Hi, I am a plugin developer, and there is a lot of features we are missing in Illustrator scripting that can be done manually in Illustrator. This is the one feature. Please add this feature so that we have some method or property to make the object as a key object to perform "Align to Key Object" operation via script.

Currently, you can ask Illustrator what layer is selected, but if a user has more than one layer selected, it won't give a list or array of all selected layers. It will still just give you one layer. So many scripts I write have to do with changing properties of multiple layers like batch renaming or batch recolouring. The workaround is to ask the end user to lock all layers they don't want to be affected. It would be much more natural for them to just select the layers they want to be affected.

Currently it appears only 1 appearance fill is available via scripting, and Illustrator spits out the value of whichever one is selected. What I'd like to be able to do, is loop through the appearances of layers for example, record those attributes(including layer opacity and blending modes) and apply those to fills within a single shape. As there are many more stacked attributes within appearances, it may not be this simple, but it'd be much appreciated.

app.preferences.setBooleanPreference('linkTransform',1);
makes the Constrain Width and Height Proportions button to toggle... but only internally, the button does not change.

app.activeDocument.swatches.getSelected() gets selected swatches in the document. If you select one path in a document and apply any selected color to it, the swatches will remain selected. But if many paths are selected, applying a swatch to any path resets the selected swatches.

The user has to manually select the swatches again each time he runs the scripts.

Lots of obvious variables are missing from each type of item. I've not tested exhaustively so I've no doubt there'll be other examples, but here are a few I've recently run up against;

• fillColor and strokeColor are entirely missing from both text and group items. *where a path has multiple fills or strokes, you can't select which one is referenced, and the rest are inaccessible. *arrow heads *effects (eg. I'd like to be able to access properties of a 3D effect) *graphic styles (reference, rename, create, remove, edit)

Bring back the old scripting forums, the new "Community" forums are a joke. It's totally unintuitive and impossible to find anything scripting related as its all thrown in with general user stuff. Looks like all the money has been spent on "Badges" when all we want is easy to find help. Looks like all the historical data has mostly been removed as well so that's bad if you are looking for something someone may have answered in the past. Big step backwards...

Why are Scripting Guides/References password protected now?

many times we need to copy/paste sample scripts to help new users in the forums.

Please remove protection.

thanks
Carlos

Hello,

I develop a plugin where I need to create/update/modify graphic style and/or Aspect for graphic item.
I try many solutions, search on the web but for the moment it's not possible.

Could you please add support for creating/editing/deleting graphic style and aspect ?
It's very important for me ! And I think many developpers can be interesting with this features.

Thanks a lot !
Loïc

If you click inside of an artboard with a mouse, it gets the 'active' flag and becomes selected in Artboards panel as well. So if you press Shift+O to pick Artboard Tool, you see its name and dimensions.
However, if you use method setActiveArtboardIndex() — the artboard still gets the active black border, but the panel stays unrefreshed, and if you pick the tool you get the information about a different artboard.

We can export a JPEG using ExportOptionsJPEG() — but it allows to set only quality, not a resolution.

We can use ImageCaptureOptions() instead to set a resolution — but it won’t allow to set a quality, because seems to be designed for PNG (and substituting a format to JPG gives questionable results).

We need to be able to export JPEG images, controlling both quality and resolution, without using app.doScript() trick — it fails on Cyrillic folder names.

Commands:
//menu Other Object\Isolate Selected Object
app.executeMenuCommand('enterFocus');

//menu Other Object\Exit Isolation Mode
app.executeMenuCommand('exitFocus');

Return error:
an Illustrator error occurred: 1346458189 ('PARM').

This applies not only to isolation, but also to some other commands.

Create a text object, type some text, keep it selected and run the script:

activeDocument.textFrames[0].paragraphs[0].paragraphAttributes.firstLineIndent = 20;
alert(activeDocument.textFrames[0].paragraphs[0].paragraphAttributes.firstLineIndent);

activeDocument.textFrames[0].paragraphs[0].paragraphAttributes.firstLineIndent = 0;
alert(activeDocument.textFrames[0].paragraphs[0].paragraphAttributes.firstLineIndent);

You have two alerts saying 20, while the second one should show and actually set the first line indent value to 0 — and it does not.

There is no way to access the opacity of a textRange. This TextFrame has 100% opacity, but it contains two textRanges, one of which is at 50% opacity. I don't believe that there is a way to make everything 100% opaque from javascript.

importFile() worked fine in CC2017, now in CC2018 it throws an "Illegal Argument" error.

here's a small JavaScript to test. Open any document or create a blank file before running the script

var f = File('c:/temp/Example File.pdf'); // to test, add a path to a valid file in your system

var idoc = app.activeDocument; // have any document open

idoc.importFile(f, false);

We have an action that works, when launched form the Actions panel.
Operations are simple:
1. Copy
2. Deselect All
3. Paste in Front
4. Join
5. Join
It is designed to create a new closed shape from two segments from different shapes.

However, when we call this exact action from a script with a app.doScript, it doesn’t work, an error message 'The object "Join" is not currently available' is displayed.

Please see the video.