VBScript - Place asset from library.

Question

Hi, we currently do something in AppleScript which takes and element from and indesign library (.indl) something like:
set placedAsset to place asset asset "ElementName" of library "FF1.indl" on myDocument
select placedAsset
move to {LocationX, LocationY}
Does anyone know how to do in vbscript?
Thanks,
Joe

Answer 1

Joe:
  I'm glad you got it working, but your solution is not correct .
The right way to solve this problem is to place the asset and move the returned page items. What you're doing is throwing away the reference to the returned pageitems and finding them anew on the assumption that they are the top pageitem on the page. Then you are selecting them -- scripts should never touch the selection if they can at all avoid it! Then you are moving them, but your move should not be dependent on the selection at all, so the selection is entirely unnecessary! And as you've noted, this only works if the library asset is grouped. Which is not considered best-practice (though sometimes it can be helpful, sometimes not).
(Maybe you have another reason for leaving the placed asset selected after you run the script, so the user can interact with it? If so, OK, but only to that small segment.).
I'm still not a VBScript programmer, but let's run through this. Remember what I said before:
Asset.placeAsset() returns an array of placed items. So loop over the array and move each page item to its desired location.
So:
Dim jLib = myInDesign.Libraries.Item("FF1.indl")   
Dim jAsset = jLib.assets.item("Daily_News")
So far so good. But next you should have an array of pageitems returned.
Dim myPlacedAssets() = jAsset.placeAsset(myDocument)
then you should loop over them and move them. Or if you like, group them, move them, and ungroup them:
Dim myGroup = myDocument.Groups.Add(myPlacedAssets)
myGroup.Move(XY)
myGroup.Ungroup()
That probably won't work as written because I'm not a VB person, but that's the correct way to handle this consistent with the InDesign Document Object Model. I suppose it's possible that it won't work in VB because of strict typing issues, but I'm sure there's a way to do it properly....