[JS] Testing whether PageItem will printing anything

Question

There are a slew of attributes that determine whether a PageItem will actually result in something being printed on a page.  For example, the PageItem could be non-printing, or transparent, or have 0 thickness strokes, or no stroke or fill color, etc.  It may or may not have a drop shadow, halo, etc.
Testing all of these attributes seems excessive.  Is there any reasonable way to determine whether a PageItem will actually result in any output if, for example, exportFile() is called on the page?
I'm trying to output EPS files, but only if there are objects that will cause marks to be drawn on the page.  Otherwise, I get EPS files that fail in Distiller and report that no PDF was output because the EPS was empty.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
-pd

Answer 1

A reasonable way? Like a boolean value? No -- ID doesn't check if you are actually printing something (the one exception being that blasted "Include blank pages" that's OFF by default!).
Unfortunately, there are tons of reasons any given object will print, and you have to check them all before deciding it does not.
non-printing, or transparent, or have 0 thickness strokes, or no stroke or fill color
Each and every one of those 'or's should be and; each single one on its own can leave a mark on the page. (Not that entire list, but you know what I mean.)
From your list, I'm missing at least the following:
Is the layer it is on visible? (If not, you are done!)
Is the layer set to 'Nonprinting'? (Ditto.)
Does the object contain text? Have to check its attributes -- fill, stroke. If it contains footnotes, anchored objects, tables: if the 'main' text is invisible, check all of these.
Does it contain any other objects? Have to check their attributes as well -- recursively! Fortunately, the very first positive "Does print" hit is definitive for all objects higher up in the chain. Check allPageItems -- this superclass should cover all possibilites, except (I think) Buttons.
How bad do you consider the Distiller error? It might be easier to handle that gracefully instead.
Another way would be to cheat, and put something paper coloured on every page