Create Colour in InDesign CS5 with CMYK values from user input - colors

Question

I'm trying to create a script which, in the process of opening a template file, asks the user for a set of CMYK values.
The idea is to then either change the value of an existing colour (called "Primary Colour") therefore changing the colour of every item to which it is applied...or add this new colour and delete 'Primary Colour' replacing it with new colour.
The problem is I can't get past creating a new colour with user input values. I can create a new colour with;
set New_Swatch to make color with properties {name:"New Primary Colour", model:process, color value:{82,72,49,46}}
however as soon as I try to replace the color value with a variable I get the error;
"Adobe InDesign CS5 got an error: Invalid parameter."
Here is a snippet of code in context;
set primaryColour to text returned of (display dialog "Enter CMYK calues of Primary Colour (separated by commas e.g. 0,0,0,0)" default answer "") as string
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5"
activate
tell active document
set New_Swatch to make color with properties {name:"new", model:process, color value:primaryColour}
end tell
end tell
Any help gratefully received.

Answer 1

I currently use this:
set primaryColor to text returned of (display dialog "Enter CMYK values of Primary Colour (separated by commas e.g. 0,0,0,0)" default answer "") as string
set text item delimiters to ","
set colorvalue to {}
repeat with color from 1 to count of text items of primaryColor
copy (text item colour of primaryColor as number) to end of colorvalue
end repeat
set colorname to "TEST"
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5"
activate
tell active document
set newcolor to make color with properties {name:colorname, space:CMYK, model:process, color value:colorvalue}
end tell
end tell
Why? Because it works. It is not pretty and it was not my first, or even 10th method to get the job done...Why this works? No idea...
It just does. You would think that:
set text item delimiters to ","
set {C,M,Y,K} to text items of primaryColor
...
set newcolor to make color with properties {name:colorname, space:CMYK, model:process, color value:{C,M,Y,K}}
Would do the trick, but it doesn't... I'm sure your attempts so far have proven just how much of a pain this particular function is.

Answer 2

You may also want to use the AppleScript “choose color” command, which presents a color picker, rather than presenting your user with a dialog into which they have to enter numeric color values.
This example inserts RGB colors as text into a BBEdit window, but you would use the same principle to insert CMYK colors as text into InDesign.
tell application "BBEdit"
activate
set theColorValues to choose color
set theR to round (the first item of theColorValues) / 257
set theG to round (the second item of theColorValues) / 257
set theB to round (the third item of theColorValues) / 257
set theRGBColor to "rgb(" & theR & ", " & theG & ", " & theB & ")"
set selection to theRGBColor
end tell

Answer 3

set primaryColor to text returned of (display dialog "Enter CMYK values of Primary Color (separated by commas e.g. 0,0,0,0)" default answer "") as string
set text item delimiters to ","
set colorvalue to {}
repeat with color from 1 to count of text items of primaryColor
copy (text item color of primaryColor as number) to end of colorvalue
end repeat
set colorname to primaryColor
tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2017"
activate
tell active document
set newcolor to make color with properties {name:colorname, space:CMYK, model:process, color value:colorvalue}
end tell
end tell