Specifications

Adobe Photoshop CS6
JavaScript Scripting Reference Introduction 34
Object model usage and naming
The JavaScript API follows JavaScript naming conventions in that all classes (object types) begin with
uppercase letters and have mixed case. Typically, in JavaScript, you instantiate classes using the
new
operator:
new ClassName();
However, in the Photoshop Object Model, it is often not necessary to do this. Major object types are
collected into collection classes; for example, a list of
Document objects is contained in a Documents
collection object. You then access the collection object through a corresponding collection property in its
container in the object hierarchy.
For example, the collection of all open documents is contained in the top-level
Application object. You
can access this through the global variable
app, or simply reference its properties directly at the top level:
app.documents[0] // get the first loaded documented
documents[0] // this is the same
A collection property has the same name as the collection object, but begins with lowercase. For example,
a
Document contains a collection of LayerSets, and a LayerSet contains a collection of ArtLayers. To
access one
ArtLayer object in a set:
var myLayer = activeDocument.layerSets[0].artLayers[0];
The collections, as in this example, can be treated as arrays, which is useful for iteration. They also provide
methods to create their contained objects, and to access them by name:
var newLayer = activeDocument.artLayers.add(); // Create a new ArtLayer object
newLayer.name = "My Layer"; // name it for later reference
...
var layerRef = activeDocument.artLayers.getByName("My Layer");
Some objects, such as the Font objects contained in the app.fonts collection, are created by the
application, and never by your scripts.
Your scripts do use the JavaScript
new operator to create helper objects, such as those that encapsulate a
set of options for opening or saving a document in a particular format:
var opts = new PDFOpenOptions();
opts.page = 10;
app.open(myPDFFile, opts);
Changes since earlier versions—CS6 changes
The following changes have been made to the JavaScript object model and language support in Adobe
Photoshop CS6:
● New methods and properties:
● getLargeInteger has been added to the ActionDescriptor and ActionList objects.
● putLargeInteger has been added to the ActionDescriptor and ActionList objects.
● compression method has been added to the PNGSaveOptions object.
● Modified enumerations:
● LARGEINTEGERTYPE has been added for the DescValueType enumeration.
● EXTRALARGE and HUGE have been added for the FontPreviewType enumeration.