Copy paste buttons

Question

Hey,
I frequently need to copy paste groups of several element, which include buttons, into frames (in order to create scrollable frames for DPS), and every time I do that with a "Go to State" buttons, they lose their properties and I have to recreate them, which is pretty cumbersome to do, and especially so when the button isn't in the visible part of the frame.This happens both in CS5.5 and CS6
Is there any way to past a button into a frame without losing the button's action?
Thanks

Answer 1

@Bob – yesterday I began writing a script snippet that is something like a proof of concept, that it is possible to duplicate a button to a rectangle or any kind of object that can hold a button object.
But before presenting that, let me explain its basic functionality.
1. In scripting we have one principle method to get a duplicate of a button object and therefore not losing the target MSO information: the duplicate() method.
2. duplicate() applied to a "Button" object will not get us in the right direction, because the target of the duplicate() method can only be a "Spread", a "Page" or a "Layer". Or you could move the duplicated button with  x/y values on a spread or a page. The target could not be a rectangle or a state in an MSO. So this seems to be a dead end.
3. But, and here comes the clue, you are able to move or duplicate a "Character" or a "Texts" object from one text frame to another. And this is the key to a possible solution:
If you are working with anchored objects ("Button", "Groups of Buttons" or any other object that you could paste inside of an insertion point in a text frame), you could duplicate or move that object around. The "Button" in this case is simply represented as a "Character" object that flows with the text frame.
For "Texts" objects (and a single character (=anchored button) is a subset of "Texts") the duplicate() method supports the following parameters:
1. The position of the duplicated character in regards of the target insertion point or text:
LocationOptions.AFTER
Places the object after the reference object.
LocationOptions.AT_BEGINNING
Places the object at the beginning of the containing object.
LocationOptions.AT_END
Places the object at the end of the containing object.
LocationOptions.BEFORE
Places the object before the reference object.
LocationOptions.UNKNOWN
No location specified.
2. The target (a "Texts" object, a insertion point, a character, a word, a paragraph) could be the same text frame of the original anchored button or a different text frame. And that could be a new text frame, that could be easily added to a rectangle, a state of an MSO etc.pp. with:
myRectangle.textFrames.add();
That implies we only need two ingredients to make that concept work:
A source text frame and a target text frame.
The source is a text frame that holds an anchored button and should be easily identified by the script. The user (you) could do this by renaming it in the Layers Panel. Just replace its generic name "<Textframe>" with "Source".
The target could be a rectangle. For ease of use it could be a selected rectangle and the script will work with the selection.
What the script is doing:
It identifies the source text frame by its name (therfore it should be unique in the document) and duplicates all its characters (eg. the anchored button, but could be any anchored object) to a new text frame that will be added on the fly to the selected rectangle.
And here comes the script (JavaScript):
//DuplicateAnchoredObjectsTo_SELECTION.jsx
//DESCRIPTION:Just a proof of concept!
//Uwe Laubender
* @@@BUILDINFO@@@ DuplicateButtonTo_SELECTION.jsx !Version! Sat Sep 15 2012 19:39:03 GMT+0200
var myDoc = app.documents[0];
var mySel = app.selection[0];
try{
var mySource = myDoc.pageItems.itemByName("Source").texts[0];
var myTarget = mySel.textFrames.add({geometricBounds:mySel.geometricBounds}).insertionPoints[0];
mySource.duplicate(LocationOptions.AFTER,myTarget);
}catch(e){alert(e.message)};
It's not exactly the thing you like to do, because it requires some preparations:
you have to anchor the object you like to duplicate,
you have to define the target MSO after you anchored the source button,
you have to rename the text frame
and:
you get an additional text frame at the target rectangle and that is adding some complexity to the structure of your document, but hey, it's working…
Here are some screen grabs to illustrate the preparation of the source and showing the results after running the script:
1. Prepare the button as an anchored object (sorry, but the UI is in German, but I think you'll get it):
2. Rename the source text frame from "<Textframe>" to a unique name.
In this case: "Source":
3. Define the target MSO in the button at that stage.
By copy/paste the button to the text frame you already lost the target MSO.
4. Select the target rectangle you want to duplicate the button to:
(the green rectangle represents the first state of the MSO on this spread. It's just an example)
5. Run the script:
6. Inspect the results:
6.1 The button sits in the selected rectangle
6.2 To be precise: it's the first character in a text frame that is added to the target rectangle.
The added text frame has the exact size and position of your selection:
6.3 Inspect the button: the target  is not lost. The MSO is still addressed by the button:
Instead of a single button as the source, you could use a variety of objects:
groups, several buttons anchored one after another etc.pp.
And remember: this is just a proof of  concept so error management is hardly implemented.
Uwe