Is there a way to get the selection order for selectedProperties?

Question

app.project.activeItem.selectedLayers seems to be ordered by the selection order, but app.project.activeItem.selectedProperties (at least in Shape Layers) seems to be ordered by the stacking order. Is there a way to get the selection order for selectedProperties?
Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi,
i had tried to investigate this a while back and it's really hard to figure out.
The array seems to be reorganized using various rules:
     At layer level : preserve the user layer selection order,
     Children of indexed groups : propertyIndex ordering,
     Children of named groups : some internal ordering.
The following is may be more detail than necessary, and given that it is based on observation, not official docs, it is not so reliable, but well, it might still be of interest !!
Say you have 2 selected properties A, and B, and call [COMMON PARENT] their "greatest common ancestor", that is:
        A = [COMMON PARENT].property(a1).... property(aA);
        B = [COMMON PARENT].property(b1).... ...property(bB);
with a1 != b1. Then:
if [COMMON PARENT] = A (ie if A is an ancestor of B), then A comes first.
        For instance: if you select comp.layer(1).mask(1).maskPath, there are 2 selected properties, the mask group and its maskPath: the first is the group and the second the path (the parent comes first).
if [COMMON PARENT] is the containing composition, ie A is a property inside comp.layer(a1), and B a property inside comp.layer(b1), then A and B are ordered according to the layers selection order.
        This can have some strange side effects. For instance:
            deselect everything
            select comp.layer(2) (and nothing else)
            select comp.layer(1).transform.position
            select comp.layer(2).transform.position
            ===> comp.selectedProperties = [comp.layer(2).transform.position, comp.layer(1).transform.position] even though the first entry was effectively selected after the second...
if [COMMON PARENT] is an indexed group, A and B are ordered by propertyIndex
        For instance:
            if you select comp.layer(1).mask(2), then comp.layer(1).mask(1), mask(1) appears before mask(2)
if [COMMON PARENT] is a named group, ... no clue (internal ordering).
        For instance, at propertyDepth 1, it seems that Time Remapping < Effects < Masks < Material Options < Transform, etc, independantly of the selection order, and this is also not the propertyIndex ordering.
        At higher depth, in CS5 the ordering seems to be the propertyIndex ordering, but it is no longer true in CC.
        For instance, selected Position (index 2), Scale (index 6) and Opacity (index 11) in various order on the same layer.
        in CS5 : selectedProperties = [Position, Scale, Opacity];    // propertyIndex ordering, always
        in CC : selectedProperties = [Scale, Position, Opacity];    // always the same ordering, but not the propertyIndex one
So the ordering is a lexicographic ordering (Compare the ancestor of depth 0. If no difference, compare the ancestor of depth 1. If no diff, compare the ancestor at depth 2. And so forth).
But at each step, the comparaison depends on the type of the ancestor, and when the type is named group, the ordering is internal so we can't know.
Practically the most important thing is that selected properties seem to be reorganized by "containing layer" (the layer selection is preserved),
and then in each layer selected properties are "grouped by same parent": you can't have a mask related property, then an effect related property, then another mask related property:
all masks related properties appears together, all effect related properties appear together, etc.
If several effects are selected, effect(1) and all its properties appear first (if selected), then effect(2) and all its properties would appear second etc
and so forth
Xavier.