Loads data from a URL in Adobe Illustrator, synchronously! (Uses Bridge behind the scenes)

loadUrlSynchronously.jsx

BridgeTalk.prototype.sendSynch = function(timeout) {
	var self = this;
	self.onResult = function(res) {
	this.result = res.body;
	this.complete = true;
	}
	self.complete = false;
	self.send();

	if (timeout) {
		for (var i = 0; i < timeout; i++) {
			BridgeTalk.pump(); // process any outstanding messages
			if (!self.complete) {
				$.sleep(1000);
			} else {
				break;
			}
		}
	}
	var res = self.result;
	self.result = self.complete = self.onResult = undefined;
	return res;
}
// for typos, provide an alias
BridgeTalk.prototype.sendSync = BridgeTalk.prototype.sendSynch;

function loadUrl(url, timeout) {
    var bt = new BridgeTalk();
    bt.target = 'bridge';
    var httpTimeout = timeout;
 
    var script = '';
    script += "if ( !ExternalObject.webaccesslib )\n";
    script += "  ExternalObject.webaccesslib = new ExternalObject('lib:webaccesslib');\n";
    script += "var response = null;\n";
    script += "var retry = true;\n";
    script += "while (retry) {\n";
    script += "  var http = new HttpConnection('" + url + "') ; \n";
    script += "  http.timeout  = " + httpTimeout + ";\n";
    script += "  http.execute() ;\n";
    script += "  try{\n";
    script += "    response = http.response;\n";
    script += "    retry = false;\n";
    script += "  } catch (e){\n";
    script += "    BridgeTalk.bringToFront('bridge');\n";
    script += "    if (!confirm('There was an error communicating with the server. Would you like to retry?'))\n";
    script += "      retry = false;\n";
    script += "  }\n";
    script += "}\n";
    script += "response;\n";
 	
    bt.body = script;
    return bt.sendSynch(timeout);
}

alert(loadUrl('http://rpc.geocoder.us/service/csv?address=1600+Pennsylvania+Ave,+Washington+DC',50));

For asynchronous version, see https://gist.github.com/mericson/6509997

This is pure gold, thank you.

Sadly, ExternalObject is not working in Bridge CC2017!

Looks awesome! So does this not work on CC2017?

Adobe said next release will have this issue fixed!