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• • June 25, 2015 at 1:45 am #76243
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    Dear Authors,

    I have been searching from a very long time but couldn’t locate the video tutorials about “JavaScript for InDesign”. I have also searched the Lynda.com and other similar sites for the same. There are JavaScript tutorials available on the net but they are all web based i.e. HTML, browsing etc.

    Is it possible that someone can prepare the tutorials on the subject and make it available on Lynda.com covering the “Basics to Advance Java Scripting for InDesign” so that people like me can learn something. I’m a novice when it comes to Scripting, but also a great fan of scripts. I have a huge collection of scripts and I use them as and when needed. I also try to edit them to get the desired results, But lack of knowledge puts me behind. Therefore, I have decided to learn this subject.

    I remember, Mr. Jongware has created a detailed documentation on InDesign DOM (Document Object Model) and is available FREE on the net. But people like me don’t know how to use a DOM and where it is located and from where one can get the list of commands etc to create a script.

    https://www.jongware.com/idjshelp.html

    The tutorial should not be limited to InDesign only but briefly it should also cover other applications as well. Suppose I want to make a script to perform a routine task on my PC/Mac, so what will be the starting point for me; where should I look for DOM (if it is needed) etc; from where I can the list of commands needed for my program, Or let say I want to perform a task in Adobe Acrobat or MS Word or MS Excel etc, then who is going to help me, where will I find the milestone to get started.

    Therefore, I request all the qualified and experienced to please share your knowledge with us and guide us the right path.

    Thanks in advance.

    Masood

  • June 25, 2015 at 6:30 am #76248
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Jongware started this here:
    https://creativepro.com/javascript-for-the-absolute-beginner.php

    Important to note that it’s technically extendscript, not javascript.

    • June 25, 2015 at 7:43 am #76249
      Masood Ahmad

      Participant

      Yeah David, I have read this article, But I’m looking especially for the Video Tutorials.

      Currently, I’m learning from the tutorials by Bucky Roberts:
      

      and then I’ll watch:
      

      But these are web related. I would like to create small programs using JavaScript and for that I need a detailed tutorial.

      Hope, Jongware can do something in this regard…

    • June 27, 2015 at 3:39 am #76286
      Oleh Melnyk

      Member

      You don’t need to learn Java, as it’s related to Javascript same as Car to Carpet

      1) What you really need to learn is ECMA-262 version 3 – this is what Adobe ExtendScript currently use + custom Adobe BOM/DOM for InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.
      2) Also check Node.js as since CC2014 Node.js is built-in, and you can do a lot of cool things with that
      3) Then google for Adobe CEP

      PS: Bucky rules, watched his tuts on node.js few days ago, but that’s not enough, they’re just brief intro…
      Old (2013) tutorial @ lynda for node.js also sucks.. There is also new, 2015 tutorial- haven’t yet check this one

    • June 29, 2015 at 5:51 am #76306
      Masood Ahmad

      Participant

      Thanks Oleh, I’ll check these out.

  • June 25, 2015 at 1:54 pm #76254
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Well, for one I did not learn to write scripts for InDesign by watching tutorials, or by reading Adobe’s documentation, or from some magical webpage where everything was spelled out for me. I learned it by doing it – for a decade. As programming languages go, Javascript is pretty well documented – and quite forgiving as well. Even if you feel you have written some very bad code, well, if it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, tinker until it does. Writing highly optimized code comes last. Writing pretty code may never come for some.

    > … where should I look for DOM (if it is needed) etc …

    Javascript is a programming language, and with it, you can write programs. However, it is just a programming language. There is no universal interface to other programs, so everything – yes, everything – you want to do “in” another program needs interacting with its DOM. You can write all the Javascript for a webpage you want, but if you never do a document.write(“Hello World!”);, then how do you know it even did run – if you don’t interact with the HTML DOM to see the output?

    > … MS Word or MS Excel etc, then who is going to help me, where will I find the milestone to get started …

    How do you find anything on the web? Google. For example, I did not even know that one could write Javascript for MS Office programs (and I was going to say so) but hey! look! Google turned up this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj891051.aspx

    But the bottom line is: there is no substitute for plain grunt level “learning”. As Kylie Minogue says, “There’s no shortcut to learning a craft; you just have to put the years in.”

  • June 26, 2015 at 6:34 am #76274
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    Hi Jongware,

    Thanks for you suggestions. I am also a person of hit and trials and till now what I have learned is through by doing it and/or with the help of video tutorials. Similarly I thought that initially I can learn JavaScripting with the help of good Video tutorials and believe it or not in my opinion, you would be the right person to write tutorials on the subject. Therefore, I request you to think in this regard and contact Lynda about it.

    Meanwhile I’m trying to grab some knowledge from Bucky Robert’s tutorials, they are good so far.

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