Indesign Scripting: View array's actual content (strings) in ExtendScript console - adobe-indesign

I'm a beginning learner of InDesign scripting and would like to help myself with debugging, but my attempts seem to run into walls. Hope someone has some insights that will help me going forward.
I'm working on a little project that loops through some selected tables, puts the 3 tables into an array/variable (accomplished that) and then loops through the content of those tables to find a GREP match and store those in an array/variable (for further uses I won't get into now)
My main objective at this point: See exactly what text characters the .findGrep(); function is catching and display those in the Javascript Console of the ExtendScript Toolkit app.
So here's a bit of the journey up to this point, including codes tried and suggestions from others. (All of my attempted uses of these has failed...why I'm here now... and why this is long; my apologies)
Initial try.
var myTables = []; (in Data Browser this shows values of [object Table], [object Table], [object Table]
var myFinds = [];
var myTest = [];
var myCharacters = [];
app.findGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "\"";
for (x = 0; x < myTables.length; x++) {
var myFinds = myTables[x].findGrep();
$.writeln(myFinds);
};
Notes on this code: Because not every table has the characters in the findWhat, sometimes in this loop myFinds has nothing, but when it does have something, it shows this in console [object Character],[object Character],[object Character]
So someone (firstHelp) gave me this: And it did not work... error thrown on .contents.toString(); *"undefined is not an object" which I thought, "ok, yes I see at times in the loop myFinds has nothing in it... more on this later"
var stringArray = [];
for( var n=0; n<myFinds.length; n++ ) {
stringArray[n] = myFinds[n].contents.toString();
};
$.writeln(myFinds.join("\r"));
Code revamp Gave up on the $.writeln(myFinds); within the loop and tried this in order to gather Grep finds in a variable/array that could be dealt with outside of loop.
for (x = 0; x < myTables.length; x++) {
$.writeln(myTables[x].cells.firstItem().texts[0].contents[0]);
myFinds.push(myTables[x].findGrep());
};
$.writeln(myFinds);
ExtendScript Toolkit console now showing this for myFinds:
*myFinds = [Array], [object Character], [object Character], [object...
+ (object symbol) 0 =
+ (object symbol) 1 = [object Character], [object Character], [object Character]
+ (object symbol) 2 =
+ (object symbol) _proto_ =*
*again tried the .contents.toString(); on the myFinds and still the same error, "undefined..." including targeting the array when it clearly had something in it.
**So then I get this tipoff...(but no helpful code to apply to what I already have)
"you are dealing with arrays of arrays mixed with texts.
So you have to check with each item of the result array if it is text
or another array of texts.
If it is an array loop that array."
And later this bit of code that is supposed to "flatten" my array... a = [].concat.apply([],a);
Replacing a with myFinds like this, myFinds = [].concat.apply([],myFinds); did absolutely nothing. The array and its contents showed no change in the console... and I have no idea how to loop through each item of this array within an array, find out if it's text or another array and then show its real contents to console.
Really...how many loops and if/thens etc do I need to run on one array to show its actual contents in the console? But I know I struggle with breaking down every little step I want, to its minute scripting granularity and so my ignorance regularly impedes me. I welcome any suggestions/tips to move me closer to my **main objective" as stated above. Thanks

Regarding the first help. The real reason why you get an error while accessing content property is that you don’t check the type of the object and presume it will be a Text object. As the findGrep may not find a Text occurrence, you actually get an empty array. And Array.prototype.contents doesn’t exist hence the error.
Then $.writeln is legacy of Adobe ExtendScript toolkit, the IDE for ExtendScript. This product is no longer de eloped and maintained by Adobe. You should consider using other logging techniques such as the Visual Studio ExtendScript plugin which will allow you to use breakpoints and everything you need.

Related

Any ar js multimarkers learning tutorial?

I have been searching for ar.js multimarkers tutorial or anything that explains about it. But all I can find is 2 examples, but no tutorials or explanations.
So far, I understand that it requires to learn the pattern or order of the markers, then it stores it in localStorage. This data is used later to display the image.
What I don't understand, is how this "learner" is implemented. Also, the learning process is only used once by the "creator", right? The output file should be stored and then served later when needed, not created from scratch at each person's phone or computer.
Any help is appreciated.
Since the question is mostly about the learner page, I'll try to break it down as much as i can:
1) You need to have an array of {type, URL} objects.
A sample of creating the default array is shown below (source code):
var markersControlsParameters = [
{
type : 'pattern',
patternUrl : 'examples/marker-training/examples/pattern-files/pattern-hiro.patt',
},
{
type : 'pattern',
patternUrl : 'examples/marker-training/examples/pattern-files/pattern-kanji.patt',
}]
2) You need to feed this to the 'learner' object.
By default the above object is being encoded into the url (source) and then decoded by the learner site. What is important, happens on the site:
for each object in the array, an ArMarkerControls object is created and stored:
// array.forEach(function(markerParams){
var markerRoot = new THREE.Group()
scene.add(markerRoot)
// create markerControls for our markerRoot
var markerControls = new THREEx.ArMarkerControls(arToolkitContext, markerRoot, markerParams)
subMarkersControls.push(markerControls)
The subMarkersControls is used to create the object used to do the learning. At long last:
var multiMarkerLearning = new THREEx.ArMultiMakersLearning(arToolkitContext, subMarkersControls)
The example learner site has multiple utility functions, but as far as i know, the most important here are the ArMultiMakersLearning members which can be used in the following order (or any other):
// this method resets previously collected statistics
multiMarkerLearning.resetStats()
// this member flag enables data collection
multiMarkerLearning.enabled = true
// this member flag stops data collection
multiMarkerLearning.enabled = false
// To obtain the 'learned' data, simply call .toJSON()
var jsonString = multiMarkerLearning.toJSON()
Thats all. If you store the jsonString as
localStorage.setItem('ARjsMultiMarkerFile', jsonString);
then it will be used as the default multimarker file later on. If you want a custom name or more areas - then you'll have to modify the name in the source code.
3) 2.1.4 debugUI
It seems that the debug UI is broken - the UI buttons do exist but are nowhere to be seen. A hot fix would be using the 'markersAreaEnabled' span style for the div
containing the buttons (see this source bit).
It's all in this glitch, you can find it under the phrase 'CHANGES HERE' in the arjs code.

JXA: get containers of an element

Using JavaScript for automation in macOS, it's straightforward to get the elements of a container. But I can't figure out how to get the containers of an element.
In the Photos documentation, for example, an Album "contains mediaItems"; and a MediaItem is "contained by albums".
This works:
Application('Photos').albums[0].mediaItems()
This is what I want to write, but does not work:
Application('Photos').mediaItems[0].albums()
(resulting error:
Error: Can't get object. (-1728)
)
I've also tried to do something with the whose method, but I'm not quite sure how to write it:
Application('Photos').albums.whose({ /* what to put here? */ })
(Obviously I'd rather use the more direct route, if it exists, but if the proper way to do what I want is via whose, okay.)
I don’t think there’s a direct answer to this question. What you’re basically looking for, if I read you correctly, is, how can I use JXA to query a container based on its elements. That is, you want the answer to how to perform this AppleScript query in JavaScript:
tell application "Photos"
--get an arbitrary photo
set firstPhoto to the first media item
--get the albums that contain that photo
get the name of every album whose id of media items contains id of firstPhoto
end tell
This means going multiple levels deep, something like:
//this does not work
var firstPhoto = Application('Photos').mediaItems[0]();
var containingAlbums = Application('Photos').albums.whose({mediaItems: {_contains: firstPhoto}});
But according to the error this script generates, the albums object doesn’t even have a property called “mediaItems”.
Tantalizingly, if you were to run the following script you would see the ids of each of the albums that contains your photo:
//get a photo
var firstPhoto = Application('Photos').mediaItems[0]();
var firstPhotoId = firstPhoto.id();
albumQuery = Application('Photos').albums.mediaItems.where({id: {_equals: firstPhotoId}});
containingAlbums = []
for (var possibleAlbum of albumQuery[0]()) {
if (possibleAlbum != null) {
containingAlbums.push(possibleAlbum);
}
}
containingAlbums;
I see, for example,:
[Application("Photos").albums.byId("RLf9PUOxSLunpY5vFLLR6A").mediaItems.byId("68IM5jaiRDqIJhcKVBXo%w"),
Application("Photos").albums.byId("7QpA6wQrSEeIPyhu8xHlOw").mediaItems.byId("68IM5jaiRDqIJhcKVBXo%w"),
Application("Photos").albums.byId("SX8PbxO9S+a4%w4FvHH%Og").mediaItems.byId("68IM5jaiRDqIJhcKVBXo%w")]
But if I change the push line to containingAlbums.push(possibleAlbum.properties()); I see no property that will get the album name or even id back in any of the entries.
I asked a similar question about getting people from the same city in Contacts. The only solution I’ve been able to find is to get your media item and then loop through all albums.
//get an arbitrary photo
var firstPhoto = Application('Photos').mediaItems[0]();
var firstPhotoId = firstPhoto.id();
//loop through all albums and compile list of those that contain this photo
var containingAlbums = []
for (var possibleAlbum of Application('Photos').albums()) {
if (possibleAlbum.mediaItems.whose({id: {_equals: firstPhotoId}}).length) {
containingAlbums.push(possibleAlbum.name());
}
}
containingAlbums;
This is obviously not a satisfactory answer. I’m providing it in the hope that it may help you hack up a solution, and that someone will put up a better answer to prove me wrong.
In general, JXA support is spotty enough that if you don’t need one of its features that AppleScript doesn’t have, such as the ability to chain queries programmatically, it’s better to build the solution in AppleScript.

svg.selectAll("[#trk*_sldrs_r]"); regular expression correct syntax?

I got
var t = svg.selectAll("[id^='t']");
to bring back all elements whose id starts with "t". However my
var t = svg.selectAll("[#trk*_sldrs_r]");
errors and does not bring back elements with ids of "trk1_sldrs_r" and "trk2_sldrs_r". Appreciate the correct syntax. Thanks.

How to debug Google Apps Script (aka where does Logger.log log to?)

In Google Sheets, you can add some scripting functionality. I'm adding something for the onEdit event, but I can't tell if it's working. As far as I can tell, you can't debug a live event from Google Sheets, so you have to do it from the debugger, which is pointless since the event argument passed to my onEdit() function will always be undefined if I run it from the Script Editor.
So, I was trying to use the Logger.log method to log some data whenever the onEdit function gets called, but this too seems like it only works when run from the Script Editor. When I run it from the Script Editor, I can view the logs by going to View->Logs...
I was hoping I'd be able to see the logs from when the event actually gets executed, but I can't figure it out.
How do I debug this stuff?
UPDATE:
As written in this answer,
Stackdriver Logging is the preferred method of logging now.
Use console.log() to log to Stackdriver.
Logger.log will either send you an email (eventually) of errors that have happened in your scripts, or, if you are running things from the Script Editor, you can view the log from the last run function by going to View->Logs (still in script editor). Again, that will only show you anything that was logged from the last function you ran from inside Script Editor.
The script I was trying to get working had to do with spreadsheets - I made a spreadsheet todo-checklist type thing that sorted items by priorities and such.
The only triggers I installed for that script were the onOpen and onEdit triggers. Debugging the onEdit trigger was the hardest one to figure out, because I kept thinking that if I set a breakpoint in my onEdit function, opened the spreadsheet, edited a cell, that my breakpoint would be triggered. This is not the case.
To simulate having edited a cell, I did end up having to do something in the actual spreadsheet though. All I did was make sure the cell that I wanted it to treat as "edited" was selected, then in Script Editor, I would go to Run->onEdit. Then my breakpoint would be hit.
However, I did have to stop using the event argument that gets passed into the onEdit function - you can't simulate that by doing Run->onEdit. Any info I needed from the spreadsheet, like which cell was selected, etc, I had to figure out manually.
Anyways, long answer, but I figured it out eventually.
EDIT:
If you want to see the todo checklist I made, you can check it out here
(yes, I know anybody can edit it - that's the point of sharing it!)
I was hoping it'd let you see the script as well. Since you can't see it there, here it is:
function onOpen() {
setCheckboxes();
};
function setCheckboxes() {
var checklist = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("checklist");
var checklist_data_range = checklist.getDataRange();
var checklist_num_rows = checklist_data_range.getNumRows();
Logger.log("checklist num rows: " + checklist_num_rows);
var coredata = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("core_data");
var coredata_data_range = coredata.getDataRange();
for(var i = 0 ; i < checklist_num_rows-1; i++) {
var split = checklist_data_range.getCell(i+2, 3).getValue().split(" || ");
var item_id = split[split.length - 1];
if(item_id != "") {
item_id = parseInt(item_id);
Logger.log("setting value at ("+(i+2)+",2) to " + coredata_data_range.getCell(item_id+1, 3).getValue());
checklist_data_range.getCell(i+2,2).setValue(coredata_data_range.getCell(item_id+1, 3).getValue());
}
}
}
function onEdit() {
Logger.log("TESTING TESTING ON EDIT");
var active_sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
if(active_sheet.getName() == "checklist") {
var active_range = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getActiveRange();
Logger.log("active_range: " + active_range);
Logger.log("active range col: " + active_range.getColumn() + "active range row: " + active_range.getRow());
Logger.log("active_range.value: " + active_range.getCell(1, 1).getValue());
Logger.log("active_range. colidx: " + active_range.getColumnIndex());
if(active_range.getCell(1,1).getValue() == "?" || active_range.getCell(1,1).getValue() == "?") {
Logger.log("made it!");
var next_cell = active_sheet.getRange(active_range.getRow(), active_range.getColumn()+1, 1, 1).getCell(1,1);
var val = next_cell.getValue();
Logger.log("val: " + val);
var splits = val.split(" || ");
var item_id = splits[splits.length-1];
Logger.log("item_id: " + item_id);
var core_data = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("core_data");
var sheet_data_range = core_data.getDataRange();
var num_rows = sheet_data_range.getNumRows();
var sheet_values = sheet_data_range.getValues();
Logger.log("num_rows: " + num_rows);
for(var i = 0; i < num_rows; i++) {
Logger.log("sheet_values[" + (i) + "][" + (8) + "] = " + sheet_values[i][8]);
if(sheet_values[i][8] == item_id) {
Logger.log("found it! tyring to set it...");
sheet_data_range.getCell(i+1, 2+1).setValue(active_range.getCell(1,1).getValue());
}
}
}
}
setCheckboxes();
};
As far as I can tell, you can't debug a live event from google docs, so you have to do it from the debugger, which is pointless since the event argument passed to my onEdit() function will always be undefined if I run it from the Script Editor.
True - so define the event argument yourself for debugging. See How can I test a trigger function in GAS?
I was trying to use the Logger.log method to log some data whenever the onEdit function gets called, but this too seems like it only works when run from the Script Editor. When I run it from the Script Editor, I can view the logs by going to View->Logs...
True again, but there is help. Peter Hermann's BetterLog library will redirect all logs to a spreadsheet, enabling logging even from code that is not attached to an instance of the editor / debugger.
If you're coding in a spreadsheet-contained script, for example, you can add just this one line to the top of your script file, and all logs will go to a "Logs" sheet in the spreadsheet. No other code necessary, just use Logger.log() as you usually would:
Logger = BetterLog.useSpreadsheet();
2017 Update:
Stackdriver Logging is now available for Google Apps Script. From the menu bar in the script editor, goto:
View > Stackdriver Logging to view or stream the logs.
console.log() will write DEBUG level messages
Example onEdit() logging:
function onEdit (e) {
var debug_e = {
authMode: e.authMode,
range: e.range.getA1Notation(),
source: e.source.getId(),
user: e.user,
value: e.value,
oldValue: e. oldValue
}
console.log({message: 'onEdit() Event Object', eventObject: debug_e});
}
Then check the logs in the Stackdriver UI labeled onEdit() Event Object to see the output
I've gone through these posts and somehow ended up finding a simple answer, which I'm posting here for those how want short and sweet solutions:
Use console.log("Hello World") in your script.
Go to https://script.google.com/home/my and select your add-on.
Click on the ellipsis menu on Project Details, select Executions.
Click on the header of the latest execution and read the log.
A little hacky, but I created an array called "console", and anytime I wanted to output to console I pushed to the array. Then whenever I wanted to see the actual output, I just returned console instead of whatever I was returning before.
//return 'console' //uncomment to output console
return "actual output";
}
If you have the script editor open you will see the logs under View->Logs. If your script has an onedit trigger, make a change to the spreadsheet which should trigger the function with the script editor opened in a second tab. Then go to the script editor tab and open the log. You will see whatever your function passes to the logger.
Basically as long as the script editor is open, the event will write to the log and show it for you. It will not show if someone else is in the file elsewhere.
I am having the same problem, I found the below on the web somewhere....
Event handlers in Docs are a little tricky though. Because docs can handle multiple simultaneous edits by multiple users, the event handlers are handled server-side. The major issue with this structure is that when an event trigger script fails, it fails on the server. If you want to see the debug info you'll need to setup an explicit trigger under the triggers menu that emails you the debug info when the event fails or else it will fail silently.
It's far from elegant, but while debugging, I often log to the Logger, and then use getLog() to fetch its contents. Then, I either:
save the results to a variable (which can be inspected in the Google Scripts debugger—this works around cases where I can't set a breakpoint in some code, but I can set one in code that gets executed later)
write it to some temporary DOM element
display it in an alert
Essentially, it just becomes a JavaScript output issue.
It grossly lacks the functionality of modern console.log() implementations, but the Logger does still help debug Google Scripts.
Just as a notice. I made a test function for my spreadsheet. I use the variable google throws in the onEdit(e) function (I called it e). Then I made a test function like this:
function test(){
var testRange = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName(GetItemInfoSheetName).getRange(2,7)
var testObject = {
range:testRange,
value:"someValue"
}
onEdit(testObject)
SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName(GetItemInfoSheetName).getRange(2,6).setValue(Logger.getLog())
}
Calling this test function makes all the code run as you had an event in the spreadsheet. I just put in the possision of the cell i edited whitch gave me an unexpected result, setting value as the value i put into the cell.
OBS! for more variables googles gives to the function go here: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/triggers/events#google_sheets_events
Currently you are confined to the container bound nature of using scripts within docs. If you create a new script inside outside of docs then you will be able to export information to a google spreadsheet and use it like a logging tool.
For example in your first code block
function setCheckboxes() {
// Add your spreadsheet data
var errorSheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById('EnterSpreadSheetIDHere').getSheetByName('EnterSheetNameHere');
var cell = errorSheet.getRange('A1').offset(errorSheet.getLastRow(),0);
// existing code
var checklist = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("checklist");
var checklist_data_range = checklist.getDataRange();
var checklist_num_rows = checklist_data_range.getNumRows();
// existing logger
Logger.log("checklist num rows: " + checklist_num_rows);
//We can pass the information to the sheet using cell.setValue()
cell.setValue(new Date() + "Checklist num rows: " + checklist_num_rows);
When I'm working with GAS I have two monitors ( you can use two windows ) set up with one containing the GAS environment and the other containing the SS so I can write information to and log.
The dev console will log errors thrown by the app script, so you can just throw an error to get it logged as a normal console.log. It will stop execution, but it might still be useful for step by step debugging.
throw Error('hello world!');
will show up in the console similarly to console.log('hello world')
For Apps Script projects that are tied to a single Sheet (or doc) — in 2022 — there is no View menu like other answers suggest. Instead you need to look in the Executions menu on the left sidebar to see the executions of your onSelectionChange function (or any other function), from there you can click REFRESH until your console.log messages appear.
just debug your spreadsheet code like this:
...
throw whatAmI;
...
shows like this:

Deleting from Multiple Isolated Storages - windows phone 7

I currently have a itemsCollection and a historyCollection. Both are separate isolated .dat files.
The saving and displaying works fine for both of these isolated storages, however the problem is when I try to delete something out of the itemCollection I also want to remove all the items out of the historyItemCollection where the historyItemCollection contains that specific itemIndex.
Update:
The itemCollection could contain something like this:
a
b
c
The historyItemCollection could look like this:
a
b
c
b
So if I remove b (itemIndex 1) then I want both to be removed in the historyItemCollection.
I can remove the items out of the itemCollection fine, but the historyItemCollection throws errors.
int i = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= App.ViewModel.historyItemCollection.Count-1; i++)
{
if (App.ViewModel.historyItemCollection[i].VehicleId == (Application.Current as App).vehicleIndex)
{
App.ViewModel.historyItemCollection[i].Remove(i);
}
}
App.ViewModel.vehicleItemsCollection[(Application.Current as App).vehicleIndex].Remove((Application.Current as App).vehicleIndex);
The error message I'm getting:
Parameter name: index
It fails on this line:
App.ViewModel.historyItemCollection[i].Remove(i);
In this line do you really mean both of these to be itemIndex?
App.ViewModel.historyItemCollection[(Application.Current as App).itemIndex].Remove((Application.Current as App).itemIndex);
Also, does calling RefreshItems() have any impact on itemIndex?
I'd recommend breaking your code up into more lines - then single stepping through.
As an aside, why are you setting the DataContext in this method? Then why are you also setting it twice - and to different types of objects each time. This seems unusual - perhaps you could instead set the DataContext globally to a new ViewModel class which has the history and items as children?
The problem is that you're removing items from a list as you iterate forwards through it.
As you delete items from the list you invalidate the count of total items in the list and your relative position.
If you must edit the list this way you should step backwards through it so as not to effect the indexing.
See also How to remove elements from a generic list while iterating over it?

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