In addition to the Michael L Hale message #1:
You can do something like this:
var aLayer = activeDocument.activeLayer;if (
aLayer.kind == LayerKind.NORMAL ||
aLayer.kind == LayerKind.TEXT||
aLayer.kind == LayerKind.SMARTOBJECT) { aLayer.isBackgroundLayer = false; // change the background layer to layer aLayer.allLocked = false; aLayer.visible = true; aLayer.translate(new UnitValue(200, "px"), new UnitValue(200, "px"));}