Way to add to package assets using ExtendScript?

[Justin Putney]

Does anyone know of a way to add assets to what gets packaged when the user selects File > Package...?

I know the Overlays panel does it with web assets and image sequences.

I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to do this with ES (not C++), if possible.

[Sunil Yadav]

This below link will give you all information you need.

https://www.indesignjs.de/extendscriptAPI/indesign-latest/#Document.html#d1e49256__d1e54411

[Justin Putney]

Thanks, but that's just the package prefs.

[Peter Kahrel]

Hi Justin. If by ES you mean ExtendScript and InDesign's Package for print dialog, then the answer is 'no'. You could do a custom interface that mimics InDesign's export dialog and add assets to it.

Peter

[Justin Putney]

Thanks, Peter. I was hoping that I could do something so that when an end user packages, it could carry the files on to another person.

I'm thinking there must be some hacky way to do this, putting something into the Links panel (maybe via a custom master page), or using some undocumented call normally referenced by something else (like the Overlays panel, which simply uses Labels).

[Laubender]

Hi Justin,

are you using the Overlays Panel in this process?

The overlays insert labels into page items, documents and the app itself.

Maybe you can exploit the key and value references for this kind of  ( web ?) assets to assemble them with an event listening process before or after doing a package.

Example with Image Sequence Overlay:

Excerpt of the XML of an IDMS file of the selected graphic frame above:

<Label>
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_Type" Value="360" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_AssetList" Value="F:\KNOW-HOW\GraphicSamples" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_AutoStart" Value="false" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_AutoStartDelay" Value="0" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_FramesPerSecond" Value="16" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_LoopCount" Value="1" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_AutoPlayStopAtLast" Value="false" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_TapEnabled" Value="false" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_SwipeEnabled" Value="true" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_CircularViewEnabled" Value="true" />
    <KeyValuePair Key="kAdobeDPSInteractivity_ReverseImageOrder" Value="false" />
</Label>

With that you would be able to package all "sequentiable images" from the exposed path.

Of course you have to know what kind of images are "sequentiable". The overlay will not tell that explicitely.

Regards,
Uwe

[Justin Putney]

Hi Uwe,

Thanks for that research. That's one of the specific instances that I was thinking of.

Curious if the entire folder would be copied, or just the images inside.

[Laubender]

Hi Justin,

ideally only the images that work as "sequential images". Or?

Hm. Perhaps not. Will depend on the user's workflow what's best.

Perhaps there are "hidden" images in subfolders the user currently does not want to add to a sequence, but later may add.
Things like that…

In any case you have to change the value of the key "kAdobeDPSInteractivity_AssetList" after packaging to a new path.

Best,
Uwe

[Justin Putney]

Thanks, Uwe. Something to think about.