How to get and set project / album hierarchy programmatically?

Brennan Cheung

• October 09, 2024 17:05

I use the current structure when creating a new catalog for each shoot:

YYYY-MM-DD

    model1
    model2
    model3

I want to be able to call a script to populate this inside of capture one and also read this structure as well if it was created manually.

I'm very new to Applescript and find it quite confusing coming from traditional programming. I have the following questions?

I see there is a "collection" or "collections" object but how do I get the top level one?

I'll probably try to use the javascript variant instead of applescript so it's less confusing to me and the rest of the code I'm integrating with is in Typescript already.

My use cases are as follows:

1. User opens Capture One
2. User selects the photoshoot event from the Electron app
3. User clicks "create folder structure in Capture One" button
4. Electron app sets top level project to the date of the event
5. Electron app sets child albums based on the models from the event

The other use cases is basically the same but in reverse:

1. User opens Capture One
2. User creates folder structure in Capture One
3. User opens Electron app
4. User clicks "Pull event structure from Capture One" (I'll probably call it something better)
5. Electron app runs osascript to pull the structure

I can figure out the Electron part no problem. It's the Capture One and Applescript part that I'm struggling with because I'm not familiar with Applescript and I'm not seeing a lot of examples that can give me more context.

Any direction, examples, guidance on next steps would be greatly appreciated.

0

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  FirstName LastName

  • November 28, 2024 21:23

  To achieve your goal of programmatically managing the project/album hierarchy in Capture One, you’ll need to use its scripting interface, which supports both AppleScript (macOS only) and JavaScript for Automation (JXA).
  
  Capture One exposes a scripting dictionary that includes objects like collection and project. However, its documentation is sparse, and examples can be hard to find. You’ll need to query and manipulate collections programmatically through this interface.
  
  

  
  To achieve your goal of programmatically managing the project/album hierarchy in Capture One, you’ll need to use its scripting interface, which supports both AppleScript (macOS only) and JavaScript for Automation (JXA). Since you’re more comfortable with JavaScript and Typescript, we’ll focus on using JXA as it integrates better with your existing Electron application.

  Understanding the Capture One Scripting Interface
  Capture One exposes a scripting dictionary that includes objects like collection and project. However, its documentation is sparse, and examples can be hard to find. You’ll need to query and manipulate collections programmatically through this interface.

  Plan for Your Use Case
  1. Setting the Folder Structure
  Create a top-level project with the event’s date as its name.
  Add child albums under the project, named after the models.
  2. Retrieving the Folder Structure
  Query the current project and its albums from Capture One.
  Send this hierarchy back to the Electron app.
  
  

  Here’s an example workflow to help with your use cases:

  A. Create Folder Structure in Capture One
  
  

  // Create Folder Structure in Capture One
  (function () {
      const app = Application("Capture One 23"); // Replace with your version
      app.includeStandardAdditions = true;

      // Input variables
      const eventDate = "2024-11-28"; // Example date
      const modelNames = ["model1", "model2", "model3"];

      try {
          const catalog = app.documents[0]; // Get the current catalog
          const topLevelProject = catalog.collections.whose({ name: eventDate })[0];

          // Create the top-level project if it doesn't exist
          let project;
          if (!topLevelProject) {
              project = app.Collection({
                  name: eventDate,
                  kind: "project",
                  parent: catalog.rootCollection(),
              });
              catalog.rootCollection().collections.push(project);
          } else {
              project = topLevelProject;
          }

          // Add child albums
          modelNames.forEach((modelName) => {
              if (!project.collections.whose({ name: modelName })[0]) {
                  const album = app.Collection({
                      name: modelName,
                      kind: "album",
                      parent: project,
                  });
                  project.collections.push(album);
              }
          });

          console.log(`Folder structure created successfully for event: ${eventDate}`);
      } catch (error) {
          console.error("Error creating folder structure:", error.message);
      }
  })();
  
  B. Retrieve Folder Structure from Capture One
  
  

  // Retrieve Folder Structure from Capture One
  (function () {
      const app = Application("Capture One 23");
      app.includeStandardAdditions = true;

      try {
          const catalog = app.documents[0]; // Get the current catalog
          const topLevelProjects = catalog.rootCollection().collections;

          const structure = topLevelProjects.map((project) => {
              return {
                  projectName: project.name(),
                  albums: project.collections.map((album) => album.name()),
              };
          });

          console.log(JSON.stringify(structure, null, 2));
          return structure; // Can be sent to the Electron app
      } catch (error) {
          console.error("Error retrieving folder structure:", error.message);
      }
  })();
  
  Integration with Electron
  Save the JXA scripts in files (e.g., createStructure.js and getStructure.js).
  Use Node.js’s child_process module nol red card, to execute these scripts via osascript

  const { execFile } = require("child_process");

  const runScript = (scriptPath) =>
      new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
          execFile("osascript", ["-l", "JavaScript", scriptPath], (err, stdout, stderr) => {
              if (err) reject(stderr);
              else resolve(stdout);
          });
      });

  // Example usage
  runScript("./createStructure.js").then(console.log).catch(console.error);

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