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CHAPTER 5: Scripting with JavaScript Accessing and referencing objects 46

Accessing and referencing objects

When you write a script, you must first decide which file, or document, the script should act on. Through

the

application object, the script can create a new document, open an existing document, or act on a

document that is already open.

The script can create new objects in the document, operate on objects that the user selected, or operate

on objects in one of the object collections. The following sections illustrate various techniques for

accessing, referencing, and manipulating Illustrator objects.

Referencing the application object

To obtain a reference to a specific object, you need to navigate the containment hierarchy. Because all

JavaScript scripts are executed from within the Illustrator application, however, a specific reference to the

application object is not required. For example, to assign the active document in Illustrator to the

variable

frontMostDocument, you could reference the activeDocument property of the application

object, as follows:

var frontMostDocument = activeDocument;

It is permissible to use the application object in a reference. To reference the application object, use

the

app global variable. The following two statements appear identical to the JavaScript engine:

var frontMostDocument = activeDocument;

var frontMostDocument = app.activeDocument;

Accessing objects in collections

All open documents, as well as the objects in a document, are collected into collection objects for the

object type. A collection object contains an array of the objects that you can access by index or name. The

collection object takes the plural form of the object name. For example, the collection object for the

document object is documents.

The following script sample gets all

graphic style objects in the graphic styles collection; that is, it

gets all graphic styles available to the active document:

var myStyles = app.activeDocument.graphicStyles;

All numeric collection references in JavaScript are zero-based: the first object in the collection has the

index [0].

As a rule, JavaScript index numbers do not shift when you add an object to a collection. There is one

exception:

documents[0] is always the active or frontmost document.

To access the first style in a

graphic styles collection, you can use the variable declared in the previous

script sample, or you can use the containment hierarchy to refer to the collection:

X Using the myStyles variable:

var firstStyle = myStyles[0];

X Using the containment hierarchy:

var firstStyle = app.activeDocument.graphicStyles[0];

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EDOBE XDOM TPC Technical Information Page 46