Force show (not toggle) hidden characters and threads in script

Question

I have been working on a script to show all the extras (for the most part). I can turn on rulers and frame edges from the DOM, but can not Show Hidden Characters or Show Text Threads from the DOM. I've been working on using menuActions, but there two is a hitch. It seems that the menuActions are only available if the menu has been accessed during the current session? Not 100% on that. There is a good comment (#10) that touches on this a bit at Indiscripts :: How to Create your Own InDesign Menus.
This method works, but again only if the menu has been previously accessed... so it's not reliable:
// locale-independent (should work on non-english versions of InDesign)
// Show Hidden Characters
// FIX/TODO - Only seems to work if the Show/Hide Characters has been toggled within this session?!
var showHiddenChars = app.menuActions.item("$ID/HideHiddenCharactersCmdStr"); //The 'hide' ID String only valid when characters are hidden
var areCharsHidden = (showHiddenChars.isValid);
if (areCharsHidden == true) {
    try {showHiddenChars.invoke()} catch (givenError){alert(givenError.toString())};
else {
        //alert("Hidden characters are already shown!")
I also have a less desirable version of Showing Hidden Characters, which relies on English name property of the Menu Action. It suffers from the same issue.
//~     var acID = acID||
//~             ((t=app.menuActions.item("$ID/ShowHiddenCharactersCmdStr")).isValid&&t.id)||
//~             ((t=app.menuActions.item("$ID/HideHiddenCharactersCmdStr")).isValid&&t.id);
//~     var showHiddenChars = app.menuActions.itemByID(acID);
//~
//~     //if the name property for the menuAction is currently "Hide Hidden Characters", the characters are hidden.
//~     var areCharsHidden = (showHiddenChars.name == "Hide Hidden Characters");
//~     if (areCharsHidden == true) {
//~         try {showHiddenChars.invoke()} catch (givenError){};
//~         }
//~     else {
//~         //alert("Hidden characters are already shown!")
//~         }
Any suggestion on how to force show characters (show threads works the same way) with out having to have had accessed a menu before hand?
Thanks,
Kevin

Answer 1

When you have found a menu action you can remember its ID and use menuActions.itemByID() later on to retrieve it. Most action IDs are hard wired, bound to their implementing plugin. Of course there is an exception for dynamically allocated actions, e.g. script actions.
My first attempt following you is to retrieve the action name - that should trigger the internal method to update the whole action state including checked, enabled (not applicable in this case). Of course it failed, would someone please file a bug? The translated versions of strings that you'd use for the comparison are available via app.translateKeyString().
Btw you are using the wrong string - cmd strings are used for command history as seen in the undo menu. Menu strings usually have an ampersand character to indicate the underline / Alt+Key combo in Windows.
$.writeln(app.menuActions.itemByID(0x1d301).name==app.translateKeyString("$ID/Show Hidden Characters"));
$.writeln(app.menuActions.itemByID(0x1d301).name==app.translateKeyString("$ID/Hide Hidden Characters"));
app.translateKeyString("$ID/Show Hidden Characters")
Ergebnis: Verborgene Zeic&hen einblenden
app.translateKeyString("$ID/Hide Hidden Characters")
Ergebnis: &Verborgene Zeichen ausblenden
// failed test
$.writeln(app.menuActions.itemByID(0x1d301).name);
app.menuActions.itemByID(0x1d301).invoke();
$.writeln(app.menuActions.itemByID(0x1d301).name);
// output should change after invoke
Verborgene Zeichen ausblenden
Verborgene Zeichen ausblenden
As you found command strings, I also had a look at the undo history - it remained empty.
$.writeln(app.activeDocument.undoHistory.length);
Probably the setting is not persisted in the document any more, someone should have removed the command strings.
Then I realized that the output of the previous lines around the invoke had changed as it was expected originally. And I had not touched the menu since restart … but I had activated the application.
One can do that with scripting too - app.activate();
A couple of restarts later this is definitely leading somewhere.
Regarding the command, I also had a second look with a debug build of InDesign: the command is still executed, but there is a flag that binds its undo to the previous command - left as an exercise to verify.
Hmm. It is stored in the persistent document preferences in a structure internally called kDocWorkspaceBoss / ITextOptions, thus should also be exposed for scripting. Back to scripting: set a breakpoint, browse thru tons of document sub-objects, and here we are:
app.activeDocument.textPreferences.showInvisibles
Happy programming,
Dirk
Edit: when comparing the strings, you also have to strip the extra ampersand.