How to get document data from a local sketch file without opening it?

Woohuang

Hi messrs, is there any method to get document data from a local sketch file without opening it?
I find that there are only APIs and methods likeDocument.getSelectedDocument(), but I'd like to find a method like Document.readDocumentFromFile() to imported some data like pages or artboards from a local sketch file to the currently opening selected sketch document.I really appreciate it.

kevgski

Not sure exactly, but I think you have to open the file to read it. You can’t read the file directly. There are other tools to help you parse the JSON structure outside of Sketch (see here and here). But once you have the JSON object I’m not sure how to convert that to the JS API objects.

Ashung

var fileURL = NSURL.fileURLWithPath('/xxx/xxx/xxx.sketch');
var error = MOPointer.alloc().init();
var newDocument = MSDocument.alloc().init();
newDocument.readFromURL_ofType_error(fileURL, "com.bohemiancoding.sketch.drawing", error);

Woohuang

Ashung Thank you sir. It works. With your method I successfully got an Object with 4 Arrays in it.
But I don't know how to use the gotten Object (newDocument). It doesn't look like a sketch offical API. Please is there any document about this? I'll appreciate it.

Ashung

https://developer.sketch.com/plugins/internal-api
You can find MSDocument in Sketch Headers project, NSURL and MOPointer is an macOS frameworks API.

Woohuang

Ashung It's awesome. Thank you so much

kevgski

You can also wrap the native object to the JS one like this:

let sketch = require('sketch')

var fileURL = NSURL.fileURLWithPath('path');
var error = MOPointer.alloc().init();
var newDocument = MSDocument.alloc().init();
newDocument.readFromURL_ofType_error(fileURL, "com.bohemiancoding.sketch.drawing", error);

let wrappedDoc = sketch.fromNative(newDocument)

Woohuang

kevgski Thank you sir

Woohuang

kevgski I just found out that in this method I can get the Document Object including Pages array with data in, but the colors, sharedTextStyles, gradients, sharedLayerStyles arrays are all empty. Is there any solution about this issue?

kevgski

Are you sure that you are looking at document colors and styles? Document styles get pulled in just fine for me:

example

Woohuang

My scripts are down here.
`import sketch from 'sketch'
var system = require("../modules/System")
var SharedStyle = require('sketch/dom').SharedStyle
var Artboard = require('sketch/dom').Artboard
var path = require('path')

export default function () {
// Choose the new sketch file.
var chooseFile = system.chooseFile(["sketch"]);
if (!chooseFile) {
return;
}
var count = 0;

var fileURL = NSURL.fileURLWithPath(chooseFile);
var error = MOPointer.alloc().init();
var newDocument = MSDocument.alloc().init();
let wrappedDoc = sketch.fromNative(newDocument)

console.log(wrappedDoc)
console.log(wrappedDoc.sharedTextStyles)
console.log(wrappedDoc.sharedLayerStyles)
console.log(wrappedDoc.colors)

}`
and the last three console.log are all empty arrays.
Can you help me to see what is going wrong？

kevgski

Looks like you aren’t reading the document. You create a new instance of MSDocument. Then you never end up calling the method to read the file.

let newDocument = MSDocument.alloc().init()
newDocument.readFromURL_ofType_error(fileURL, "com.bohemiancoding.sketch.drawing", error);

Without the method -readFromURL_ofType_error then the newDocument object will be empty.

Woohuang

but the first console.log do has the right data, only the last three about shared Styles are empty arrays.
Anyway I will follow your suggestion later and give a feedback

Woohuang

Woohuang It works. I really appreciate it.