Calling Specific Layers in Actions

Question

Hi All,
Any help you have on this would be really appreciated.  I have a variety of Illustrator templates set up to use for different projects and they never vary.  There's a huge amount of volume associated with these projects, so many processes need to be done via actions.  My question is:
Is there a way to call layers using actions in Illustrator, much like the "Select Object" script in the Actions panel (which can be scripted itself)?
For example, let's say I have a template and it has two layers, always (because it's an Illustrator template, it doesn't vary).  One layer is labeled "Print" and one layer is labeled "Press Notes" (and is set as a "template" in the layer attributes).  I want to have an action that strips out the "Press Notes" layer every time.
It's easy enough to do this with individual objects (Attributes>Notes, then write a script that calls the variable(s) in the note) but I can't figure out how to script layers.
I'm running Leopard, but I need something that's cross-compatible, so I can't rely on Applescript and don't know enough Javascript to solve it that way.
Thanks again~

Answer 1

Actions will not move to Layers, as you've discovered. but you can accomplish what you want through a series of "Lock Others" and "Unlock All Layers" and "Flatten Artwork" commands, which are recordable. They are accessed from the Layers panel fly-out menu.
Illustrator always selects the top layer when a file is opened, so the sequence depends on how your template is constructed. For example, to remove the bottom layer, the sequence would be:
Layer: Lock Others
Select All
Lock
Layer: Unlock All Layers
Select All
Clear
Unlock All
Layer: Flatten Artwork
Hope this helps...
Mike D