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alexthebake Calculating status...

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How do I Select all the items in a document based on SpotColor?

Jun 28, 2012 1:46 PM

Tags: #illustrator #color #javascript #selection #scripting #illustrator_cs5 #selection_color

I'm trying to select every object with the color "CutContour"

So far I've been trying:

myDoc.selection = myDoc.spots.getByName("CutContour");

I guess this obviouslly wouldn't work though because myDoc.selection is looking for an array of objects.

However, I can't figure out how to loop through all the objects in the document and check to see if they contain the SpotColor.

Any help would be incredibly appreciated!

EDIT:

I want to use the Select > Same > Stroke Color , but I heard that using that in Javascript isn't available unless you have CS6 (which I currently don't). Is it true that accessing menu items through scripting is a feature in CS6?

624 Views 4 Replies Latest reply: Silly-V, Jun 29, 2012 1:32 PM

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1. Muppet Mark,

Jun 28, 2012 2:10 PM in reply to alexthebake

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Yes you can't do this as straight forward as you hoped… In script probably the same as is done in those app/plug-in's you will need to loop through all the art items and test each in turn… Depending upon your art in question this can become a very complex routine… Why are you trying to select this stuff?

doc.selection = [ wants an array of objects ]

myDoc.spots.getByName("CutContour") is only going to find an object reference to a spot swatch in the document swatches panel if it exists…

You can't put these together like you have done…

To your edit Yes its a new thing with CS6… I don't have this either… boo

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2. alexthebake,

Jun 28, 2012 2:48 PM in reply to Muppet Mark

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Thanks for clearing some of that up for me!
I only need to select path items, and I see that if I do something along the lines of:

var objects = myDoc.pageItems;

I can get an array of all the items in my document. However, I'm trying to figure out where to go from here, but the process seems overly complex. I want to loop through objects and see if they are pathitems, and then check to see if they have the color I'm looking for, but I can't find the strokeColor property in the Javascript reference. Also, what about compoundPathItems (closed paths)? If I check for PathItems, will I also get CompoundPathItems?

EDIT:
This is what I have so far, however, it is not working correctly /:
var myColor = myDoc.spots.getByName("CutContour");
var arrObj = [];
for (var i = 0; i <objects.length; i++) {
if (objects[i].typename == "PathItem" && objects[i].fillColor == myColor) {
arrObj.push(objects[i]);
objects[i].move(layer_Cut, ElementPlacement.PLACEATBEGINNING);
}
}

See, the whole goal is to move all objects with the color "CutContour" to

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3. Muppet Mark,

Jun 28, 2012 2:54 PM in reply to alexthebake

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pageItems is a super class like swatches It covers a few common/shared properties but under each are sub-classes that contain more specific properties…

getting pageItems will return an array but it could be mix of [ pathItem, textItem, groupItem etc. ]

getting swatches could return [ spot, rgb, cmyk, gradient etc. ]

If you are wanting to access only pathItems then access that collection at what ever object level you want to deal with… e.g.

var a = doc.pathItems;

You can check the collections length property and create a loop…

For each item you can test the pathItem for it's .fillcolor & .strokecolor properties

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4. Silly-V,

Jun 29, 2012 1:32 PM in reply to alexthebake

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Wow you use the CutCountour for Roland printer? is it 100% cyan?

Ok I had a similar need and I figured out:

if(objects[i].fillColor.typename == "SpotColor"){
     if(objects[i].fillColor.spot.name =="CutContour"){
          //process the objects[i]
     }
}

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