Using Google Apps Script to set cursor to Headers in Google Docs

Question

I am trying to create a Google Apps Script that could help navigate through the headers.

I have currently a code searching the position with the function "findText" that I used in a custom menu in my Doc.

function goto (title) {
 //Get element
  var doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();
  var body = doc.getBody();

  //Search element
  var searchType = DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH;
  var searchResult = null;
  searchResult = body.findText(title, body.findText(title)) 
  var position = doc.newPosition(searchResult.getElement(), 1);
  doc.setCursor(position);
}

However, this seems to run slow on my browser so I would like to improve the speed by getting the position of the headers directly by using, for example, the information of their corresponding URLs (e.g. #heading=h.wtr4epyf5xix).

Does something like doc.newPosition(body.getHeader("wtr4epyf5xix")) would exist?

Answer 1

There's no way to obtain heading URLs, this is a popular but unsatisfied request. However, you can speed up your function by only looking into headings:

function goto ( title ) {
  var doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument (),
      body = doc.getBody (),
      searchType = DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH,
      searchResult = null;

  while ( searchResult = body.findElement ( searchType, searchResult ) ) {
    var par = searchResult.getElement ().asParagraph (),
        heading = par.getHeading ();
    switch ( heading ) {
      case DocumentApp.ParagraphHeading.HEADING1:
      case DocumentApp.ParagraphHeading.HEADING2:
      case DocumentApp.ParagraphHeading.HEADING3:
      case DocumentApp.ParagraphHeading.HEADING4:
      case DocumentApp.ParagraphHeading.HEADING5:
      case DocumentApp.ParagraphHeading.HEADING6:
        if ( par.findText ( title ) ) { 
          // assumes that title is unique among headings
          // and it does not appear as a subset of a heading
          doc.setCursor ( doc.newPosition ( par, 1 ) );
        }
        break;
    }
  }
}

If you want to help, you can star the corresponding Google Apps script issue.

EDIT: Fixed a]two syntax errors