Selecting multiple layers

[kpt]

While it's possible in Photoshop user interface to select several layers in a document (by holding down the Cmd-key and clicking on the layers in the Layer's Palette, or holding down Shift and clicking on the images with the Move tool) I can't find any mention in the Javascript documentation how to get hold of these selected layers.

The method app.activeDocument.activeLayer only returns one of these
layers (the top one, it seems) when several are selected.

Does anyone know how to get access to all of the selected layers?

[Mike Hale]

You can use scriptlistner to group the selected layers. That makes the group the activeLayer. Then check activeLayer.layers to get the layers that where selected. Then undo to remove the group and restore the layer selections.

Code: Select allfunction groupSelectedLayers(){
    var desc = new ActionDescriptor();
        var ref = new ActionReference();
        ref.putClass( stringIDToTypeID( "layerSection" ) );
    desc.putReference( charIDToTypeID( "null" ), ref );
        var ref2 = new ActionReference();
        ref2.putEnumerated( charIDToTypeID( "Lyr " ), charIDToTypeID( "Ordn" ), charIDToTypeID( "Trgt" ) );
    desc.putReference( charIDToTypeID( "From" ), ref2 );
executeAction(charIDToTypeID( "Mk  " ), desc, DialogModes.NO );
}

groupSelectedLayers();
var groupLayers = activeDocument.activeLayer.layers
var selectedLayers = new Array;
for(var i=0;i<groupLayers.length;i++){
   selectedLayers.push(groupLayers);
}
executeAction( charIDToTypeID('undo'), undefined, DialogModes.NO );

Mike

[xbytor]

There is also this from stdlib.js (from my xtools lib):

Code: Select allvar layers = Stdlib.getSelectedLayers(doc);

-X

[kpt]

You guys are geniuses, thank you very much!

[kpt]

To complete this thread, I thought I would offer the following (opposite) code to select mutliple layers by their names. I couldn't find anything in the documentation to do this so I looked at the output from ScriptListener.

Code: Select allfunction multiSelect(layerNames) {
    var layers = new Array();
    var id54 = charIDToTypeID( "slct" );
    var desc12 = new ActionDescriptor();
    var id55 = charIDToTypeID( "null" );
    var ref9 = new ActionReference();
    for (var i = 0; i < layerNames.length; i++) {
        layers = charIDToTypeID( "Lyr " );
        ref9.putName(layers, layerNames);
    }
    desc12.putReference( id55, ref9 );
    var id58 = charIDToTypeID( "MkVs" );
    desc12.putBoolean( id58, false );
    executeAction( id54, desc12, DialogModes.NO );
}


var layers = [];
layers[0] = "Layer A";
layers[1] = "Layer B";
layers[2] = "Layer C";
layers[3] = "Layer D";

multiSelect(layers);