System Events behavior varies depending on script (ID2)

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

Folks

I’ve been trying to ungroup a series of page elements using System Events. When I test the individual code snippet, it works, but when I embedd it in the entire script, it doesn’t work.


		tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
			select every page item of the page 5 of active document
			tell application "System Events" to keystroke "g" using command down & shift down
		end tell

I’ve controlled for being embedded in a handler. All I can think is that either the document isn’t really ‘active’ or that the system is busy elsewhere?

thanks,

Ralph

#2

Hi Ralph,

the safest way to send menu keystrokes
is to activate the application explicitly and target also the process

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
	select every page item of the page 5 of active document
	activate
	tell application "System Events" to tell process "Adobe InDesign CS2" to keystroke "g" using {command down, shift down}
end tell

PS: Indesign has a ungroup command :wink:

#3

Thanks Stefan-

I did indeed try to use the ungroup command before attempting the last resort of System Events. I tried


	select every page item of the page 5 of active document
ungroup page item

and


tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
	ungroup every page item of the page 5 of active document
end tell

and several other permutations…

I am not sure what you mean by

stumped,

Ralph

#4

the direct parameter of ungroup must be a group so it’s something like this

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
	tell active document
		set a to page items of page 1 whose class is group
		repeat with i in a
			ungroup i
		end repeat
	end tell
end tell

just look at the differences between your a my script :wink:

#5

My goodness- that works great!

thanks Stefan!

-Ralph

:smiley: