Wow, you guys are really getting excited!

I thought about adding a UI and decided that it would get too complicated, and it's hard to do really solid UIs in ScriptUI and I didn' want to go mess with ActionScript/FLEX/CSXS/etc. for something that nobody actually admitted to wanting to use :-).

But I think you guys should go ahead! Seems like there's a market.

That is unexpected. What is the text of the alert message, or a screenshot?

Hmm. I wonder if it is better to filter these based on the export type, the empty document name, or both.

Whoops, sorry for the delay. Here's a version that honors app.scriptPreferences.userInteractionLevel and also checks to make sure it is exporting either a PDF or IDML. I'd especially appreciate someone confirming this works properly for InDesign that's not US English.

// exportPop.jsx -- pops up Background Tasks when you start an export
//   and a modal dialog when an export finishes.
// Beta version. Please post feedback at
//   http://forums.adobe.com/thread/830572
// John Hawkinson, 17 March 2011. This revision 20 April 2011.
// $Id: f4055778c272f8d200d27f7ca7a63450dd1bdf7f $
// Save in STARTUP SCRIPTS folder to start automatically.
 
#targetengine session
 
(function() {
    var
        old1 = app.eventListeners.itemByName("exportPop1"),
        old2 = app.eventListeners.itemByName("exportPop2"),
        types = [ '$ID/InDesignMarkup', '$ID/Adobe PDF (Print)',
            '$ID/Adobe PDF (Interactive)'],
        i, typeFilter = {};
        
    for (i=0; i<types.length; i++) {
        typeFilter[app.translateKeyString(types[i])]=1;
    }
        
    if (old1.isValid || old2.isValid) {
        if (old1.isValid) { old1.remove(); }
        if (old2.isValid) { old2.remove(); }
        alert("Export pop up window removed.\n"+
            "Indesign will behave as normal.");
        return;
    }
    
    app.addEventListener("beforeExport", function() {
        var
            tasksPanel = app.panels.itemByName("Background Tasks");
        if (tasksPanel) { tasksPanel.visible=true; }
    }).name = "exportPop1";
    
    app.addEventListener("afterExport", function(ev1) {
        var task, listener;
        if (app.scriptPreferences.userInteractionLevel===
             UserInteractionLevels.NEVER_INTERACT ||
            !typeFilter.hasOwnProperty(ev1.format) )
     {
            return;
        }
        task = app.idleTasks.add({ name: "exportPop", sleep: 1000});
        listener = task.addEventListener(IdleEvent.ON_IDLE,
            function(ev2) {
                listener.remove();
                task.remove();
                alert(ev1.format+" export complete of "
                    +ev1.fullName+" at "+ev1.timeStamp);
            });
    }).name = "exportPop2";
 
    alert("Export pop up window installed\n"+
        "Background Tasks will appear the start of an export\n"+
        "and a dialog will appear after each export complete.");
}());

I'm always suspicious of app.translateKey and app.findKeyStrings, especially when the latter returns stuff with spaces.. But there doesn't seem to be a better keystring for the PDF export formats.

Incidently, ImportExportEvents and DocumentEvents have their own userInteractionLevels property. I figured it would probably be the value of the scriptPreference at the time the event was dispatched, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Any clues?

Please note, Mayhem, that since app.scriptPreferences.userInteractionLevels seems to be different in every engine, I'm not sure there is much point in this check. But it does not hurt, so there we go.

How's that CSXS extension coming, guys?