Quark Forums

 All of a sudden, my picture labelling script is causing Quark 8 to crash. Still works fine in Quark 7, but even after a re-start, it crashes Quark 8 every time. I've used this 20/30 times a day for weeks.

global box_width, box_height
set box_width to 60
set box_height to 7

tell document 1 of application "QuarkXPress"
     set oldSpreadSettings to item spread coords
     set item spread coords to true
    
     set theImageName to my NameFromPath(get file path of image 1 of current box as string)
     set textBounds to my setBounds(bounds of current box as list)
     make text box at beginning with properties {bounds:textBounds, color:"White", shade:100}
     tell text box 1
          set vertical justification to centered
          set story 1 to theImageName
          set size of story 1 to "8 pt"
     end tell
     set item spread coords to oldSpreadSettings
    
end tell

on NameFromPath(theImagePath)
     set theOffset to the offset of ":" in (the reverse of every character of theImagePath) as string
     set theImageName to (characters -(theOffset - 1) thru -1 of theImagePath) as string
     return theImageName
end NameFromPath

on setBounds(theBounds)
     set tempy to (item 1 of theBounds) as string
     set the_offset to the offset of "m" in tempy
     set y_coord to characters 1 thru (the_offset - 2) of tempy as string
     set endy_coord to y_coord + box_height + 7 & " mm" as string
     set y_coord to y_coord + box_height & " mm" as string
    
     set tempx to (item 2 of theBounds) as string
     set the_offset to the offset of "m" in tempx
     set X_Coord to characters 1 thru (the_offset - 2) of tempx as string
     set endx_coord to X_Coord + box_width & " mm" as string
     set newBounds to {y_coord, item 2 of theBounds, endy_coord, endx_coord}
     return newBounds
end setBounds



 
It runs fine if I comment out the 'set story 1...' and 'set size of story 1... ' lines. Investigations continue, but any suggestions would be welcome.

 Even this causes a crash:

tell document 1 of application "QuarkXPress"
    tell text box 1
        get story 1
    end tell
end tell

No problems with Quark 7, this is just 8 and it started today!

 ... and it happens with every XTension except Script switched off.

Hi Emma!

On my side, I still haven't found a solution to my problem either. I can't even set a story to "Hello", even on a fresh new document.

Are you able to set text on your side?

Emma:

 ... and it happens with every XTension except Script switched off.

Give a shot at turning Script XT off.

(I'm kidding!)

 I must have missed your earliest post/s on this subject! No, as soon as I address 'story 1' Quark quits. Yesterday it didn't. I use this script all the time, and losing it is a major inconvenience.

I'll go and look for your posts....

Emma:

I'll go and look for your posts....

It's not worthy. I'm stuck to v7 because of that. I must admit I've not fully troubleshot it so far but I don't really want to spend hours on it. What is abnormal is that apparently nobody else encountered this issue. I don't even know if yours is similar. Just sounds like it is.

Hi,

i'm having the same same problem, since our company updated to Quark 8 & OS X 10.6.4.
"get story 1 of every generic cell of table box 1 of document 1" works in documents, which are created bellow version 8 just terrible; "get story 1" from Quark is the source of all evil :-)

It's all about, that apple script runs very very slow, when reading stories from quark boxes (if the current document wasn't created in Quark 8) up to "QuarkXpress application is not responding"..

By now i found only 2 solutions for this:

1. if i hide all layers (or only the layers which contain the boxes i need to read), the script will run a lot faster (set visible of every layer to false). But I'm still not happy with the total performance and the invisible layers, while the script is reading informations from boxes..

2. I create a new document in Quark 8 with the same layout properties and paste in place my contents from the Quark 7 (or bellow) into my new document. Here is the problem, that if i have multiple layers, i need to copy/paste every layer by itself (and that takes a lot more of time..). One other problem are the text flows - if the new document has other properties, the flows will change. I could write an script to change the text flow properties in my new document to the properties of my old quark 7 document, but this would take once again extra time.

 I've written large mails to the Quark Support, but if i even get an response it was just VERY VERY POOR. I'm not even sure, if they really read what i wrote to them.

I have also tried to turn off all extensions ( one by one), changing fonts, changing project, layout, document and box properties.. but with no results.. i tried a lot of things..

*P.S.: I have also changed my applescript mode to "32 bit", because otherwise applescript returns me sometimes some strange informations from Quark, which i can't use. Like the the document measurements, bounds..

So, if someone finds another solution - a post would be nice!

Regards, Bojan

QXP8.1.6.2 installed in early June. I tried things like

- get text 1 / get every text style range … /get index of every paragraph …:

they all run fine in QXP7.5 – but everything concerning text made QXP8 crash.

Today I installed a new download. I tried each line of my test script – no crash – and the results are as expected.

Oh oh oh! What new download are you refering to? That sounds very very interesting!

 Amupgrading now to 8.1.6.2,bloody thing hasn't worked at all today, even with workround. Fingers very tightly crossed.

Oh no! Emma, do you mean adding a return at end or stopping at last-but-one para doesn't work? Do you have a large amount of blocks to proceed? Can't you downsave the doc to v7, run the script down there, and reopen in v8? I know it's probably not the most sexy way but…

 I also still have the problem with the "get story 1..." event and still no good solution.  It's still the best, when i hide the layers or the complete application (via script)..

I tried once again to talk with the quark support, if they can give me some answers, but once again i get nothing.. after he asked me various questions about my system i've just get a:

"we do not support applescript"

can u may tell me what could be the issue?
"we do not support this, so we do not comment on it"

and from my country via the telephone i just can't reach any support - guess they have locked it for other countries..

Is there anyone from Quark willing to help with a few answers?!

This is just frustrating..

Regards, Bojan

 Absolutely. The problem seems entrenched but hard to pin down. I now have latest version of Quark and it's still not coping with this command.

However, the original script I had probs with, which I posted at the start of this thread, is now behaving itself.

Matthias, can you give us any hope? 

Jean-Marie Schwartz:

Oh oh oh! What new download are you refering to? That sounds very very interesting!

It is 8.1.6.2 too. Build-Number _081000PP5937QXP, if this helps.

Now text style range makes problems. – What’s going on with AppleScript in XPress?