looping through collection of symbols and populating a drop down on a form EXTENDSCRIPT

Im ok with lines 0 && 4 but there's an encoding issue with all in between…

Don't mark that as helpful is wasn't in the slightest… I was joking with you… What I meant was I can understand…

Hello everyone and thanks in advance!

what I don't get/follow is your description of the question… Where is defined library of symbols are the available symbols in the doc… Just trying to create the mental picture of what you are tring to acheive?

Ok thats a little clearer this time around… I will start with the bad news that I don't think it can be done… Can script create/populate dropdown lists on the fly well yes… that part would not be the problem… The issue that you are going to hit is AI's limitations… So far I have found NOTHING that will allow you load colors ( not even from color books ). To get colors, graphic styles, patterns, symbols etc. into an open document you have to open another document apply them to a page item then duplicate the object from one doc to the other thus bringing it's style attributes with it… What AI does now have but I've found to be useless ( well for me it is ). You can have your script open files as libraries you will get you lists in the GUI but script can't access these ( well thats what I find ). So my thoughts are the closest you will get is script opening multi-libraries for you… and you can drag n drop yourself? Sorry about that is frustrating I know… but then much of AI scripting is…

ScriptUI will let you create a drop down list of any array of items you like it's just a meaningless list… Your script has to make the relative association what to do when selected… You have NO scripting access to a symbol in a library ( it's just an open window/palette ) the elements do not belong to either the app or the doc… You have full access to all the open document items… Here is a picture that may better explian…

The one on the left is the symbols in/available to my open document… I can use all these in script…

The one on the right are the symbols of opening a library… I can't access these by script… There is ONLY document.symbols and NO app.symbols

Until they have been copied from right palette into left palette you can't use them ( and you can only do that in the GUI )

An AI template file containing all your symbols is fine… That will just be doc.symbols how you chop up that array into sub arrays would be down to you… I don't see how this is going to be any improvement over the symbol scrolling at the bottom of the library palette… See the back & forth arrows in the snapshot… I can jump very quickly between sets of symbols here…

A quick hash so use esc key to get rid of it…

#target illustrator

var doc = app.activeDocument;

var syms = Array();

var count = doc.symbols.length;

for ( var i = 0; i < count; i++ )  {

          syms.push( doc.symbols[i].name );

};

var win = new Window( 'dialog', 'A drop down list of symbols' );

win.add( 'dropdownlist', undefined, syms );

win.center();

win.show();

Yes what you need to remember is collections like pathItems although similar in some repects are not actually arrays… So your dropdownlist wants a javascript array as parameter so I created an empty one then using the array method push placed each symbol's name at the end of the array. I hope thats making sence? I could NOT pass the collection pathItems it wouldn't be accepted… ID has better methods which avoid the need to loop but thats another story… Hope it helps you non the less…

I'll not hold my breath… AI isn't from the same planet… it orbits closer to Quark…

Hi everybody,

I add the same issue... a lot and heavy symbols I cannot put on my template (too heavy to load...) so, I proceed in to step :

1) Open my template

2) Open the file with a specific library

3) Select a symbol

4) copy it

5) Close the specific library

6) past on the template (as soon as you do it, the symbol will be added into your local library

7) clear de Clipboard

8) remove selected object due to the fact the symbol is still "selected" when you past it

Now you're ready to work with your imported symbol

If somebody is interested I can send an short VB example.

Kind Regards.

Michel

So...

Dim appref As New Illustrator.Application
Dim docRef As Illustrator.Document                                                                         'The work document
Dim docToAdd As Illustrator.Document                                                                   'The document which contain the symbol's library 

Dim pathArt As Object
Dim ItemSymbol As Object
Dim itemSymbolref As Illustrator.Symbol
Dim artObject As Variant

appref.Open ("C:\..... workDoc.ai")
Set docRef = appref.ActiveDocument                                                                         'Assign docRef to your work document

appref.Open ("C:\......symbolDoc.ai")
Set docToAdd = appref.ActiveDocument                                                                    'Assign docToAdd to your symbol document

Set symbolref = appref.ActiveDocument.Symbols(Symbol_Name)                               'Assign symbol ref the symbol you're looking for

Set itemref = appref.ActiveDocument.SymbolItems.Add(symbolref)                              'Copy it on the current active page

itemref.Selected = True                                                                                              'select it
docToAdd.Copy                                                                                                         'add it to your clibboard

docToAdd.close (aiDoNotSaveChanges)                                                                     'Close the library, without changing anything

appref.ActiveDocument.Paste                                                                                     'Paste the clipboard on your work document

                         'As soon as you paste the symbol, it will be added in the document symbol library

Clipboard_Clear                                                                                                         'See below why...

SelectedObjects =appref.ActiveDocuments.selection                                                   ' Select the symbol you past

                         ' The loop is not necessary if you have only one thing selected

For Each artObject In selectedObjects
    artObject.Delete
Next

                         ' Cleanup your pointers

Set artObject = Nothing
Set pathArt = Nothing
Set docToAdd = Nothing

[....] Continue your script on your working document

Set docRef = Nothing               'after closing your working doc...

Remark on clipboard_clear : If you don't do it, the risk is to accumulate plenty other things you don't want...

Public Function ClipBoard_Clear()
  Call OpenClipboard(0&)
  Call EmptyClipboard
  Call CloseClipboard
End Function

With

Public Declare PtrSafe Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long

be careful I use the PtrSafe pointer due to the fact I'm working in x64 architecture
in x86 it will be

Public Declare Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Declare Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long

Regards to all

Michel