Adobe 23101335 Scripting Guide - Page 52

Photoshop 7.0 Scripting Guide

52

Scripting Photoshop

The Application object

3

Display dialogs

It is important to be able to control dialogs properly from a script. If a dialog is shown your

script stops until a user dismisses the dialog. This is normally fine in an interactive script that

expects a user to be sitting at the machine. But if you have a script that runs in an

unsupervisored (batch) mode you do not want dialogs to be displayed and stop your script.

Using the

display dialogs

(

DisplayDialogs/displayDialogs

) property on the

application object you can control whether or not dialogs are displayed.

If you set

display dialogs

to

always ( psDisplayAllDialogs/ALL )

, Photoshop

will show all user related dialogs. This is typically not what you want.

If you set

display dialogs

to

error dialogs (DisplayErrorDialogs/ERROR)

,

then only dialogs related to errors are shown. You would typically use this setting when you

are developing a script or if your script is an interactive one that expects a user to be sitting at

the machine while running the script.

If you set

display dialogs

to

never ( DisplayNoDialogs/NO ),

then no dialogs

are shown. If an error occurs it will be returned as an error to the script. See section

2.10.4,

“Error handling” on page 31

for more information on catching errors.

Opening a document

When using the open command there are a number of specifiable options. These options are

grouped by file type in the provided open options classes. Because the type and contents of the

file you are working on affects how it is opened, some of the option values may not always be

applicable. It also means that many of the option values do not have well defined default

values.

The best way to determine what values can or should be used for open is to perform an open

command from the user interface. You can then copy the value from the options dialog to your

script. You should perform a complete open operation because there can be multiple dialogs

presented before the document is actually opened. If you cancel one of the open dialogs

without completing the operation you could miss seeing a dialog which contains values

needed in your script.

Specifying file formats to open

Because Photoshop supports many different file formats, the

Open

command lets you specify

the format of the document you are opening. If you do not specify the format, Photoshop will

infer the type of file for you. Here’s how to open a document using its default type:

AS:

set theFile to alias "MyFile.psd"

open theFile

VB:

fileName = "C:\MyFile.psd"

Set docRef = appRef.Open(fileName)

Section	Page
Photoshop 7.0 Scripting Guide	1
Table of contents	3
Introduction	5
1.1 About this manual	5
1.1.1 Conventions in this guide	5
1.2 What is scripting?	6
1.3 Why use scripting?	6
1.4 What about actions?	6
1.5 System requirements	6
1.5.1 Mac	7
1.5.2 Windows	7
1.6 JavaScript	7
1.7 Choosing a scripting language	7
1.8 Legacy COM scripting	8
Scripting basics	9
2.1 Documents as objects	9
2.2 Object model concepts	9
2.2.1 Object classes	9
2.2.2 Object inheritance	10
2.2.3 Object elements or collections	10
2.2.4 Object reference	10
2.3 Documenting scripts	11
2.4 Values	12
2.5 Variables	14
2.5.1 Assigning values to variables	14
2.5.2 Using variables to store references	15
2.5.3 Naming variables	15
2.6 Operators	16
2.7 Commands and methods	17
2.7.1 Conditional statements	17
2.7.2 Control structures	18
2.8 Handlers, subroutines and functions	20
2.9 The Scripts menu	21
2.9.1 Scripts folder	21
2.9.2 The scripts dialog box	21
2.10 Testing and troubleshooting	23
2.10.1 AppleScript debugging	23
2.10.2 Visual Basic debugging	25
2.10.3 JavaScript Debugging	26
2.10.4 Error handling	31
Scripting Photoshop	33
3.1 Photoshop scripting guidelines	33
3.2 Viewing Photoshop objects, commands and methods	34
3.2.1 Viewing Photoshop’s AppleScript dictionary	34
3.2.2 Viewing Photoshop’s type library (VB)	35
3.3 Your first Photoshop script	36
3.3.1 AppleScript	36
3.3.2 Visual Basic	37
3.3.3 VBScript	39
3.3.4 JavaScript	41
3.4 Object references	42
3.4.1 AppleScript	42
3.4.2 Visual Basic and JavaScript	43
3.5 Working with units	44
3.5.1 Unit values	44
3.5.2 Unit value useage	46
3.5.3 Changing ruler and type units	48
3.6 Executing JavaScripts from AS or VB	48
3.6.1 Passing arguments to JavaScript	49
3.6.2 Executing one-line JavaScripts	50
3.7 The Application object	50
3.8 Document object	54
3.8.1 Saving documents and save options	55
3.8.2 Document information	56
3.8.3 Document manipulation	57
3.9 Layer objects	58
3.9.1 Setting the Active layer	61
3.9.2 Layer sets	61
3.9.3 Linking layers	62
3.9.4 Applying styles to layers	63
3.9.5 Rotating layers	63
3.10 Text item object	64
3.10.1 Setting the contents of the text item	65
3.10.2 Setting text stroke colors	66
3.10.3 Setting fonts	66
3.10.4 Warping text	67
3.11 Selections	67
3.11.1 Defining selections	68
3.11.2 Stroking the selection border	69
3.11.3 Inverting selections	70
3.11.4 Expand, contract and feather selections	70
3.11.5 Filling a selection	71
3.11.6 Rotating selections	72
3.11.7 Loading and storing selections	73
3.12 Working with Filters	74
3.12.1 Selecting channel(s) to filter	74
3.12.2 Other filters	75
3.13 Channel object	75
3.13.1 Channel types	75
3.13.2 Setting the active channel	76
3.13.3 Creating new channels	76
3.14 Color objects	77
3.14.1 Setting a Color	77
3.14.2 Getting and converting colors	78
3.14.3 Comparing Colors	79
3.14.4 Getting a Web Safe Color	79
3.15 History object	80
3.15.1 Filling a selection with a history state	81
3.16 Clipboard interaction	81
3.16.1 Copy	81
3.16.2 Copy merged	82
3.16.3 Cut	82
3.16.4 Paste	83
3.16.5 Paste into command	83
3.17 Action Manager scripting	84
3.17.1 Using the Action Manager from JavaScript	84
3.17.2 Using the Action Manager from VBScript	87

Adobe 23101335 Scripting Guide - Page 52

never DisplayNoDialogs/NO

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