Re: Tell Blocks Considered Harmful (was Re: open for access)
Re: Tell Blocks Considered Harmful (was Re: open for access)
- Subject: Re: Tell Blocks Considered Harmful (was Re: open for access)
- From: Richard Rönnbäck <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:37:23 +0100
- Thread-topic: Tell Blocks Considered Harmful (was Re: open for access)
A script I made for IKEA can serve to illustrate why I like to have control
over the application displaying the dialog:
In the past IKEA made all their packaging material in Illustrator, but they
are now transitioning to InDesign. As there are no converters between the
two applications I wrote a script that can batch process reading page item
properties in Illustrator and the recreate the same page items in a new
InDesign document.
Speed is important, and because the majority of apple events are directed to
InDesign the script is run through Design's script menu.
However, on occasion the script needs the user to correct some item in
Illustrator, or manually rename/move a file in Finder, before the InDesign
conversion can go on.
By letting the application of choice displaying the dialog I can bring the
user's attention to the right object/application, then (in the background)
let InDesign display a new dialog, waiting for them to click "continue" when
they have fixed the problem.
This allows me to stop InDesign from receiving user input (and messing up
the document) while at the same time allowing me to bring other applications
to front, where the users can do what is required.
Other examples are some stay-open applications with idle handlers I wrote,
where they bring up time-out dialogs for the user to respond to, if they
like, or else the script will continue with a default choice. The point with
these are that the dialogs are NOT brought into front, but just peacefully
reminds the user, through the bouncing icon in the dock, that they have the
opportunity to go to the app and choose another option, before the app
continues with it's default choice.
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