copying and pasting various info / learning java

Wow thanks Forrester! This is working well. The way you are defining the output seems to be working better, I'm hitting a snag doing it as

selectedTrack.outputPathButton.value.value

as when I'm routing to vocal(stereo) it logs it as vox (which is how pro tools displays). Not having that issue here.

@Forrester_Savell, that's awesome! You really came through for Joseph on this one. Very cool!

I'm happy to review this for you. I went through it quickly and here are the things that stood out:

• Avoid using var.
  • Use const most of the time, if the contents of the variable are not going to change. If they are going to change, then use let.
• Function declarations
  • Place all function declarations at the top of the script
  • No need for a semicolon at the end of a function declaration
• Use a main function
  • This is the function where the important parts of the script happen, usually in a concise way. This has several benefits and the main one is that it increases readability and relieves, what coders call, cognitive load. When you scan down the main function, you should be able to quickly understand what it is doing without getting into the details (check the refactored version below to see what I mean).
• Invalidate the mainWindow after creating a new track with a script
  • This is to refresh SoundFlow's cache and have it recognize the new tracks. This is especially important if you're doing something to the newly created track within the runtime of the script.
• Avoid global variables
  • Pass them to the functions directly instead
  • In your script, this happened in createFolder() which was referring to folderName, located outside of its scope.
  • This is one of the rules of a paradigm called Functional Programming (FP for short), which is cool cause it avoids all kinds of trouble. I don't follow FP all of the time but it's good to consider.
  • This also makes your functions modular and can be reused in other scripts

Those are the main things!

To answer some of your other questions:

• Yeah, the way we stored track names and outputs was different but not too different. In my approach, I wanted to extract data from just the first selected track, while you fetched the names of all the selected tracks and then chose the first one from there. As for the output, I think you did awesome by grabbing the path directly from the track. I usually just grab the name and then figure out the path later while assigning it to the track—example of this in another reply I'm leaving in response to Joseph.
• Yes, that lag you're talking about is PT figuring out the routing behind the scenes. If you do the steps manually and try to do something immediately after, like select other tracks, or change edit selection, you'll see PT is super sluggish for a few seconds. SoundFlow waits patiently until PT is ready to be automated again before proceeding to select the folder.

After all that been said, here's how I'd refactor your script:

/** @param {{ numOfAuxes: number, auxName: string }} args */
function createAuxes({ numOfAuxes, auxName }) {
    const newTrackWin = sf.ui.proTools.windows.whoseTitle.is("New Tracks").first;
    const numberField = newTrackWin.textFields.whoseTitle.is('Number of new tracks').first;

    sf.ui.proTools.menuClick({ menuPath: ['Track', 'New...'] });
    newTrackWin.elementWaitFor();

    if (numberField.value.invalidate().value.trim() !== String(numOfAuxes)) {
        numberField.elementClick();

        sf.keyboard.type({ text: String(numOfAuxes) });

        var i = 0;
        while (numberField.value.invalidate().value !== String(numOfAuxes)) {
            sf.wait({ intervalMs: 30 });
        }
    }

    newTrackWin.popupButtons.whoseDescription.is("Track format").first.popupMenuSelect({
        menuPath: ["Stereo"]
    });

    newTrackWin.popupButtons.whoseDescription.is("Track type").first.popupMenuSelect({
        menuPath: ["Aux Input"]
    });

    newTrackWin.textFields.whoseTitle.is("Track Name").first.elementSetTextFieldWithAreaValue({
        value: auxName,
    });

    newTrackWin.buttons.whoseTitle.is("Create").first.elementClick();
    newTrackWin.elementWaitFor({ waitType: "Disappear" });

    sf.ui.proTools.mainWindow.invalidate();
}

/** @param {{ folderName: string, isSelectFolderOnly: boolean }} args */
function createFolder({ folderName, isSelectFolderOnly }) {
    const newFolderWin = sf.ui.proTools.windows.whoseTitle.is("Move To New Folder").first;

    sf.ui.proTools.menuClick({
        menuPath: ["Track", "Move to New Folder..."],
    });

    newFolderWin.elementWaitFor()

    newFolderWin.popupButtons.first.popupMenuSelect({
        menuPath: ["Routing Folder"],
    });

    newFolderWin.checkBoxes.whoseTitle.is("Route Tracks to New Folder").first.checkboxSet({
        targetValue: "Enable"
    });

    newFolderWin.textFields.whoseTitle.is("Track Name").first.elementSetTextFieldWithAreaValue({
        value: folderName,
    });
    newFolderWin.popupButtons.whoseDescription.is("Track format").first.popupMenuSelect({
        menuPath: ["Stereo"]
    });
    newFolderWin.buttons.whoseTitle.is("Create").first.elementClick();
    newFolderWin.elementWaitFor({ waitType: "Disappear" });

    sf.ui.proTools.mainWindow.invalidate();

    if (isSelectFolderOnly) {
        sf.ui.proTools.trackSelectByName({ names: [folderName] });
    }
}

function getSelectedTrackOutputPath() {
    // define track output selector
    const trackOutput = sf.ui.proTools.selectedTrack.groups.whoseTitle.is("Audio IO").first
        .popupButtons.allItems[1];

    const outputPaths = trackOutput.popupMenuFetchAllItems().menuItems;
    const outputPath = outputPaths
        .map((mi, i) => ({ menuItem: mi, index: i }))
        .filter(m => m.menuItem.element.isMenuChecked)[0].menuItem.path;

    sf.ui.proTools.appActivateMainWindow();

    return outputPath;
}

function main() {
    sf.ui.proTools.appActivateMainWindow();
    sf.ui.proTools.mainWindow.invalidate();

    //Get selected Tracks
    const selectedTrackName = sf.ui.proTools.selectedTrackNames[0];
    const outputPath = getSelectedTrackOutputPath();

    createAuxes({
        numOfAuxes: 2,
        auxName: "FX Aux"
    });

    createFolder({
        folderName: selectedTrackName + " FX",
        isSelectFolderOnly: true
    });

    // Assign output on selected track
    sf.ui.proTools.selectedTrack.groups.whoseTitle.is("Audio IO").first
        .popupButtons.whoseTitle.contains("Audio Output").first
        .popupMenuSelect({
            menuPath: outputPath,
        });
}

main();