I have created a custom menu of commonly-used scripts for our Prepress department. Works great, but I have to manually update the script that builds the menu and distribute a new copy whenever I add or remove a script from the collection. So I'm trying to rewrite this so it will dynamically build the menu based on the files it finds in the specified folder.
I can get the script to build the menu itself, but where I'm hung up is attaching an event listener to each menu item. I think I've figured out the problem, but I don't know how to solve it.
In the following code snippet (which iterates through the items to build the script menu actions and event listeners), note lines 4 and 9 (specifically the comments). I inserted these alerts as a debugging tool, and they have shown me that my array is being changed to "undefined" inside the event listener function.
I'm not sure why this is happening, but I suspect that it why my menu items don't actually trigger anything. (If I swap in the filename of a script instead of this variable it works just fine).
for (i=0; i < prepressScriptNames.length; i++){
menuItemFromFilename = prepressScriptNames.slice(0,-4);
scriptToRun = (scriptsFolder + prepressScriptNames);
alert (typeof(scriptToRun)); // result: string
myScriptMenuAction = app.scriptMenuActions.add(menuItemFromFilename);
myEventListener = myScriptMenuAction.eventListeners.add("onInvoke", function()
{
try{app.doScript(File(scriptToRun))} catch(e){}
alert (typeof(scriptToRun)); // result: undefined. WHY????
}
)
}
Here's the full code as I have it right now:
// #target InDesign
#targetengine "session"
// GLOBAL ARRAYS
usrSMAs = [];
usrMenus = [];
// LOCATE PREPRESS SCRIPTS FOLDER
var startupScriptsFolder = Folder(app.activeScript.path);
var scriptsFolder = startupScriptsFolder.parent + "/Scripts Panel/Prepress\ Tools/";
// REMOVE EXISTING PREPRESS MENU
var myMainMenu = app.menus.item("$ID/Main");
try{
var myNewMenu = myMainMenu.submenus.item("Prepress Tools");
myNewMenu.remove();
}catch(myError){}
// BUILD ARRAY FROM FILENAMES IN PREPRESS SCRIPTS FOLDER
function GetScriptFilenames(){
var scriptPath = Folder(scriptsFolder);
var scriptFiles = scriptPath.getFiles();
var scriptNames = [];
for (var i=0; i<scriptFiles.length; i++){
var thisFile = (scriptFiles);
if (thisFile.name != ".DS_Store") {
scriptNames.push(decodeURI(thisFile.name));
}
}
return scriptNames;
}
var prepressScriptNames = GetScriptFilenames();
// ITERATE THROUGH ARRAY OF SCRIPT NAMES, CREATE MENU ITEMS AND EVENT LISTENERS
var scriptToRun = [];
var menuItemFromFilename = [];
var myScriptMenuAction = [];
var myEventListener = [];
var myMenuItem = [];
for (i=0; i < prepressScriptNames.length; i++){
menuItemFromFilename = prepressScriptNames.slice(0,-4);
scriptToRun = (scriptsFolder + prepressScriptNames);
alert (typeof(scriptToRun)); // result: string
myScriptMenuAction = app.scriptMenuActions.add(menuItemFromFilename);
myEventListener = myScriptMenuAction.eventListeners.add("onInvoke", function()
{
try{app.doScript(File(scriptToRun))} catch(e){}
alert (typeof(scriptToRun)); // result: undefined. WHY????
}
// CREATE MENU AND SUBMENUS
try{
var menuPrepressTools = app.menus.item("$ID/Main").submenus.item("Prepress Tools");
menuPrepressTools.title;
usrMenus.push(menuPrepressTools);
}
catch (e){
var menuPrepressTools = app.menus.item("$ID/Main").submenus.add("Prepress Tools");
// usrMenus.push(menuPrepressTools);
}
// CREATE MENU ITEMS
for (i=0; i < prepressScriptNames.length; i++){
usrSMAs.push(menuPrepressTools.menuItems.add(myScriptMenuAction));
}
Thanks in advance for any advice or nudges in the right direction!
(Full disclosure: I am not a very skilled Javascripter, or coder of any sort. In fact, I'm learning JS by learning to automate a bunch of InDesign things, I'd never touched JS before now!)
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