Some Extendscript resources

[Arnis_Gubins]

A note from Kapil Verma, FM's product manager:

*************

Hi All,

Hope you are well. Many of you have asked me about ExtendScript capability in FM10. With Extendscript, one can easily automate time-consuming and repetitive tasks and this tool comes standard as part of FrameMaker10. And the best part about this is that extendscript lets you create scripts which can communicate with several Adobe products and not just FrameMaker. Here are some additional resources for you to look at.

Blog Posts on extendscript

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2011/03/sample-scripts-utilities-shipped-with-framemaker-10.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2011/07/create-a-book-packager-using-extendscript.html

E-Seminar recording

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=register_no_session&id=1808717&loc=en_us

Overview documentation

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/WSd5e89bb44d752f2f4e0f6b6612c81bacb1a-8000.html

More to come…

Thanks,

Kapil Verma

Sr. Product Manager - FrameMaker | FrameMaker Server

O: +91-120-2444711 x 34505

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/category/framemaker

http://twitter.com/KapilVermaAdobe

http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/

[Arnis_Gubins]

More info from Kapil:

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We have released the updated documentation and now we will have a weekly blog post on ExtendScript. Explore the links below for more on using ExtendScript with FM10.

Recording of the E-Seminar

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=set_registered&id=1808719&loc=en_us

General information and ExtendScript documentation

Overview: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/WSd5e89bb44d752f2f4e0f6b6612c81bacb1a-8000.html

PDF reference: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/scripting/framemaker_10_scripting.pdf

OMV reference (XML file): http://www.adobe.com/devnet/framemaker/articles/10.html

Blog Posts on ExtendScript

Overview of extendscript

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2011/09/framemaker-extendscript-getting-started.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/tcs/2011/08/extendscript-estk/new-f-10-estk-doc.html

Sample scripts

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2011/03/sample-scripts-utilities-shipped-with-framemaker-10.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2011/09/extendscript-of-the-week-book-report.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2011/07/create-a-book-packager-using-extendscript.html

Thanks,

Kapil Verma

1. Sr. Product Manager - FrameMaker | FrameMaker Server

O: +91-120-2444711 x 34505

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/category/framemaker

http://twitter.com/KapilVermaAdobe

http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/

[Arnis_Gubins]

FYI, the exact same info is repeated in Adobe evangelist Tom Aldous' blog at:

http://tmaldous.com/2011/09/28/framemaker-10-extendscript-resource-links/

[Arnis_Gubins]

The ExtendScript documentation is now available online. You can also add feedback on individual help pages for ExtendScript.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/index.html (main page with the link under Popular Resources)

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/scripting/index.html (Scripting home page)

[Arnis_Gubins]

Examples of numerous practical topics using Extendscript can also be found at Debra Herman's blog "Extending FrameMaker - Learn how to customize Adobe FrameMaker with ExtendScript scripting." <-- link

The topics to date (newest first):

Cut, Copy, Paste

Selecting Text

Error Code When Deleting a Range and Some Buggy Be...

Deleting a Text Range

Adding Text at a Location in Text

Calculating Offsets

Working with Text

Error codes: when are they actually set?

Debugging with Error Codes

Ungrouping graphics

Grouping Graphics

Import by Reference

A Peculiar Fact about Frame Graphic Object Propert...

Counting Insets

Where's the text?

Updating a Paragraph Format

Working with Paragraph Formats

Getting and Setting a Paragraph Property

Counting Paragraphs in the Main Flow

Counting Paragraphs in a Document

Paragraphs, Ordered and Unordered

Hooking up the Toolkit

The Active Document

Getting Ready to Use FrameMaker with the ESTK

Hello Again

Running a (Very Simple) Script

Document Architecture

Easier to Code? Easy to Code?

There's a New Scripting Tool in the Box

[Arnis_Gubins]

Debra's November topics cover:

Determining an Object's Page

Determining an Object's Type

Working with Selections

Things that Reside in Text Frames

Graphics and their FrameParent

The Page Frame

Navigating by Page

Working with the Current Page

Page Types

Creating a Variable

Creating an Index Marker

Creating a New Paragraph

Updating Paragraph Format Properties Using Propert...

Creating a new Paragraph Format

Deallocating Text Items

Applying Character Format to Manually Tagged Text

Viewing Text Items

A very important FDK include file

Preventing Fireworks

Cut, Copy, Paste

Selecting Text

Error Code When Deleting a Range and Some Buggy Be...

[Arnis_Gubins]

"Extending FrameMaker - Learn how to customize Adobe FrameMaker with ExtendScript scripting."

Additional topics posted by Debra Herman since November:

April (2)

Working with Structured Documents

Selecting an Entire Element

March (4)

Opening Files Off Screen

Opening Book Files when there are Issues

Saving FM Binary in Old Version

Using SimpleOpen() without User Interaction

February (4)

Opening a File with User Interaction

Working with Book Components

Working with the Active book

Converting Font Style Names to Font Angle Index Va...

January (11)

Text Item and Line Ends

Customizing a Save Operation

Creating a Marker (Correction to previous post)

Saving a document without user interaction

Saving a document with user interaction

Rearranging the Tree of Elements

Text Nodes

Element Navigation Schematic

Getting Attribute Names

Getting an Element's Text

Collapsing Elements in the Structure View

December (15)

Preorder Element Tree Traversal

Determing What Element is Selected (Part 2)

Determining What Element is Selected (Part 1)

Getting an Element's Definition Name

Determining if a Document is Structured

Structured FrameMaker: The Big Picture

Making a Selection in a Table

Unstraddling Table Cells

Straddling Table Cells

Getting Table Cells Column by Column

Getting Table Cells Row by Row

Adding Columns to a Table

Adding Rows to a Table

Creating a Table

Tables

[Arnis_Gubins]

If you're new to to the whole Extendscript programming concept, don't get too stuck on just looking for FrameMaker specific resources for getting the hang of using Adobe's native scripting. Look at some of their products as well. For example, here's an excellent overview to using the underlying javascript concepts with InDesign, that might help you better understand how to start do things with FrameMaker:

http://indesignsecrets.com/javascript-for-the-absolute-beginner.php

[rlauriston]

It looks to me like parts of ExtendScript that are common to multiple applications, such as .execute() and interapplication communication, are at least partially documented in the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Javascript Tools Guide:

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/scripting/pdfs/javascript_tools...

Though it's still not clear to me how to specify a fileObj for .execute(). And the discussion of paths doesn't make it clear to me why RoboHelp scripts require paths such as C:\\Users\\Robert\\....