Hi,
Could any one tell me Is it possible to modify the tool (Text box, picture box) preferences in Quark preference window using applescript.
Here I want to set text inset of Text box to “0 pt” in Quark Preference → Tools → (Text box).
Please guide me how to do this using applescript.
Thanks,
Gopal
Gopal, you’ll need a real Quark scripter (or someone good with System Events) to do this. Can I ask why you can’t just set the inset size for each text box when you need something different than the default preference? Stuff stored in prefs is usually “default” information. You shouldn’t need to change the default that often, should you?
Maybe someone with recent Quark Xperience (pun intended) can help you. It’s been 10 years since I used Xpress.
In short, it’s not possible to set the tool preferences with AppleScript - at least, I’ve never found a way and wish I could since I’d like to set many, many, many of the properties of tool defaults on only three workstations programatically so we’re all “in sync” with the same defaults for new documents.
Long version, the only properties that can be set as defaults are those found in the ‘default document’ element.
tell application "QuarkXPress"
properties of default document 1
end tell
I forget which of those are r/o or “wonky” when trying to set them, but those that behave are useful for changing document properties without a document open that then get used in any new document.
As mentioned, it’s easiest to make any text box properties that aren’t default part of the ‘create’ command in your script. Otherwise, it’s a matter of setting the defaults manually in Quark so that new objects (documents, text/picture boxes, or otherwise) use those default properties.
Attempting to script the Quark preference windows with a GUI applescript (System Events) is also a fail, because many of the interface elements of the preference window are unnamed/unknown and cannot be scripted reliably.
[edit: changed “default spread 1” to “default document 1” in sample script - wuz experimenting with ideas for maybe it works, maybe it don’t, and forgot to go back to what worked]
Have you tried it using Prefab Software’s UI Interface Browser? You can then drill down and find out the names of all the objects between you and your script so you can write Tell blocks that work. I’ve not used it, but have used Apple’s version of the same type program (which apparently you can’t get anymore, since the old link bounces you to the “features of Mac OS X” page @ Apple). It worked pretty well, if you could follow the hierarchy of objects.
Yup. That’s how I discovered that, aside from the parent dialog window, few of the contained objects are named and some exist within multiple hierarchies that aren’t recognized by System Events - the interface is not a standard Apple interface.
Quark’s probably still coding in C++ instead of Cocoa. Darn.