ScriptUI for dummies

ScriptUI is a module in the Adobe CS family (from CS2 in PhotoShop, CS3 for InDesign) with which dialogs can be added to scripts written in JavaScript. The module is included in the ExtendScript Toolkit, and dialogs written in it can be used in scripts targeted at all CS applications. Though this guide deals mainly with InDesign as a target application, virtually everything covered here applies to scripts written for the other CS apps as well. This guide is for ScriptUI only: it assumes that you are more or less proficient in JavaScript.

To my knowledge, the only documentation available on ScriptUI is a chapter in the file JavaScript Tools Guide CSn.pdf (where n stands for a CS version), which is included with every version of the ESTK and can be found in the Help menu (in CS3, look in the SDK submenu of the Help menu). That chapter is a complete reference for the ScriptUI environment, but it is a bit short on examples here and there. The present guide does not repeat the full reference; rather, it should be seen as a companion to it.

Notice

Please do not post this guide on library sites such as scribd.com or anywhere else on the web. The guide is updated from time to time, so you're doing no-one any favours by causing the continued existence of out-of-date guides.

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Download scriptui-2-0.pdf

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Revision history

2.0 (September 2012)

• Started a new section on the size and location of windows and other controls (p. 81).
• Added an example of an alternative to processing lists which is especially effective when processing long lists (p. 37). The idea is to replace the list itself rather than deleting all list items and reinserting new items. The increase in speed at which lists are redrawn can be quite spectacular. See also discussion here.
• Added a new example of the different appearance of ScriptUI dialogs across CS versions and across applications (p. 2).
• Added an example of negative values on sliders (p. 57).
• Added an example to the advantages of mixing coding styles (p. 93).
• Corrected an error in the script that converts PNG files to text strings (p. 100). (The variable outfile was not properly set as type File.)
  

1.0 First posted 12 Oct. 2010.

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