An old question but maybe this will help to someone. Scripting on a basic level is very simple in Phootshop and usually comes down to several steps:
- If you have no idea about Javascript you go to code academy, udemy or whatever site you like and learn basic things like variables, arrays and functions — this will take only several hours;
- you download and install ScriptingListener plug-in. This plugin records most of the things that happen in Photoshop as javascript code that looks ugly but who cares;
- you google the things you don't understand or don't know (like how to read a json file) — javascript is very popular, if you want to do something there were thousands people who tried to do the same;
- you wrap this all to a script.
For instance. If I create a new Swatch, ScriptingListener will record this code to a log file on Desktop:
// =======================================================
var idMk = charIDToTypeID( "Mk " );
var desc4 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idnull = charIDToTypeID( "null" );
var ref1 = new ActionReference();
var idClrs = charIDToTypeID( "Clrs" );
ref1.putClass( idClrs );
desc4.putReference( idnull, ref1 );
var idUsng = charIDToTypeID( "Usng" );
var desc5 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idNm = charIDToTypeID( "Nm " );
desc5.putString( idNm, "my swatch" );
var idClr = charIDToTypeID( "Clr " );
var desc6 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idRd = charIDToTypeID( "Rd " );
desc6.putDouble( idRd, 62.000000 );
var idGrn = charIDToTypeID( "Grn " );
desc6.putDouble( idGrn, 62.000000 );
var idBl = charIDToTypeID( "Bl " );
desc6.putDouble( idBl, 62.000000 );
var idRGBC = charIDToTypeID( "RGBC" );
desc5.putObject( idClr, idRGBC, desc6 );
var idClrs = charIDToTypeID( "Clrs" );
desc4.putObject( idUsng, idClrs, desc5 );
var idpushToDesignLibraries = stringIDToTypeID( "pushToDesignLibraries" );
desc4.putBoolean( idpushToDesignLibraries, false );
executeAction( idMk, desc4, DialogModes.NO );
while it's very difficult to read you can see that there're three values for RGB colors and there's a name field that has a my swatch string. So I can wrap this to a function and forget about it:
function createNewSwatch(name, red, green, blue)
{
// =======================================================
var idMk = charIDToTypeID("Mk ");
var desc4 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idnull = charIDToTypeID("null");
var ref1 = new ActionReference();
var idClrs = charIDToTypeID("Clrs");
ref1.putClass(idClrs);
desc4.putReference(idnull, ref1);
var idUsng = charIDToTypeID("Usng");
var desc5 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idNm = charIDToTypeID("Nm ");
desc5.putString(idNm, name); // here goes a name property
var idClr = charIDToTypeID("Clr ");
var desc6 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idRd = charIDToTypeID("Rd ");
desc6.putDouble(idRd, red); // red goes here
var idGrn = charIDToTypeID("Grn ");
desc6.putDouble(idGrn, green); // green goes here
var idBl = charIDToTypeID("Bl ");
desc6.putDouble(idBl, blue); // blue goes here
var idRGBC = charIDToTypeID("RGBC");
desc5.putObject(idClr, idRGBC, desc6);
var idClrs = charIDToTypeID("Clrs");
desc4.putObject(idUsng, idClrs, desc5);
var idpushToDesignLibraries = stringIDToTypeID("pushToDesignLibraries");
desc4.putBoolean(idpushToDesignLibraries, false);
executeAction(idMk, desc4, DialogModes.NO);
}
so later we can do something like createNewSwatch('cool swatch', 255, 0, 0); to create a new red swatch.
Reading a json depends on how the json looks like. If it's a plain json like this:
var data = {
colors: [
{
name: "calming grey",
color: [92, 94, 104]
},{
name: "alarming grey",
color: [54, 42, 42]
},]
}
we can simply eval this file:
$.evalFile('/E/temp/temp_js/myjson.json')
alert(data); // will alert [Object]
if it's stringified like this:
{"colors":[{"name":"calming grey","color":[92,94,104]},{"name":"alarming grey","color":[54,42,42]}]}
we'll need to include a json library that you can find on the internets to read and parse the file. But how do we read a file? We google that and wrap in a function, something like that:
function readFile(link) {
var b = new File(link);
b.open('r');
var str = "";
while(!b.eof)
str += b.readln();
b.close();
return str
}
Now we have everything we need, so we just make a loop to go through all the colors of the json:
// to include json library
//@include "json2.js"
function main()
{
try
{
var data = readFile('/E/temp/temp_js/myjson-string.json');
}
catch (e)
{
alert(e);
return false; // if file isn't found, terminate
}
var dataObject = JSON.parse(data); // parse string to an object
//for each element of my dataObject.color array:
for (var i = 0; i < dataObject.colors.length; i++)
{
// create a new swatch with element name and element color
createNewSwatch(dataObject.colors[i].name,
dataObject.colors[i].color[0],
dataObject.colors[i].color[1],
dataObject.colors[i].color[2])
}
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// function to read a file
function readFile(link)
{
var b = new File(link);
if (!b.exists) throw 'File ' + link + ' not found';
b.open('r');
var str = "";
while (!b.eof)
str += b.readln();
b.close();
return str
}
//function to create a swatch
function createNewSwatch(name, red, green, blue)
{
// =======================================================
var idMk = charIDToTypeID("Mk ");
var desc4 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idnull = charIDToTypeID("null");
var ref1 = new ActionReference();
var idClrs = charIDToTypeID("Clrs");
ref1.putClass(idClrs);
desc4.putReference(idnull, ref1);
var idUsng = charIDToTypeID("Usng");
var desc5 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idNm = charIDToTypeID("Nm ");
desc5.putString(idNm, name);
var idClr = charIDToTypeID("Clr ");
var desc6 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idRd = charIDToTypeID("Rd ");
desc6.putDouble(idRd, red);
var idGrn = charIDToTypeID("Grn ");
desc6.putDouble(idGrn, green);
var idBl = charIDToTypeID("Bl ");
desc6.putDouble(idBl, blue);
var idRGBC = charIDToTypeID("RGBC");
desc5.putObject(idClr, idRGBC, desc6);
var idClrs = charIDToTypeID("Clrs");
desc4.putObject(idUsng, idClrs, desc5);
var idpushToDesignLibraries = stringIDToTypeID("pushToDesignLibraries");
desc4.putBoolean(idpushToDesignLibraries, false);
executeAction(idMk, desc4, DialogModes.NO);
}
}
main()
