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

loadUrl.jsx

var doc = app.activeDocument;
var docPath = doc.path;   


function loadUrl(url, callback) {

    var bt = new BridgeTalk();
    bt.target = 'bridge' ;  

    var s = '';
    s += "if ( !ExternalObject.webaccesslib ) {\n";
    s += "  ExternalObject.webaccesslib = new ExternalObject('lib:webaccesslib');\n";
    s += "}\n";
    s += "var html = '';\n";
    s += "var http = new HttpConnection('" + url + "') ; \n";
    s += "http.response = html;\n";
    s += "http.execute() ;\n";
    s += "http.response;\n";

    bt.body = s;

    bt.onResult = function( inBT ) { callback( null, inBT.body );  };
    bt.onError = function( inBT ) { callback( 1, null ); };
    bt.send( 50 );       
}

function done( err, data ) {
    if ( err ) {
       $.writeln( 'FAILED' );
    } else {
        $.writeln( data );
    }
}

loadUrl( 'http://www.nytimes.com', done );

true;

Both of them were very painful, but this one actually seemed slightly better.

Well, obviously this one may be better in terms of speed due to async behavior & parallel processing perhaps. The other one meant for when you don't want to deal with "synchronizing" asynchronous code or don't have anything else to do while waiting on data from loading URL.