Accessing and referencing objects¶
When you write a script, you must first decide which file, or Document, the script should act on. Through the Application object, the script can create a new document, open an existing document, or act on a document that is already open.
The script can create new objects in the document, operate on objects that the user selected, or operate on objects in one of the object collections. The following sections illustrate techniques for accessing, referencing, and manipulating Illustrator objects
Obtaining objects from collections¶
Generally, to obtain a reference to a specific object, you can navigate the containment hierarchy. For example, to use the myPath variable to store a reference to the first PathItem in the second layer of the active document
Set myPath = appRef.ActiveDocument.Layers(2).PathItems(1)
The following scripts demonstrate how to reference an object as part of a document:
Set documentRef = appRef.ActiveDocument
Set pageItemRef = documentRef.PageItems(1)
In the script below, the variable pageItemRef will not necessarily refer to the same object as the above script, since this script includes a reference to a layer:
Set documentRef = appRef.ActiveDocument
Set pageItemRef = documentRef.Layers(1).PageItems(1)
VBScript indexes start at 1 for object collections; however, VBScript allows you to specify whether array indexes start at 1 or 0. For information on specifying the index start number for arrays, see any VBScript textbook or tutorial.
Creating new objects¶
You can use a script to create new objects. To create objects that are available from collection objects, use the collection object’s Add method:
Set myDoc = appRef.Documents.Add()
Set myLayer = myDoc.Layers.Add()
Some collection objects do not have an Add method. To create an object of this type, define a variable and use the CreateObject method. For example, the following code creates a new CMYKColor object using the variable name newColor
Set newColor = CreateObject ("Illustrator.CMYKColor")
Working with selections¶
When the user makes a selection in a document, the selected objects are stored in the document’s selection property. To access all selected objects in the active document
Set appRef = CreateObject ("Illustrator.Application")
Set documentRef = appRef.ActiveDocument
selectedObjects = documentRef.Selection
Depending on what is selected, the selection property value can be an array of any type of art objects. To get or manipulate the properties of the selected art items, you must retrieve the individual items in the array. To find out an object’s type, use the typename property.
The following sample gets the first object in the array, then displays the object’s type
Set appRef = CreateObject ("Illustrator.Application")
Set documentRef = appRef.ActiveDocument
selectedObjects = documentRef.Selection
Set topObject = selectedObjects(0)
MsgBox(topObject.Typename)
The MsgBox method does not display a dialog when the script is run from the Illustrator Scripts menu (File > Scripts).
The first object in a selection array is the selected object that was last added to the page, not the last object selected.
Working with selections¶
To select an art object, the object’s Selected property.