JavaScripting InDesign

When you work in the UI, a layout window has associated with it a transform reference point (familiarly know as its proxy point). Thus, when you select an object and manipulate it, that action can be performed using what is unambiguously the currently active proxy point.

But when an object is passed off to a function (or method) in a script for processing, how can that function know which is the appropriate proxy point to use? A quick look at these two captures of the Control palette:





should quickly convince you that the function cannot work out for itself which proxy point is active because both these were active at the same time for the same object. I happened to have it selected in two different windows and each window has its own proxy point.

So, the height and width methods I was discussing earlier today cannot of themselves know which proxy point to use when a value is passed telling them to set either the height or the width of an object. The only solution is to have another argument that carries the proxy point.

I'm thinking that this too should be an optional parameter. If it is missing, the function should work off the top left point, unless the item is directly inline to some text, in which case it needs to operate off the baseline of the containing character (which actually might not directly correspond to a proxy point at all).

And, as I write this, a nagging thought keeps surfacing: what if the item in question is a group? What then MacDuff?