the isolation or clear filtering layers. The code you provided works in one way - it only enables the isolation, but doesn't disables, however if I run action with the menu item it will do both enable/disable

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

You undo the isolation by running the call to the function a second time, it's a toggle. Run it once, and isolation is entered. Run it a second time and isolation is exited.

What happens "in-between" is something else.

Short of some esoteric Action Manager code being hand written by somebody such as @r-bin or @jazz-y , I don't believe that operations performed by the GUI while in isolation are scriptable.

The general rule is if it can be recorded into an action as a step, or registered in the SL output log, then it is captured. 

We can only do so much...

What are you wishing to script while in layer isolation mode? There may be other ways to achieve the same end.

[Evgenii Eth]

For some reason running the second time doesn't execute undo command on my machine

Yes I know that it is possbile to achive the same results, but isolation is much faster than for example preserving current hide/visible state of all layers and then restoring it afterwards 

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

The code toggles on/off for me in v2021 and v2022.

The code doesn't work in v2023... But the Action does! :]

I know it is fast, but we can only do what is possible in scripting when the GUI can't be recorded.

When things need to happen fast, using AM code is generally the way to go. For example, @jazz-y has posted some really sweet code in order to be able to "instantly" capture and restore selected layers and layer visibility (great for use with a loop that messes with the original layer selections or visibility).

This advanced scripting is beyond my abilities.