I've never tried with Illustrator, but in InDesign the escape key will break out of a script. Harbs ... View more

Hi Fred,<br /><br />Here's a little function which will retrieve any menu action based on it <br />name (which appears in the UI). It's much quicker to access menus <br />directly (rather than loop), but this is an easy way to find them.<br /><br />function GetMenuAction(name){<br /> var menus = app.menuActions;<br /> for(var i=0;i<menus.length;i++){<br /> var menu = menus;<br /> if(menu.name == name){return menu}<br /> }<br /> return null;<br /> }<br /><br />Actually, this works too:<br /><br />menu = app.menuActions.item("Show Text Threads"<br /><br />Harbs ... View more

Norbert D'souza wrote: > Any ideas whats in store for fellow scripters? > You'll find out soon! ;) Harbs ... View more

I'm not sure if this has to do with your problem, but "var targetFodler" should have been "var targetFolder"... Harbs ... View more

I don't think it exists... Harbs ... View more

Use a reference to the doc based on its file path. Harbs ... View more

Yes, this is a known issue. Zero width characters are not really totally zero width. Inserting them can cause text reflow... Harbs ... View more

Brad Walrod wrote: > They're not all Photoshop images; that's why I want to use ID's > export selection feature. > Photoshop can open any image type yu can place in InDesign. You'll have to set the rasterizing settings when importing (which in your case would be 72 DPI). ... View more

Hi Brad, I'd just make a photoshop action to save the whole folder of art as jpegs... Harbs ... View more

Peter, Very nice code! John, my function was meant to accept an array of pages or page ranges. Not a string... (It returns an expanded array as well...) Harbs ... View more

How 'bout something like this?<br /><br />function DecomposeNumberRange(numberRange){<br /> var retVal=[];<br /> for(var i=0;i<numberRange.length;i++){<br /> numberRange=numberRange.split("-");<br /> if(numberRange.length==1){<br /> retVal.push(Number(numberRange[0]));<br /> }<br /> else{<br /> var endNumber=Number(numberRange[1]);<br /> var startNumber = Number(numberRange[0]);<br /> while(startNumber<=endNumber){<br /> retVal.push(startNumber);<br /> startNumber++;<br /> }<br /> }<br /> }<br /> return retVal;<br /> }<br /><br /><br />Harbs ... View more

I always deal with "properties" if I can... This is five times faster than the version with just: myPrefs = myTF.textFramePreferences; myTF= app.selection[0]; var myStartTime = new Date(); for (var j = 0; 100 > j; j++) { myPrefs = myTF.textFramePreferences.properties; myPrefs.textColumnCount = 2; myPrefs.textColumnGutter = 12; } var myEndTime = new Date(); var myDuration = (myEndTime - myStartTime)/1000; // Times are in milliseconds alert(myDuration) [Edit: Never mind. It doesn't work at all... 😞 ] Harbs ... View more

Eric has a very good point! When the four references to aDoc.viewPreferences are changed to a variable, the time it took to run was cut in half -- way less than the "with" statement! The rule of creating variables for objects when they are accessed more than once (especially when they nested in other objects), is almost as important as the rule of not using "with" statements! :) Harbs ... View more

Hi Dave, I actually got (slightly) better results using your second ("with") construct. The thing is, you have no nesting in your "with" statement. Try changing that to: with(aDoc){ with(viewPreferences){ ........ and you will start to see rapid degradation of performance. The more nesting you have, I believe the more drastic the degradation will be... I'll keep staying away from "with" statements... ;) Harbs ... View more

Hi Dan, Using global variables is really very bad practice. Besides all the other problems, it makes your code much harder to reuse. If you create nuclear functions for all the basic stuff you do, you can reuse those functions anywhere without worrying about name conflicts. I have a function library which has close to 100 functions which I use regularly. Keeping track of so many unique variable names would be cumbersome to say the least! I also have a standardized naming system for variables (which requires them to be local). This makes code much more reusable as well. A script which uses local variables is also (slightly) more efficient. The scripting engine searches for a variable name locally before it searches in the global namespace. Theoretically this would also reduce the chances of problems... Also, I don't know if you use the APID ToolAssistant from Rorohiko, but if you do, using global variables with that opens up a whole new can of worms!!! You are asking for serious trouble by doing that. Harbs ... View more

Hi Daniel, That's a tough one! One issue which might be worth looking into, is variable name conflicts. I've had issues with crashes when certain global variables were redefined. I doubt my specific issue is connected to yours, but try and make sure that all your variables are local. You can alsotry to track down were things go wrong by using alerts or script logs. Harbs ... View more

I was about to say that the "General Discussions" area in the ID Family Developers Discussions forums is a better place... But I see you did already... ;-) I agree with Dave that these questions should not be discussed here... Harbs ... View more

If you need precise information about the position of a specific glyph, you can use createOutlines() and get the geometric bounds of the resulting polygon. Just make sure that you remove the outlines afterwards, and keep in mind that this type of stuff is very "expensive" in terms of performance. Harbs ... View more

You're welcome. You should take a look at the ListItem Script UI class in the OMV. Harbs ... View more

You want: this.selection.text Harbs ... View more

In Script UI, the dialogs are going to be nested no matter what you do. (At least that's what I've found...) If you move that layer.add() out of your function to only be executed after BOTH dialogs have been closed, you should be okay. Harbs ... View more

Check the parentTextFrames length of the last character of the last footnote in your text frame. If it's 0, your footnote is overset. Harbs ... View more

Use a self-calling function to show the dialog again if the field is empty. Harbs ... View more

Just to add to Ole's comment: The only advantage I see to the reference string approach, is that it's easy to see the structure of the dialog (similar to "with" statements in regular dialogs). But like Ole, I find them very difficult to work with. Harbs ... View more

Hi Brad,<br /><br />Here's a build-off of Dave's script which should do the trick...<br /><br /><br /><br />//DESCRIPTION: Reduce height of selected text frame to next guide<br /><br />if (app.documents.length > 0 && app.selection.length > 0) {<br /> reduceTFtoNextGuide(app.selection[0]);<br />}<br /><br />function reduceTFtoNextGuide(sel) {<br /> if (sel.hasOwnProperty("baseline")) {<br /> sel = sel.parentTextFrames;<br /> if (sel.length > 0) {<br /> sel = sel[0];<br /> }<br /> }<br /> if (sel instanceof TextFrame && sel.parent instanceof Page) {<br /> var page = sel.parent;<br /> var bounds = sel.geometricBounds;<br /> var index = page== page.parent.pages[0] ? 0:1;<br /> index=page==app.documents[0].pages[0]? 1:index;<br /> var guides = GetGuides(page,index);<br /><br /> var next = bounds[0];<br /> for (var j = guides.length - 1; j >= 0; j--) {<br /> if (guides .orientation == HorizontalOrVertical.horizontal) {<br /> var loc = guides .location;<br /> if (loc > next && loc < bounds[2] - 0.0001) {<br /> next = Math.max(next, loc);<br /> }<br /> }<br /> }<br /> if (next > bounds[0]) {<br /> bounds[2] = next;<br /> sel.geometricBounds = bounds;<br /> } else {<br /> alert("No suitable guide found.");<br /> }<br /> } else {<br /> alert("Script requires one free-standing text frame be selected.");<br /> }<br />}<br />function AsArray(collection){<br /> if(collection instanceof Array){return collection.slice(0)}<br /> else{return collection.everyItem().getElements().slice(0)}<br /> }<br />function GetGuides(page,index){<br /> var retVal=AsArray(page.guides);<br /> var spreadGuides = AsArray(page.parent.guides);<br /> for(var i=0;i<spreadGuides.length;i++){<br /> if(! spreadGuides.fitToPage){retVal.push(spreadGuides)}<br /> }<br /> if(page.appliedMaster){<br /> retVal = <br />retVal.concat(GetGuides(page.appliedMaster.pages[index],index));<br /> }<br /> return retVal;<br /> }<br /><br />Harbs ... View more

Very nice solution. This will only work if you know the full path. The advantage of the method added by APID, is that it will work even if you don't know the file path. If you come up with a way to do that with scripting alone, I'd love to hear it! Harbs ... View more

> Maybe we can start a movement! > You lead, I'll follow. I've found it's just easier to just ask Kris to create a solution to work around any shortcomings in the scripting DOM, though! 🙂 (He's very good at that...) Harbs ... View more

Hi Dave, Make that three or four... ;) Kris at Rorohiko created a method to get unique references to two different documents with the same name. It's usable if you have the free APID ToolAssistant version 1.0.44 or higher. (it doesn't need to be licensed...) Here's an excerpt from the reference manual: The get doc GUID function is used as follows: guid = app.callExtension(0x90B6C,10008,document); This function returns a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) for a document. This is a string of the form {nnnnnnnn-nnnn-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn} where all 'n' stand for a hexadecimal digit. These GUID allow you to work with same-name documents that are concurrently open without getting tangled in the confusion that occurs when using resolve calls. As long as a document is not moved from its original location on disk, it will keep the same GUID. Two documents with the same name but different paths will have different GUID. Opening, closing, (re)saving to the same location will NOT change the GUID. Moving a document to another location will change the GUID. The find open doc by GUID function is used as follows: doc = app.callExtension(0x90B6C,10009,guid); This function retrieves a reference to an already open document based on its GUID string. These GUID strings are unique and persistent and allow persistent references to same-name documents without resolvelike issues (but the documents are meant to be 'unmovable' i.e. they cannot be renamed or moved to another folder). Once the document is open, it can be retrieved via its GUID. HTH, Harbs ... View more

Hi James, While I can't answer for him (as to why he doesn't make it clearer as to who he is), Mark is way up there in the "food chain" at Adobe. Exactly what his official position is, I don't know, but he is responsible for many aspects of various SDKs in Adobe's products. If you have suggestions / requests, I believe he is a very good address. Either way, filling out the survey and writing your issues there will probably be helpful! I believe Mark's official title is Adobe Developer Evangelist. Here's his blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/notesfrommnr/ And here's his wiki: http://www.niemannross.com/developer/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page FWIW, I totally agree with your complaints. The few times I've written scripts for Illustrator, I've found the scripting DOM woefully lacking compared to InDesign's (and I wrote so when I filled out this survey...). Harbs ... View more