Is there a quick way to find out if a PageItem has image?

[AnotherFrank]

Hi folks,

Something that bothers me for quite some is when I have a collection of say PageItems and I want to for example resize the image that a PageItem may contain, do I really need to check first if that PageItem is a rectangle? Since "textFrames.images[0]" isn't allowed, I always have to make an extra if-statement:

myPageItems = app.activeDocument.allPageItems;

if (myPageItems instanceof Rectangle)

{

     if (myPageItems.images.length == 1)

     {

          further code

Is there a way how to check if the PageItem holds an image without verifying the PageItem first? I know that I can just check for images and use images[0].parent to get to the Rectangle, but I feel that I'm not knowing a very basic method of checking the right way.

Thanks!

[Laubender]

Hi,

if you want to have access to all graphics (or their parents), simply loop the allGraphics array.

The scope of allGraphics could be e.g. the document, a spread, a page, a story, a text frame etc.pp.

Regards,
Uwe

[Laubender]

If you loop allPageItems—also an array, no collection—you could do this:

var allPageItems = app.documents[0].allPageItems;
for(var n=0;n<allPageItems.length;n++)
{
    if(allPageItems.hasOwnProperty("graphics"))
    {
        if(allPageItems.graphics.length == 1)
        {
            // Do something:
        }
    }
}

Regards,
Uwe

[AnotherFrank]

Hi Uwe,

Thanks for the input. I know how to access the image, I was just wondering if there is a way to avoid a 2nd if-statement.

Thanks,

Frank

[Peter Kahrel · Accepted solution]

> I was just wondering if there is a way to avoid a 2nd if-statement.

if (myPageItems instanceof Rectangle && myPageItems.images.length == 1)

JavaScript uses a so-called short-circuit evaluation of coordinated if-statements: if the first test fails the whole statement fails. So in this case, if myPageItems is not a rectangle, the script doesn't do the second text.

Peter

[Laubender]

Hi Peter,

already tried something like this, but it failed with an error message from my German ESTK on one of my test documents:

"Objekt unterstützt Eigenschaft oder Methode images nicht"

The speciality here:
All images in the document were anchored or nested in anchored structures.

There were no images that were not anchored.

Tried it again after changing the document slightly:

This time with a single image not anchored (all others were still anchored):

Your if statement with && worked as expected!

Hm. How strange is that?

Tested with InDesign CS6 v8.1.0 on Mac OSX 10.6.8.

Here my code:

var allPageItems = app.documents[0].allPageItems;  
for(var n=0;n<allPageItems.length;n++)  
{  
//~     if(allPageItems.hasOwnProperty("graphics"))  
//~     {  
//~         if(allPageItems.graphics.length == 1)  
//~         {  
//~             // Do something:  
//~         }  
//~     }
try{
if (allPageItems instanceof Rectangle && allPageItems.images.length == 1)
{
    $.writeln(n+"\t"+allPageItems);
}
}catch(e){$.writeln(n+"\t"+e.message)};
};

Regards,

Uwe

[Peter Kahrel]

> How strange is that?

Very strange! If you're a Rectangle, you have the images property. Should always work.

> Tried it again after changing the document slightly . . . and && worked as expected

What did you change?

[AnotherFrank]

Thank you so much guys!

I had tried this before, Peter, and thought it didn't work which is also in line with that I learned from another language. Didn't know about the short-circuit evaluation in JavaScript. I'll pay attention to the order now and test it again. Would be very useful to shorten code – thanks!

Uwe, maybe that's the reason why it didn't work for me, since I'm often working with anchored objects throughout the document. Interesting findings in any case.

Frank

[AnotherFrank]

So yeah, works like a charm – thanks again!

[Laubender]

Just placed a tiff image on the page.
Did not place it to an insertion point…

Regards,
Uwe

[Laubender]

pkahrel wrote:

> How strange is that?

Very strange! If you're a Rectangle, you have the images property. Should always work.

> Tried it again after changing the document slightly . . . and && worked as expected

What did you change?

Hi Peter,

here my test documents as IDML zipped:

Dropbox - FindPageItemsWithImages-Example-doc-1-2.zip

FindPageItemsWithImages-Example-doc-1-2.zip

Images all anchored:

FindPageItemsWithImages-Example-doc-1-CS6.idml

Images all anchored but one:

FindPageItemsWithImages-Example-doc-2-CS6.idml

Regards,
Uwe