Monday, July 30, 2018
Script of the Day Changing Case Again
Script of the Day Changing Case Again
A member of the BlueWorld list asked for a script to change the case of text in a particular style to lowercase. Completely forgetting that Shane Stanley had posted an AppleScript to do this a few weeks ago, I embarked on converting one of my scripts that makes use of a simple user dialog to do the job. Like many scripts, the doing of the job is relatively easy, but giving the user a way to say what he wants to do is a little more challenging.
In this case, I decided to let the user pick a paragraph style and choose which of the four possible case changes he wants to apply. Once more, the script is wrapped in the selection handling framework. Then a dialog with two drop-down menus is presented to the user. Finally, the real work is done in the small loop just before the functions.
//DESCRIPTION: Converts text in designated parastyle to designated caseIm thinking that a variation of this script that let you choose character styles instead (or even one that let you choose one or the other) might be equally useful. And, I should probably integrate the early Smart Title Case script rather than lumber the user with InDesigns built-in dumb title case.
if ((app.documents.length != 0) && (app.selection.length != 0)) {
myDoc = app.activeDocument;
myStyles = myDoc.paragraphStyles;
myStringList = myStyles.everyItem().name;
myCaseList = ["Uppercase","Lowercase", "Title case", "Sentence case"];
myCases = [ChangecaseMode.uppercase, ChangecaseMode.lowercase, ChangecaseMode.titlecase, ChangecaseMode.sentencecase];
var myDialog = app.dialogs.add({name:"Case Changer"})
with(myDialog){
with(dialogColumns.add()){
with (dialogRows.add()) {
with (dialogColumns.add()) {
staticTexts.add({staticLabel:"Paragraph Style:"});
}
with (dialogColumns.add()) {
myStyle = dropdowns.add({stringList:myStringList,selectedIndex:0,minWidth:133});
}
}
with (dialogRows.add()) {
with (dialogColumns.add()) {
staticTexts.add({staticLabel:"Change Case to:"});
}
with (dialogColumns.add()) {
myCase = dropdowns.add({stringList:myCaseList,selectedIndex:0,minWidth:133});
}
}
}
}
var myResult = myDialog.show();
if (myResult != true){
// user clicked Cancel
myDialog.destroy();
errorExit();
}
theStyle = myStyle.selectedIndex;
theCase = myCase.selectedIndex;
myDialog.destroy();
app.findPreferences = null;
app.changePreferences = null;
myFinds = myDoc.search(,false,false,undefined,{appliedParagraphStyle:myStyles[theStyle]});
myLim = myFinds.length;
for (var j=0; myLim > j; j++) {
myFinds[j].texts[0].changecase(myCases[theCase]);
}
} else {
errorExit();
}
// +++++++ Functions Start Here +++++++++++++++++++++++
function errorExit(message) {
if (arguments.length > 0) {
if (app.version != 3) { beep() } // CS2 includes beep() function.
alert(message);
}
exit(); // CS exits with a beep; CS2 exits silently.
}
