How to exclude certain images from autosave in Gatan Digital Micrograph (GMS) in DM-script - dm-script

Question

I am trying to mimic the autosave function in GMS v3 so that I can use in version 1 and 2. I would like to first acknowledge that the main bulk of the script originates from Dr Bernhard Schaffer's "How to script... Digital Micrograph Scripting Handbook". I have modified it a bit, so that any new image recorded by the camera can be autosave into the file. However, I met some problems because if I decide to click on live-view image and move the image around, or using live-fft, the live view image or the FFT image will be saved as well. One of the ideas I have is to use the taggroup information such as the "Acquisition:Parameters:Parameter Set Name" because for live view or live-FFT, this would be either in search or focus mode. Another idea is to use the document ID e.g iDocID = idoc.ImageDocumentGETID() to locate the ID of the live image. However, i am clueless then how to use this information to exclude them from autosaving. Can anyone point to me how i can proceed with this script?
Below is the script
Class PeriodicAutoSave : Object
{
Number output
PeriodicAutoSave(Object self) Result("\n Object ID"+self.ScriptObjectGetID()+" created.")
~PeriodicAutoSave(Object self) Result("\n Object ID"+self.ScriptObjectGetID()+" destroyed")
Void Init2(Object self, Number op)
output=op
Void AutoSave_SaveAll(Object self)
{
String path, name, targettype, targettype1, area, mag, mode, search, result1
ImageDocument idoc
Number nr_idoc, count, index_i, index, iDocID, iDocID_search
path = "c:\\path\\"
name = "test"
targettype=="Gatan Format (*.dm4)"
targettype1 = "dm4"
If (output) Result("\n AutoSave...")
nr_idoc = CountImageDocuments()
For (count = 1; count<nr_idoc; count++)
{
idoc = GetImageDocument(count) //imagedocument
index = 1 // user decide the index to start with
index_i= nr_idoc - index
If (idoc.ImageDocumentIsDirty())
{
idoc = getfrontimagedocument()
iDocID = idoc.ImageDocumentGetID()
TagGroup tg = ImageGetTagGroup(idoc.ImageDocumentGetImage(0)) // cannot declare an 'img' for this line as it will prompt an error?
tg.TagGroupGetTagAsString("Microscope Info:Formatted Indicated Mag", mag)
Try{
{
idoc.ImageDocumentSavetoFile( "Gatan Format", path+index_i+"-"+name+"-"+mag+".dm4")
idoc.ImageDocumentSetName(index_i + "-"+name+"-"+mag+".dm4")
idoc.ImageDocumentClean()
}
If (Output) Result("\n\t saving: "+idoc.ImageDocumentGetCurrentFile())
}
Catch{
Result("\n image cannot be saved at the moment:" + GetExceptionString())
Break
}
Result("\ Continue autosave...")
}
}
}
}
Void LaunchAutoSave()
{
Object obj = Alloc(PeriodicAutoSave)
obj.Init2(2)
Number task_id = obj.AddMainThreadPeriodicTask("AutoSave_SaveALL",6)
//Sleep(10)
while(!shiftdown()) 1==2
RemoveMainThreadTask(task_id)
}
LaunchAutoSave()

Answer 1

thank you very much for your pointers! I have tried and it works very well with my script. as the 'TagGroupDoesTagExist' only refers to the taggroup, I modified further to include the tags I want to filter e.g "Search" or "Focus" and it seems to work well. The script that I modified to your existing ones is as below :
If (idoc.ImageDocumentIsDirty())
{
//now find out what is a filter condition and skip if it is true
skip = 0
TagGroup tg = idoc.ImageDocumentGetImage(0).ImageGetTagGroup()
tg.TagGroupGetTagAsString("Microscope Info:Formatted Indicated Mag", mag)
tg.TagGroupGetTagAsString("Acquisition:Parameters:Parameter Set Name", mode)
skip = tg.TagGroupDoesTagExist("Acquisition:Parameters:Parameter Set Name")
if(skip && (mode == "Search" || mode== "Focus")) continue

Answer 2

Your idea of filtering is a good one, but there is something strange with your for loop.
in
nr_idoc = CountImageDocuments()
For (count = 1; count<nr_idoc; count++)
{
idoc = GetImageDocument(count) //imagedocument
you iterate over all currently open imageDocuments (except the first one!?) and get them one by one, but then in
If (idoc.ImageDocumentIsDirty())
{
idoc = getfrontimagedocument()
you actually get the front-most (selected) document instead each time. Why are you doing this?
Why not go with:
number nr_idoc = CountImageDocuments()
for (number count = 0; count<nr_idoc; count++)
{
imagedocument idoc = GetImageDocument(count)
If (idoc.ImageDocumentIsDirty())
{
// now find out what is a filter condition and skip if it is true
number skip = 0
TagGroup tg = idoc.ImageDocumentGetImage(0).ImageGetTagGroup()
skip = tg.TagGroupDoesTagExist("Microscope Info:Formatted Indicated Mag")
if (skip) continue
// do saving
}
}