What about new drawing functions...

[Puffolino]

Hi,

I've written a small program which demonstrates how new drawing functions could be added. Have a look at the small demo film which shows how it works.

The program is Windows only, you also need to add the Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F1 to the Polyline function. And it is just a demonstartion tool, so no checks are done if the PDFXChange-Editor window is on top and active, when you press Shift+Ctrl+F1 to invoke the tool (not the Alternate key)...

Maybe this could be done using Javascript as well? Or is there an API for doing such things more easily?

[Puffolino]

Hm, the posting text above seems has been changed automatically ("Spam message...") because of the key word "m o v i e"?

However I try to post a better demo here.

Demo.zip

(577.83 KiB) Downloaded 46 times

And one hint, you'll get a systray icon which allows you to exit the tool (left click for a menu or just double or right click on the icon).

[Sasha - Tracker Dev Team]

Hello Puffolino,

You can use the JS addAnnot method of the document to draw anything that you like https://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/ac ... 3_addAnnot
Here's an Example 4 executed via the Editor:

Cheers,
Alex

[Puffolino]

C L !

Now showing a dialog to change the parameters would be perfect

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello Puffolino,

Is the above a request for us to provide such a dialogue or is it more a note to self to make your own tool be able to draw such shapes?
If you want to make those drawing shapes directly in the Editor - you can do so by opening the JS console (Ctrl+J) - and then pasting the code samples from the page Sasha linked in there. The parameters to modify should then be pretty obvious.

Or you can make a custom JS button - which when clicked will invoke a dialogue, where you can enter your parameters, and then the script can draw on the page using the parameters supplied in the dialogue box.

Regards,
Stefan

[Puffolino]

Hello Stefan,
not sure, just babbled loud...

> a javascript dialog sounds fine (will google a little bit), but scripts (or buttons with scripts) can't be triggered by shortcuts - not so good.

> a tool like mine could control theoretically do a lot of things, but an API would be useful here because the pdfxchange editor does not use a standard windows construct for handles and messages (I couldn't manage to find a possibility to activate the Polyline using a sendmessage)

Also thought doing a mix of these two worlds, creating a javascript dynamically and start it then. The first part can be done easily, the second would need to popup the javascript console - wouldn't it be nice to allow starting a script in a hidden mode?

Cheers.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello Puffolino,

You can write your JS and make a custom button that will appear in a new "Add-on Tools" ribbon tab:

As explained e.g. here:
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=28407&p=111667

And then that custom Script could show a dialogue window asking you for the input values:

pop_up_dialogue.png (51.92 KiB) Viewed 1173 times

(How to create advanced dynamic stamps is explained here: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowledgebase/543)

So everything will be handled inside the Editor - via JS alone, and there will still be user interaction to supply the dynamic input details as needed.

Cheers,
Stefan