Store selection set in pxd format with AppleScript support.

What features would you like to see in Pixelmator Pro?
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2020-11-03 06:23:23

I was looking on a video on vimeo how to use Rhino (CGI Application)

And thought about a feature for Pixelmator Pro.

Lets say its possible to store selection set in array in Pixelmator format pxd. We could make a document with selections set.
We could apply action on specific selection and we could ask AppleScript to do it in Automation environment.
Every selection store name as string in dictionary or metadata in pxd format.

tell application "Pixelmator Pro"
tell front document to tell selection layer to set theSelection to get its name
tell theSelection to some item to do something...
end tell

its means

I could do action on specific part of the document and have better control.

It also means

The workflow will be better and quicker to select part of the scene/document

Regards
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2020-11-03 10:06:16

Hi Fredrik! I think you should be able to do most of this already, even if you would need to use some workaround methods. The basic technique would utilise two things:

1. The convert selection into shape command
2. The load selection command

The only thing is that, programmatically, you can currently make rectangular and elliptical selections, although these can, of course, be combined pretty much infinitely.

Once you have made a selection, you can convert it into a vector shape. Then, you could create a document (or a layer group inside a document) with a number of different vector shapes created from those selections and use the load selection feature to make selections according to those shapes. Of course, any edits you make with an active selection would only apply to those areas.
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2020-11-03 11:25:43

Smile... Let me explain I think we see it differently.

Let's say you have in your scene/document 100 different vector objects or image objects.
The workflow is resize 20 objects 1 %., set 25 objects to yellow, apply effect to 5 objects.

The only thing a user need to do... is to select objects (layers) save it in selection set.
Do something else...
Go back to selection list and select the saved selection set without doing it manually again.

Selection set is a way to speed the workflow, to do less selection manually and to automate the task.

So how could this work in Pixelmator Pro.
Pixelmator Pro could get the name/data of every layer of the document.
Pixelmator Pro could store this a selection in a array/dictionary with a key name.
Pixelmator Pro could ask for every object of key name background
Return array of selections.


This is not difficult to do.

I think you misunderstood me or my lack explanation of the problem.

Ps. Load selection could be a array of layers store in selection list as string.