Re: Rotating text around a circle. Have selected W...

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 12, 2015

Is this a scripting question? Or did you mean to post this in the Illustrator forum? it's also a good idea to include screenshots so we can see what you're looking at and get a better idea of what's happening.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 12, 2015

ok.. so i did some cursory research and i think this is probably over my head.. at least for the time being. i'm at work so i can't spend too much time troubleshooting this.. sorry. i thought it might be more simple. but basically, like i said above.. your task is to loop through each pathItem and push the gradient stop values into arrays (var stop1 = [];, var stop2 = []; etc). then you could write an if clause to determine the value of each array in sequence and then you should be able to use something like the code i posted at the beginning of this thread. if (stop1 == some opacity value){ apply tint instead of opacity (or vice versa) to the first gradient stop in your current path } sorry i can't be of more help. and i'm sure someone will step in here and tell me that pushing to an array is a terrible idea.. i just don't know how the gradient stops are written.. i'm sure this could be done all within the same function.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 12, 2015

ok. so you need to make the white stops pink and the pink stops white? i'm not seeing how tints/opacity (as per your original question) fits into that picture.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 12, 2015

yea.. the code will likely get pretty complex if you don't know how many gradient stops there will be. ultimately, it's going to require identifying that pathItem[index] has a gradient, then determining how many stops, then pushing the information from each stop into an array, then applying that information from the array into the object you want to replace (but before applying the information, you need to extract the info from those stops and push to a separate array).. i might be of more help if i can see the file you're working with.. how many gradients are we talking here? and will each gradient have just 1 mirror object? or is there one object with gradient stops [a, b, c, d, e] and then several objects with gradient stops [aa, bb, cc, dd, ee]?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 12, 2015

i'm still really new to all of this as well.. the way i understand it.. you'd need to call each stop.. unless of course you could create a graphic style and then reference the object by said graphic style? however, i know this is sort of antithetical to the idea of scripting these changes.. especially if you have a wide variation of transparencies, tints and gradients that you need to script. without knowing the scope of the changes you need to make and the number of files etc.. it's hard to say what the best approach is.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 09, 2015

did this solve your problem, Roopa?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 09, 2015

sorry that question was dumb and unnecessary so i deleted it.. here is the absolutely most basic and simple way to do this. it's not the ideal way because it relies on the hard number values. but with this you should be able to devise some other variables or arrays to make it work with values that don't have to be hard coded. var docRef = app.activeDocument; var paths = docRef.pathItems; for (i=0; i< paths.length; i++){ if (paths.fillColor.tint == 50 && paths.opacity == 100){ paths.fillColor.tint = 100; paths.opacity = 50; } else if (paths.fillColor.tint == 100 && paths.opacity == 50){ paths.fillColor.tint = 50; paths.opacity = 100; } }

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 09, 2015

ok.. i think i'm starting to get it. so as far as your ESTK workflow.. do you wait until you've gotten an error to add the break point? or are you adding those proactively while you're writing your code in anticipation of potential errors?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 09, 2015

ok.. i see that i have to keep stepping to get inside the function.. but it still doesn't reveal variables as i go through them.. for example.. why doesn't it show the value of x on line 5? why does it show the value of x on line 6?? i can see the benefit of viewing the results and values of each line.. but this seems like a really cumbersome way to do it.. it seems to me that it would be easier to simply log each result to the console and read it that way.. especially because step through stops on just about every line even if it's not giving you any information. for example.. when i step through and it stops on "var docRef = app.activeDocument"... i'm not gaining any information about that variable.. every bit of information i need for that one is right there in that statement.. i'll have to keep playing with this.. but right now it seems like it's going to slow me down more than anything.. edit** not to mention.. i'm not sure how to 'close' my loops and such in the script i posted at the beginning of this thread.. if i just put all of those loops in a function, as i'm stepping through it i have to step through the first loop times before i can get any information about the second loop. it seems like i should have separate functions rather than lumping all of that into one function.. but i don't really know how to put that together.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 09, 2015

there is exactly as much room for error when making straight lines... if you carelessly make your clipping mask.. it doesn't matter what angle the lines are at, you're going to end up with a crappy pattern. i see exactly what you did in your example with the notches missing from the pattern.. you made your clipping mask around 1 line from endpoint to endpoint, which was not how i instructed OP to do it. if my instructions were followed, that wouldn't be a problem. so if your argument is that someone shouldn't use my method because they could make a mistake... then i can't accept it as a reason that one method is better than another. here's a pattern i made with your method.. but i did it poorly.. surely that's not proof that your method is faulty..?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 09, 2015

Silly-V the data browser seems to display tons of stuff i don't need and have never used.. sometimes it displays variables within other open documents.. and sometimes it even shows variables that i tried like last week and decided i didn't need so i deleted them. how do i go about cleaning that panel up?? why would it hold information from previous projects? (especially when i can't seem to get ESTK to even save my preferences at the end of a session.. for example i change the font and size every day to make it easier to read.. the default font makes it difficult to determine the difference between i and l..). but whenever i start a new session... the preferences go back to default.. i wonder if i've got some serious bugs and perhaps need to re-install the application?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 09, 2015

in my experience a local change cannot be picked up by the eyedropper because the eyedropper simply applies the global instance. perhaps we have some settings differences. anyway, i refer back to my answer about how my workflow demands contiunity. if any of my staff is changing a pattern because they don't like the way it looks, they are not properly doing their job. so again.. i go back to what i've said several times. different workflows demand different procedures. in my environment, we could be producing 1000 pieces and every one needs to be the same pattern. so for me, making changes globally makes more sense.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

WWhen I open a fresh, blank estk document, the data browser by default is cluttered with about 50 generic variables and functions. many of which, like I said, are for after effects, even though I've never written a line of code that targeted AE.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

Because in my workflow we build a pattern right the first time and rely on that pattern being consistent every time thereafter. If you alter a pattern fill by scaling, moving or rotating the object that contains the pattern, the only way to reproduce the appearance of that pattern in a separate object is to replicate those transformations exactly. Pattern transformations are local. I need global solutions. the instructions I gave above were only because the OP was using cs5. I use cc which allows for artwork to extend outside the bounds of the pattern tile and overlap which negates the need for a clipping mask and the pattern editor lets me make global changes (and save a new copy if I want). In production applications it just makes more sense. but again.. Obviously our workflows are different.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

DDo you know of any good tutorial video that walks through break points and step through functions??? I've seen all of that stuff there, and I've used the data browser to view the values of certain variables and sometimes I've been able to discern available properties that weren't listed in the scripting guide. But the data browser is always so cluttered with stuff that is in no way relevant to my project (tons of after effects functions????) and I haven't quite seen how to delete the impertinent stuff.. I just need some kind of crash course.. But I can definitely see the benefits you're talking about and how they woudid really increase my productivity.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

perhaps we have different workflows.. but i avoid rotating/scaling instances of a pattern like the plague. if i my ask, why do you see that as a better solution? how might it be easier/cleaner/better?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

brilliant. why doesn't the scripting guide show fillColor as an available property for pathItems? sometimes that scripting guide is genius and sometimes i wonder if the writer was falling asleep while writing it and just left out huge chunks of information... as to your second suggestion, i need to be more specific than just determining whether the spot color exists in the document.. for example, i need to know that thru-cut exists only as a stroke color, and at least once per artboard. to my knowledge, the inkList or doc.swatches properties will only tell me whether the color exists at all. it would be helpful for me to know that the color does NOT exist, but the script i have will alert me to that as well as cross reference the number of artboards vs the number of artboards that contain at least 1 thru-cut stroke. EDIT*** interesting.. that worked in my shorthand sample script and alerts the proper color.. but in the original script i posted above i'm getting the error "undefined is not an object" on the first loop on line 18... it seems it doesn't allow me to access the pathItems inside of groupItems for some reason??

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

ok. so what you want to do is create a pattern fill. i'll try my best to explain this in cs5 terms as patterns have changed since then. first you need to create the lines. draw two vertical lines 1" tall andv 1" apart. select both lines and click Object > Blend > Make. after you've made the blend, click Object > Blend > Blend Options. check the "preview" checkbox in the lower left corner. click the flyout menu (i believe the default value is "smooth color"). select "specified steps" and enter different values in the dialog until the lines look the appropriate distance from one another. click ok when finished. select the blend object and click Object > Expand. In the dialog make sure that only the "Object" tick box is selected. Click Expand. at this point you have a group of vertical lines selected. rotate the group by 45* draw a box around the outside edges of the diagonal lines. now scale that down so that the entire box is inside of the diagonal lines. select both objects and click Object > Clipping Mask > Make duplicate this object and keep it off to the side (because if you need to adjust stroke width in the future, you'll need this). now select the original one and go to your Pathfinder palette and click "Crop". this gets rid of the clipping mask so you're just left with the expanded diagonal lines. now drag the expanded/cropped object into your swatches panel and voila. make sure to name the new pattern fill so you can identify it (you don't want to have several different patterns called "New Pattern Swatch 1" and "New Pattern Swatch 2" etc etc.) if you need to adjust the stroke width for a different pattern, refer to the duplicate you made before and isolate the strokes to adjust the stroke width and repeat the above steps to crop.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

do you need the diagonal lines just for one box? or do you want to add the same lines to many different boxes?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

what version of illustrator are you using?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

in what way do you want the lines to vary? are you looking for a seamless pattern fill? or do you just want an object to contain somewhat of a gradient of lines like this??:

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

update.. i trimmed the code down to the absolute bare minimum just so i can see what's happening.. the following code produces the result "[SpotColor]" var docRef = app.activeDocument; var paths = docRef.pathItems; alert(paths[0].fillColor); // returns: "[SpotColor]" That tells me that for some reason the property fillColor is returning the typeName.. so i changed the alert to this, in order to get the name of the swatch: var docRef = app.activeDocument; var paths = docRef.pathItems; alert(paths[0].fillColor.name); // returns: "undefined" ???? this is really confusing to me.. anyone tell me what i'm doing wrong here?

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

I'm attempting to build a preflight of sorts for my Illustrator workflow (since for some reason.. preflight in illustrator doesn't exist...). Essentially i need to loop through the pathItems on each artboard looking for a specific spot color (first verifying that the spot color does NOT exist as a fill color in any of the artwork, then checking for the presence of any pathItem that contains the spot color as a stroke). This seemed to be a really straightforward task, but it seems as though pathItems.fillColor or pathItems.strokeColor is not a valid property? That confuses me because it works to apply a color to a pathItem.. It seems to me if you can apply a color via pathItems.fillColor, you should also be able to create an if clause that determines whether pathItems.fillColor == (some color). However, while testing this in the simplest of documents wherein i know what the result of the if clause should be, it doesn't work. is there something I'm missing here about the property fillColor/strokeColor?? Here's the code I'm working with. Thanks, all. #target Illustrator var docRef = app.activeDocument; var aB = docRef.artboards; var swatchList = docRef.swatches; var tC = swatchList.getByName("Thru-cut"); var tCCount = 0; //how many artboards/top level groups contain at least 1 Thru-cut stroke? var artLayers = docRef.layers; var groups = artLayers[0].groupItems; var aBtCCount = 0; // how many artboards have var aBnoTC = []; // which artboards/top level groups (by index) do not contain at least 1 Thru-cut stroke? for (a = 0; a < aB.length; a++){ aBtCCount = 0 var items = groups.pathItems; for (b = 0; b < items.length; b ++){ if (items.fillColor == swatchList.getByName("Thru-cut")){ alert("You have Thru-cut fills in your document!!"); break; } //end if // thru-cut is fill else if (items.strokeColor == swatchList.getByName("Thru-cut")){ tCCount++; break; } //end if // thru-cut is stroke else{ tCCount = 0; } //end else // set counter to 0 }//end for loop B // checking items on each artboard if(tCCount == 0){ aBnoTC.push(" " + a); }//end if // artboard has no cut line else{ aBtCCount++; }//end else // add to counter for total artboards w/ thru-cut alert(tCCount); }//end for loop A if (aBtCCount < aB.length){ alert("Artboard/s " + aBnoTC + " are missing Thru-cut lines"); }//end if // not enough cut lines

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 08, 2015

Roopa, Here you go. Just group every item in your document and run this script. no loops. #target Illustrator var docRef = app.activeDocument; var group = docRef.groupItems[0]; group.resize( 50.0, //this is a percentage of current width 50.0, //this is a percentage of current height true, // changePositions true, // changeFillPatterns true, // changeFillGradients true, // changeStrokePattern );

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 07, 2015

thanks pixxxel schubser, however i don't think that would do what i wanted. the clipping mask i'm looking for (if my artists are doing their job properly) should never reside on the outside of "groupLevel1". the clipping mask is inside of that group, often within another group. additionally, if you see the screenshot i posted above as to the order of my layer structure, you'll see that even once you get to the "Clip Group", the clipping mask is inside of that "Clip Group". if i get the visible bounds of "Clip Group", i'll be in the same boat i was to begin with as the visible bounds of "Clip Group" include the artwork that spills out of the clipping mask. it's important for me to get the bounds of ONLY the clipping path. your snippet reminds me though that i need to plan for the possibility that "Clip Group" is nested in the first group..

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 07, 2015

i was just wrestling with this very problem. here's what i ended up with. this will find the clipping mask that is highest in the layer[0].pathItems index and then stop looking and return the visible bounds of that clipping mask to the variable clipMaskBounds. this works in CC 2014.. i'm not sure about CS4, though. var docRef = app.activeDocument; var topGroup = docRef.layers[0].pathItems; var clipMaskBounds = x for (i = 0; i < topGroup.length; i ++){ if (topGroup.clipping = true){ clipMaskBounds = topGroup.visibleBounds; break; } }

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 07, 2015

bloody brilliant! man that makes a lot of sense. i thought i was finally there.. all the pieces seemed to fit and the theory seemed right.. wow. i'm going to have to be a lot more careful in the future and more diligent about nesting things properly.. i think that sort of thing happens often because i'm constantly deleting and rewriting lines or blocks to try out another idea. and then the tabs and spacing get messed up and i get confused. i think that for a while, until i get more comfortable, i'm going to start labeling the close braces as i create them so i know which belong to what. wow.. thank you so much for all your help on that! i was going mad. it seemed so easy.. and at the same time always just out of reach.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 07, 2015

i tagged you in a comment above where i posted the layers panel. groupLevel1 is the sum total of all objects i want to be inside the artboard. groupLevel2 could be any number of groups within that top group (which may be smaller than the desired artboard) and thus, i do not want to use that group. for example, in the screenshot of my layers i posted earlier, the left hand side is the front of a shirt. the top level group (groupLevel1) is every piece of artwork on the front of the shirt. the second level group (groupLevel2) could be the entirety of the front logo. I wouldn't want to use groupLevel2 to create the artboard because that would create an artboard just around the front logo.

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 07, 2015

this is my most current block of code.. i was really confident this would work, but it doesnt.. = ( var docRef = app.activeDocument; var aB = docRef.artboards; var docLayers = docRef.layers; var layer1 = docLayers[0]; var groupLevel1 = layer1.groupItems; var clipped = false; var selec = docRef.selection; var clipBounds = false; for (a = 0; a < groupLevel1.length; a++){ var groupLevel2 = groupLevel1.groupItems; var vB = groupLevel1.visibleBounds clipped = false; for (b = 0; b < groupLevel2.length; b++){ var paths = groupLevel2.pathItems; for (c = 0; c < paths.length; c++){ if (paths .clipping == true){ clipBounds = paths .visibleBounds; //~ alert(c + " index" + clipBounds) clipped = true; break; } else { clipped = false; } } if (clipped == true){ aB.add(clipBounds); alert("Group " + a + " has a clipping mask"); } else if (clipped == false){ aB.add(vB); } } }

Disposition_Dev · ‎Jan 07, 2015

that looks right.. the problem i'm having is that the if clause you wrote above will be nested inside a couple of for loops. i set up my flag as "clipped" to make it easier for me to identify. so if clipped == true, then i want it to create an artboard around the visible bounds of the clip mask. that part works great. but then i hit a snag when it comes to applying the artboards to the objects wherein clipped == false. i can't do that task within that for loop or it creates an artboard around every 2nd level group (i end up with several artboards around each piece of art.. one for each sub group within groupLevel1). and i can't do that task outside of the for loop without creating an additional artboard around that artwork (one artboard around the clipping mask and then another around the visual bounds of the group). sorry, i know i'm not explaining this right.. but i don't know how else to word it. see the attached screenshot. the red box is the one i need. i am currently able to create this artboard with this snippet (inside of the for loops): for (c = 0; c < paths.length; c++){ if (paths .clipping == true){ var clipBounds = paths .visibleBounds; //~ alert(c + " index" + clipBounds) aB.add(clipBounds); break; } } This part of the code works great and creates the artboard i want (the red one in the screenshot). problem is, if there is no clipping mask found, then no artboard is created (hence, line 21 of the code i originally posted). but creating artboards with bounds vB at that point in the loop negates the search for the clipping mask because it creates each artboard around the visible bounds of each top level group (even the ones that already got an artboard applied to the clipping mask, so any art that includes a clipping mask gets two artboards, represented by the red and blue squares in screenshot). now. the logical thing to do is to put an else statement to create an artboard around "groupLevel1" if (paths .clipping == false). for (c = 0; c < paths.length; c++){ if (paths .clipping == true){ var clipBounds = paths .visibleBounds; //~ alert(c + " index" + clipBounds) aB.add(clipBounds); break; } else { aB.add(vB); break; But that creates an artboard around "groupLevel1" every time it loops through.. so if there are 5 groupItems inside of "groupLevel1" i get 5 artboards at that size and location.

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