Marc,

Can you explain a bit about the while loops in your script? Particularly this part:

 z = 0;   
 while( i-- )
        {
        if( 0 != (t=items[i]).label.indexOf(LABEL_PREFIX) ) continue;
        a[z++] = t;
        }
    z && spreads[s].groups.add(a);
    a.length = 0;

I'm trying to do some grouping of objects as well, but I have two pages, and three different script labels. I'm trying to modify this code but can't really figure out what that while loop is doing. Thanks.

Nate

Hi Marc,

That was a very clear explanation.

I thought to add an explanation of the way you are using && as resourceful non standard shortcut.

var doc = app.documents.length && app.activeDocument,
    spreads = doc && doc.spreads,
    s = spreads ? spreads.length : 0,

doc is going to be assign to app.activeDocument only if the active document has a length to it, i.e. it has pages otherwise it's going to be made 0.

spreads is going to be made doc.spreads if the document has a length to it and therefore doc is not 0, otherwise if doc is 0 then speads is going to be made 0.

s is made spreads.length  if the the document has a length to it, otherwise it's going to be made 0 and the script would end here without giving any nasty error messages .

The line

 z && spreads[s].groups.add(a);

Is saying if the labels were found and therefore z is a positive integer then add to a to the group.

The longer (albeit in this case just slightly) more commonly used for would be.

if (z > 0) spreads[s].groups.add(a);

Very coding!

Please let me know if I explained something incorrectly.

Regards

Trevor

Hi Nate,

This is how I would do it.

Not tested so I may well (probably) have made some major goof .

Marc, PLEASE, PLEASE let me know if you would have done this differently.

Julien, Marc wrote you a nice little script here so maybe you could show him a little gratitude and say thank you and mark hi answer as correct.

Regards

Trevor

Take note of the annotations

// Group labelled items spread by spread
// =====================================
var LABEL_PREFIX = ["kkk22_33_","Fred_55","George"]; // if you don't like Fred and George you can change to Marc & Trevor ;-)
 
var doc = app.documents.length && app.activeDocument,
    spreads = doc && doc.spreads,
    s = spreads ? spreads.length : 0,
    items, a=[], t, i, z=0, y=LABEL_PREFIX.length; // added y here
 
while( y-- ) // added this loop
a[y]=[]; // to allow values to be assigned to the sub arrays. LINE A
{
    while( s-- )
        {
        items = spreads[s].pageItems.everyItem().getElements();
        i = items.length;
        z = 0;
        while( i-- )
            {
            if( 0 != (t=items[i]).label.indexOf(LABEL_PREFIX[y]) ) continue; // add the [y] no matter what.
            a[y][z++] = t; // see the y LINE B
            }
        z && spreads[s].groups.add(a[y]); // see the y. LINE C
        // If you want all 3 lables in the same group then erase LINE A,  and Leave LINE B and LINE C as the were without the [y].
        a.length = 0;
        }
} // see the  }

~ Trevor ~ wrote:

 

Not tested so I may well (probably) have made some major goof .

Well I did say probably!

You can of course put Marc's code into a function like this

// Group labelled items spread by spread 
// Functionized by Trevor
// =====================================
MarcsGroupLabelledItemsSpreadBySpreadScript("kkk22_33_");
MarcsGroupLabelledItemsSpreadBySpreadScript("Nate");
MarcsGroupLabelledItemsSpreadBySpreadScript("Fred");
 
function MarcsGroupLabelledItemsSpreadBySpreadScript(LABEL_PREFIX)
 {
var doc = app.documents.length && app.activeDocument,
    spreads = doc && doc.spreads,
    s = spreads ? spreads.length : 0,
    items, a=[], t, i, z=0;
 
while( s-- )
    {
    items = spreads[s].pageItems.everyItem().getElements();
    i = items.length;
    z = 0;
    while( i-- )
        {
        if( 0 != (t=items[i]).label.indexOf(LABEL_PREFIX) ) continue;
        a[z++] = t;
        }
    z && spreads[s].groups.add(a);
    a.length = 0;
    }
}

This will work, but is not realy the way to go about things in bigger examples.

This will make 3 seperate groups if you want to make one group containing all three lables then it won't work.

I saw a few of major goofs (it was late and I was very tired) that I made in the origional script I posted but the basic idea of using a sub array is I think correct

Trevor

Hi Julien

Nice to see you are still alive.

I'm sorry I couldn't understand your English.

Please can you write that again more clearly in a better English.

Trevor

Sorry Julien

Still not clear on what to need.

Maybe try writing the problem in French, Marc's pretty fluent in French and there are quite a lot of French speakers that visit the Forum

à bientôt

Trevor