Automated cropping and resizing with user interaction

Question

Dear all,
after hours of tests with batch processing and search in the internet maybe somebody of you can help me:
I have roughly 3000 jpgs. in one folder (all different sizes and proportions), and I need all of them cropped to a specific proportion (width:height = 4:3) and then resized to a specific size (e.g. 800 x 600px). Batch processing can do a lot, but one critical step is not possible: As soon as one picture has been loaded into PS, I need a user interaction to determine the crop area freely (size and position) before the rest of the process (cropping, resizing and saving) can run automatically again.
For example a picture of 2000 x 1000 px: The"crop window" lets me to choose an arbitrary area concering size and position (i.e.at 20px from the left, and 10 px from the top, size 1000 x 750 px = fixed aspect ratio  - and different for each picture), then the cropped area is resized to 800 x 600px, then it is saved.(Similar to the marquee tool with fixed aspect ratio)
The crucial act is the interaction with the "proportional cropping". If the resizing is not possible in the first step, I coudl also do this with a second batch run myself.
If somebody can help me, I would be very glad....
Thanks a lot,
Elmar Hartje

Answer 1

This should give you the user resize then resize to 800x600.
var doc=activeDocument;
if(doc.width>doc.height){
cropFourThreeRatio(true);
doc.resizeImage(new UnitValue(800,'px'), undefined, undefined, ResampleMethod.BICUBIC);
}else{
cropFourThreeRatio(false);
doc.resizeImage(undefined, new UnitValue(800,'px'), undefined, ResampleMethod.BICUBIC);
function cropFourThreeRatio(landscape) {
var startRulerUnits = app.preferences.rulerUnits;
app.preferences.rulerUnits = Units.INCHES;
    var desc1 = new ActionDescriptor();
        var desc2 = new ActionDescriptor();
        desc2.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Top '), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 0.000000 );
        desc2.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Left'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 0.000000 );
  if(landscape){
        desc2.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Btom'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 147.000000 );
        desc2.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Rght'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 195.750000 );
  }else{
   desc2.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Btom'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 127.500000 );
   desc2.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Rght'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 96.000000 );
    desc1.putObject( charIDToTypeID('T   '), charIDToTypeID('Rctn'), desc2 );
    desc1.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Angl'), charIDToTypeID('#Ang'), 0.000000 );
if(landscape){
    desc1.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Wdth'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 288.000000 );
    desc1.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Hght'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 216.000000 );
}else{
  desc1.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Wdth'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 216.000000 );
    desc1.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Hght'), charIDToTypeID('#Rlt'), 288.000000 );
    desc1.putUnitDouble( charIDToTypeID('Rslt'), charIDToTypeID('#Rsl'), 0.000000 );
try{
    executeAction( charIDToTypeID('Crop'), desc1, DialogModes.ALL );
}catch(e){app.preferences.rulerUnits = startRulerUnits;}
app.preferences.rulerUnits = startRulerUnits;