Need help with Object.Children.item(x)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 by happy spike | Discussion: DesktopX Tutorials
according to https://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/help/dev_guide_3a_scripting.htm
DXScript has support for these object collections:
- DesktopX.Objects
- DesktopX.GroupObjects(“groupname”)
- Object.Children
They can be used like this:
- DesktopX.Objects.count – number of objects in the collection
- DesktopX.Objects.item(“obj1”) – returns the Object namespace of “obj1”
- DesktopX.Objects.item(3) – returns the Object namespace of the third object in the collection
Simply put the returned item is identical to the references returned by DesktopX.Object("name"), NOT DesktopX.ScriptObject("name"). You can always do DesktopX.ScriptObject(elem.name) if you need. DesktopX.GroupObjects(“groupname”) and Object.Children collections work in a similar way.
so if DesktopX.Objects.item(3) works (and it does i have used it with success) then Object.Children.item(3) would work the same way right?
Sub Object_OnTimer1
DesktopX.ScriptObject( Object.Children.item(activeIcon).name ).Animate(elapsedTime) <<--- !! the issue i have in in this line !!
elapsedTime = elapsedTime+1
activeIcon = activeIcon+1
End Sub
i get the error
Object required: 'Object.Children.item(...)'
Line: 30
Code:
(not available)
and i got the same error trying DesktopX.GroupObjects(“groupname”).item(X). However the code below using Object.Children works fine and is in the same script.
For Each icon In Object.Children
DesktopX.ScriptObject(icon.name).StartAnimation()
Next
SetTimer 1, frequency
anyone know what i have done wrong or how i could fix it?
Reply #2 Sunday, May 16, 2010 10:48 PM
Homer, with all this knowledge, I sure wish you'd put out some DX goodies for us. Maybe write a few plugins?
I can edit a little script, but man, this is way past me! 
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Reply #1 Sunday, May 16, 2010 3:12 PM
Hi,
I think the problem is that you're treating desktopx.object.children as if it were a single object.
the desktopx.objects.item(3) relates to a specific object in the list of desktopx objects.
on the other hand,
desktopx.object("whatever the object name is").children refers to a group of objects that are children of the object.
so,
IF you want to reference a specific object from one of the children (lets say the third object or the object named "this one" you could reference it a couple of different ways-- I use for loops
for example (<----HA! get it?)
Dim obj
for each elem in desktopx.object("whatever the object name is").children
if elem.name = "this one" then
obj = elem
end if
next
NOW you can reference whatever object you wanted to before using;
Sub Object_OnTimer1
DesktopX.ScriptObject( obj.name ).Animate(elapsedTime) <<--- !! the issue i have in in this line !!
elapsedTime = elapsedTime+1
activeIcon = activeIcon+1
End Sub
Pretty sure that will work, but if it doesn't, try first creating another variable and set it to obj.name (exaample: variable = obj.name) and use that in place of obj.name in desktopx.scriptobject(variable).animate(elapsedtime)
(vbasic is pretty finicky about strings for some reason)
Hope that helps,
Homer
EDIT: forgot to mention: as far as I know, desktopx.object.children does not support the item system like desktopx.objects does.
Also, some properties of the variable "elem" in my for loop:
in this, elem acts as the object you're referencing-- meaning you can say anything after it that you can say after object. and you can apply things to it that will edit the object it refers to directly.
For efficiency, I recommend putting the for loop OUTSIDE of the timer subroutine, to avoid unnecessarily counting all children on each timer hit.
Good luck!