Looping through collection of symbols and populating a drop down on a form EXTENDSCRIPT

Question

Hello everyone-
I got a question.  Would it be possible to run a script that would loop through a collection of symbols in a defined library and populate a drop down with the available symbols. My goal is to be able to open Illustrator, and when I run the script the dropdown is populated with all available symbols(text is fine) in a defined library that I can then select and place on the artboard. Any help would be appreciated.
thanks in advance!

Answer 1

So...
Dim appref As New Illustrator.Application
Dim docRef As Illustrator.Document                                                                         'The work document
Dim docToAdd As Illustrator.Document                                                                   'The document which contain the symbol's library 
Dim pathArt As Object
Dim ItemSymbol As Object
Dim itemSymbolref As Illustrator.Symbol
Dim artObject As Variant
appref.Open ("C:\..... workDoc.ai")
Set docRef = appref.ActiveDocument                                                                         'Assign docRef to your work document
appref.Open ("C:\......symbolDoc.ai")
Set docToAdd = appref.ActiveDocument                                                                    'Assign docToAdd to your symbol document
Set symbolref = appref.ActiveDocument.Symbols(Symbol_Name)                               'Assign symbol ref the symbol you're looking for
Set itemref = appref.ActiveDocument.SymbolItems.Add(symbolref)                              'Copy it on the current active page
itemref.Selected = True                                                                                              'select it
docToAdd.Copy                                                                                                         'add it to your clibboard
docToAdd.close (aiDoNotSaveChanges)                                                                     'Close the library, without changing anything
appref.ActiveDocument.Paste                                                                                     'Paste the clipboard on your work document
                         'As soon as you paste the symbol, it will be added in the document symbol library
Clipboard_Clear                                                                                                         'See below why...
SelectedObjects =appref.ActiveDocuments.selection                                                   ' Select the symbol you past
                         ' The loop is not necessary if you have only one thing selected
For Each artObject In selectedObjects
    artObject.Delete
Next
                         ' Cleanup your pointers
Set artObject = Nothing
Set pathArt = Nothing
Set docToAdd = Nothing
[....] Continue your script on your working document
Set docRef = Nothing               'after closing your working doc...
Remark on clipboard_clear : If you don't do it, the risk is to accumulate plenty other things you don't want...
Public Function ClipBoard_Clear()
  Call OpenClipboard(0&)
  Call EmptyClipboard
  Call CloseClipboard
End Function
With
Public Declare PtrSafe Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Declare PtrSafe Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
be careful I use the PtrSafe pointer due to the fact I'm working in x64 architecture
in x86 it will be
Public Declare Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Public Declare Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Regards to all
Michel