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.

Download scriptui-1-10.pdf

Revision history

1.10 (May 2012)

Added a comment on the new property wantReturn, which enables the use of the Enter/Return key in edittext controls (p. 8).
Rewrote the section “Communication between windows” and renamed it “Accessing palettes from other scripts” (p. 61).
In dropdownlists, separators can be added by including a hyphen in the array of strings used to create the dropdown (p. 33).
Rewrote the section 'Closing and deleting palettes'.
Added examples of the listitem property checked (p. 28).
There was an iconbutton state I didn't know of. Carlos Canto explained it (p. 13).
Added a link to a thread on some edittext problems (p. 83).
Added a note to say that on a Mac you can create buttons with more than one line of text; this does not work on Windows (p. 11).

1.0 First posted 12 Oct. 2010.

Icon catalogue

From InDesign CS5, the program's icons are freely accessible. On Windows they are in c:\program files\adobe\adobe indesign CS5\plugins (on Macs it will be something similar). These icons can be used in ScriptUI's interfaces. Click here to download the catalogue (1.8Mb PDF file).

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