Here is an example -- this script gets all indesign documents from the selected folder including its subfolders and puts all them into a book.

var myFolder = Folder.selectDialog( "Select a folder with InDesign files" );
if ( myFolder != null ) {
     var myFiles = [];
     
     GetSubFolders(myFolder);
     
     if ( myFiles.length > 0 ) {
          var myBookFileName = myFolder + "/"+ myFolder.name + ".indb";
          myBookFile = new File( myBookFileName );
          if ( myBookFile.exists ) {
               if ( app.books.item(myFolder.displayName + ".indb") == null ) {
                    myBook = app.open( myBookFile );
               }
          }
          else {
                myBook = app.books.add( myBookFile );
                myBook.automaticPagination = false;
                for ( i=0; i < myFiles.length; i++ ) {
                    myBook.bookContents.add( myFiles[i] );
                }
                myBook.save();
           }
     }
}
 
//=================================== FUNCTIONS =========================================
function GetSubFolders(theFolder) {
     var myFileList = theFolder.getFiles();
     for (var i = 0; i < myFileList.length; i++) {
          var myFile = myFileList[i];
          if (myFile instanceof Folder){
               GetSubFolders(myFile);
          }
          else if (myFile instanceof File && myFile.name.match(/\.indd$/i)) {
               myFiles.push(myFile);
          }
     }
}
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope this helps.

Kasyan

What a great example of when/how to use recursion! Thank-you to Jongware for spelling it out and Kasyan for scripting it. Previous to reading this post I had been using Command Prompt to write up tab separated dir lists and then I read those in for file queues. Haha things are looking a little less hacked on my end.

Uwe: I must admit I've somehow managed to save a file without the proper suffix on my Mac a couple of times -- much to my surprise, as I am so used to Windows' always adding one! I have no idea what the magic (or in this case, voodoo) sequence is that makes the Save dialog omit the suffix.

Sure, it is possible to test all suffix-less files with my script -- but ask youself the question "what is suffix-less?" What if you save an InDesign file as "my.test.file" -- surely the Mac will think the extension is ".file"? So you can't rely on this, unless you want to test each and every not-InDesign file ...

In addition, on Windows at least, adding ".indd" to a file name makes Windows think it is an InDesign file Then you should use my script on every file, even on .indd ones!

Oh enough with the fun. I see you still have your proper icons and "Art" descriptions on the Mac for all files. Wouldn't it be easier to test the Mac OS file type? Is that available through JS?  (I'd gladly try that out myself immediately, but am at work & behind Windows...)

This stuff is extremely confusing on the Mac, to me anyway. Without the extension—which OS X uses to lookup the file's "Uniform Type Identifier," which will be associated with the highest installed version of InDesign—OS X will rely on the (now deprecated) file type and creator codes in an extended attribute to associate the file with an application. And that's if you save it from InDesign without an extension. If you remove the extension in the Finder, it will hide the extension but silently leave it there and continue to use the extension and UTI. (And if you then remove the extended attribute that holds the code, the Finder will unhide the extension!) Voodoo indeed. You could use an extension check along with a doScript() Applescript call inside a filter function for getFiles():

var folder = Folder.desktop,
    files = folder.getFiles(function(file) {
        var fT;
        if (file instanceof Folder) return false;        
        if (file.fsName.split(".").pop() === "indd") return true;
        fT = app.doScript("tell application \"Finder\"\ntry\nreturn the file type of (POSIX file \"" + file.fsName + "\" as alias)\non error\nreturn \"\"\nend try\nend tell", ScriptLanguage.APPLESCRIPT_LANGUAGE);
        if (typeof fT === 'string' && fT.substring(0, 3) === "IDd") return true;
        return false;
    });
 
alert(files);

But I bet it would be faster and less error-prone to just read enough bytes from the beginning of every file to determine whether or not it's an InDesign file, as you suggested.

Jeff

D'oh! I could've used that a time or two. Thanks. A better (and reasonably quick) filter function, then:

var folder = Folder.desktop,
    files = folder.getFiles(function(file) {    
        return !(file instanceof Folder) && (file.fsName.split(".").pop() === "indd" || file.type.indexOf("IDd") === 0);
    });
 
alert(files);

CS5.5 is "IDd2"! (Of course!)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/422307/CS5.5.indd

Mark—That was kind of silly of me; of course the extended attributes don't survive the Dropbox upload/download. I don't know how I could get it to you with the metadata intact...

Yep, sure—something (more than usually) wrong with my brain today. Here it is: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/422307/CS5.5.indd.zip