Adobe photoshop cs 2.0 User Guide

 Scripting Photoshop CS2     39

You must use the collection name, which is a plural form of the object name, as follows:

appRef.Documents.Add()

In this sample statement, the 

Application

 object is referenced via a variable named 

appRef

. See 

 for more information. 

To add an 

ArtLayer

 object, you must reference both the 

Application

 and 

Document

 objects that will 

contain the art layer. The following sample references the 

Application

 object using the variable 

appRef

 

and the 

Document

 object using the documents index rather than the 

Document

 object’s name.

appRef.Documents(0).ArtLayers.Add()

If you look up in the 

Document

 object in the Adobe Photoshop CS2 Visual Basic Scripting Reference, you will 

see that there is no 

Add()

 method in the object’s Methods table. However, the 

Add()

 method is available 

for the 

Documents

 object. Similarly, the 

ArtLayer

 object does not have an 

Add()

 method; the 

ArtLayers

 

object does. 

The 

Layers

 object is an exception because, although it is a collection object, it does not include an 

Add()

 method. The 

Layers

 collection includes both 

ArtLayer

 and 

LayerSet

 objects. For more 

information, look up the 

Layers

 object in the scripting reference. 

In JavaScript, you can use the 

add()

 method only with the collection name. The 

add()

 method is not valid 

with objects other than collection objects. 

Similar to VBScript, the JavaScript statement to create a document is:

documents.add()

and not: 

document.add()

You can include an 

Application

 object reference if you wish. The following statement is equivalent 

to the previous sample:

app.documents.add()

To add an 

ArtLayer

 object, you must reference the 

Document

 object that will contain the layer.

documents(0).artLayers.add()

The 

add()

 method is associated with the JavaScript 

Documents

 object but not with the 

Document

 object 

(refer to the Adobe Photoshop CS2 JavaScript Scripting Reference). 

Similarly, the 

ArtLayer

 object does not have an 

add()

 method; the 

ArtLayers

 object does. 

The 

Layers

 collection object does not include an 

add()

 method. For more information, look up the 

Layers

 object in the Adobe Photoshop CS2 JavaScript Scripting Reference. 

To work on a an object in the Photoshop CS2 application, you must make the object the front-most, or 
active object. For example, to work in a layer, you must first bring the layer to the front.

In scripting, the same rule applies. If your script creates two or more documents, the commands and 
methods in your script are executed on the active document. Therefore, to ensure that your commands are 
acting on the correct document, it is good programming practice to designate the active document 
before executing any commands or methods in the script. 

To set an active object, do the following:

●

In AppleScript, you use the 

current

 property of the parent object.