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

David, as far as I know, BlatnerTools is not opensource, as well as Ajar scripts and many others… my scripts doesn’t do anything bad, but sometimes I’m just too lazy to make code readable and understandable

this script is nothing special o hide, but let it be as it, at least for now

————
updated script https://goo.gl/Hk3MEA

try this https://www.dropbox.com/s/rbv9ic5rdl08y7g/Detect%20digit%20range.jsxbin?dl=0

I don’t understand what you want to do exactly, but try this:

1) go to Type > Text Variables > Define
2) create new varialbe, and give it name “myVariable”, and type – “Custom Text”
3) paste this variable to your document
4) create .jsx file, and copy/past there this code:

#target indesign;
#targetengine "myCustomGetFileNameHandler";

myHandler = function(ev)
{
    fileNameVariable = app.activeDocument.name.split("_")[0]; // get XXXXX from XXXXX_Name1_Name2_Name3.indd file name
    alert(fileNameVariable); // show XXXXX
    app.activeDocument.textVariables.item ("myVariable").variableOptions.contents = fileNameVariable;
    // ...do what you need here...
}

app.activeDocument.addEventListener("beforeSave", myHandler);

5) save this .jsx script file, and run it before saving your document – it should get XXXXX part from document name and set it as your text variable value
6) if you want this script to load automatically – you can put it to “startup scripts” folder

actually I have discovered a serious bug in previous version: if there is more than one string with ranges – script replace second and all other digit-strings with first formatted result, which is not good.. so I made another update:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f6ctvw1kl5povi9/Detect%20digit%20range.jsx?dl=0

in this version:
– script work correctly with more than one digit-string per document
– it can now work with selection only, if nothing selected – it will process whole document
– it use progress bar instead of alerts
… and other small fixes

@Chris – Is there any different way to define the “rules” in which some words must be red?

you can create character style with red text color.. then in paragraph style, in GREP section apply those character style you just created, and for grep rule write:
YOUR_DESIRED_WORD|or phrase that need to be in red

if you still need it – try this script https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrank3o5r5lykph/Move%20TextFrame%20to%20Layer.jsx?dl=0 – it should work

I probably need to start posting my scripts in github))