Depending on the Enabling Group selected, the script would pass the results of the user’s selection back to the main part of the script.

Script Functionality

Once the user’s preferences are returned from the dialog, the fun begins. The following is suggested:

• get a list of the open libraries
• repeat through the list and check for assets meeting the given criteria
• if an asset (or assets) is found, add a reference to the asset to a list (assetRefList)
• if the assetRefList is not empty, allow the user to choose from the list found
• otherwise, alert the user that assets were not found
• if the user checked place the image(s) on the active page, the script will need to get a reference to the active page in the active document and then place the items

Script Handlers

So far the script looks fairly straightforward. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. There are a couple of issues that need to be solved. One issue I found to be interesting had to do with comparing dates.

Working With Dates

There are two places in the script where dates are involved.

1. The script needs to create a date string to place in the date field of the custom dialog. This is used to show the user the format expected. It also serves as a default date. This can be done using the current date as in the code following:

   (*returns current date in format of mm/dd/yy
   set dateString to getDateString()
   dateString
   on getDateString()
	set d to (current date)
	set theMonth to (month of d as number)
	set theDay to day of d as string
	set theYear to text 3 thru 4 of (year of d as string)
	return "" & theMonth & "/" & theDay & "/" & theYear
   end getDateString

Notice that the value of theMonth can now be coerced to a number value. Earlier versions of AppleScript did not allow this, but this coercion has been around long enough to be reliable.

Also, notice the return value starts out with an empty string. Remember that the month value is a number. Without the empty string to coerce it to a string value, the value returned would be a list.

2. Where the fun begins with dates is when doing date mathematics and date comparisons. If the user chooses to find assets by the date created option, the script needs to compare asset creation dates with the string entered in the date field. The creation date for an asset is returned as a date reference:

   date "Thursday, October 16, 2014 at 8:01:56 AM"

So how do we compare the asset’s creation date with the string entered by the user, for example:

   "06/14/14"

The answer is: we don’t. We simply tell AppleScript to convert the date string to a date object, and let it do the rest. To work with dates, AppleScript internally converts the date to seconds. You can see how this is accompished in the following:

   --values returned from custom dialog
   set dateOption to "Greater Than"
   set compareString to "06/14/14"
   set theResult to findByDate(dateOption, compareString)
   theResult
   on findByDate(dateOption, compareString)
      set foundList to {}
      --set user entered date string value to date object
      set uDate to date compareString 
      tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2014"
         set libraryList to name of libraries
         repeat with i from 1 to length of libraryList
            set theLib to item i of libraryList
            tell theLib
               if dateOption = "greater than" then	
                  set assetList to (every asset whose date is greater than uDate)
               else if dateOption = "is less than" then	
                  set assetList to (every asset whose date is less than uDate)
               else if dateOption is "Not Equal" then
                  set assetList to (every asset whose date is not equal to uDate)
               else
                  set assetList to (every asset whose date is equal to uDate)
               end if
            end tell
            if length of assetList > 0 then
               set foundList to foundList & assetList
            end if
         end repeat
      end tell
      return foundList
   end findByDate 

Working With Lists

Another little AppleScript novelty found in the handler above involves adding lists to lists.

Normally, we add items to a list by setting the beginning or end of a list to the value. But, in the case of adding a list, we have several options.

For example, consider a list such as {1, 2, 3, 4}.
To this list we want to add a second list {100, 200 300}
We can do this by setting the end of the first list to the second. In this event, the second list is added as a single item to the first:

   set listToAdd to {1, 2, 3, 4}
   set myList to {100, 200, 300}
   set the end of myList to listToAdd
   myList 
   --result is {100, 200, 300, {1, 2, 3, 4}}

Should you want to combine the lists, as in the findByDate routine above, concatenation needs to be used. For our example lists, this would be:

   set listToAdd to {1, 2, 3, 4}
   myList to {100, 200, 300}
   set myList to myList & listToAdd
   myList
   --result is {100, 200, 300, 1, 2, 3, 4}

Unward and Upward

This should give you plenty to chew on if you were so inclined to write a script to search for all of the assets in your open libraries. You could even search for assets in libraries that were closed For this, you would need to temporarily open the library and then close it.

Admittedly, the functionality for a custom dialog (modal dialog) is not as cool as a full-functioning window, but that is a little out of our scope for the moment.