• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  general AFX scripting advice

  Posted by Frank Mansfield on June 14, 2014 at 11:52 pm

  Hi all

  I’ve stalked through theses forums for a long time, but never actually posted anything before. I’ve decided to try and learn a bit of scripting in after effects and as a test project I’ve tried to make a simple dockable panel to speed up adding loop expressions.

  After a bit of faffing around I seem to have got it working (go me) but I was just wondering if any of you scripting badasses could have a quick scan over my code and give me any pointers or ways I could or should improve it? I’ve attached the script to this post in case anybody does get a second to look it over.

  A couple of specific questions that I have got are:

  1) is there any way of finding the parent layer of a specified property? Perhaps the correct way of going about this is to drill down from selected layers to selected properties in the first place, but if there is a way of reverse-discovering a property’s parent layer then this would seem to be a quicker way of going about it.
  2) If I don’t add the ” mPanel.layout.layout(true); ” line then the dockable panel appears empty. To be honest, I just copied this section wholesale from a different script and I’m not really sure what this is doing. Could someone explain it to me in idiot-friendly language please?

  Thanks loads in advance – and even if you don’t get a chance to look it over (it *is* quite long) then thank you for all your time and effort on these forums. I’m sure I speak for a legion of lurkers when I say that there’s a few individuals in particular who’ve been incredibly helpful time and time again, and you are owed a huge debt of gratitude. So thanks!

  -frank

  {
function fmLoopPanel(thisObj){

  //panel UI maker function
  function fmLoopPanelMakeUI(thisObj){
  var fmPanel = (thisObj instanceof Panel) ? thisObj : new Window("palette","FM Loop Panel", undefined, {resizeable:true});

  //define resource string for panel buttons
  fmResString = "group{orientation:'column',\
  groupOne: Group{orientation:'row',\
  fmStaticText: StaticText{text:'FM Loop v0.0.01'},\
  },\
  groupTwo: Group{orientation:'column',\
  fmLoopInOutDDL: DropDownList{properties:{items:['Loop Out', 'Loop In', 'Loop In + Out']}},\
  groupTwoA: Group{orientation:'column',\
  fmLoopRB: RadioButton{text:'cycle', alignment:['left', 'top']},\
  fmContinueRB: RadioButton{text:'continue', alignment:['left', 'top']},\
  },\
  },\
  groupThree: Group{orientation:'column',\
  fmLoopButton: Button{text:'OK', name:'OK'},\
  },\
  }";

  //assign resource string to panel
  fmPanel.grp = fmPanel.add(fmResString);

  //set default selections
  fmPanel.grp.groupTwo.fmLoopInOutDDL.selection = 0;
  fmPanel.grp.groupTwo.groupTwoA.fmLoopRB.value = true;

  //on click set variables from selected optins and call fmLoopButtonPressed function
  fmPanel.grp.groupThree.fmLoopButton.onClick = function(){
  var fmRadioButtons = fmPanel.grp.groupTwo.groupTwoA;
  var fmInOutType = fmPanel.grp.groupTwo.fmLoopInOutDDL.selection.text;
  for (var i = 0; i< fmRadioButtons.children.length ; i++){
  if (fmRadioButtons.children[i].value == true) {
  var fmLoopType = fmRadioButtons.children[i].text;
  }
  }
  fmLoopButtonPressed(fmInOutType, fmLoopType);
  };

  //panel resizing
  fmPanel.layout.layout(true);
  fmPanel.grp.minimumSize = fmPanel.grp.size;
  fmPanel.layout.resize();
  fmPanel.onResizing = fmPanel.onResize = function () {this.layout.resize();}

  //return Panel
  return fmPanel;
  }
  //call the panel UI maker function
  var fmWindow = fmLoopPanelMakeUI(thisObj);

  //if window rather than panel
  if((fmWindow != null) && (fmWindow instanceof Window)) {
  fmWindow.center();
  fmWindow.show();
  }
  }

  //start LoopPanel function referencing panel or window
  fmLoopPanel(this);

  //main create loop function
  function fmLoopButtonPressed(fmInOutType, fmLoopType){

  app.beginUndoGroup("FM Loop"); //start undo group

  var fmThisComp = app.project.activeItem; //set active project

  if (fmThisComp == null) {
  alert ("Select the properties you want to loop. "); //check if there is an active comp
  }
  else {
  var fmSelectedProperties = fmThisComp.selectedProperties; //set selected properties array
  if (fmSelectedProperties.length == 0) {
  alert ("Select the properties you want to loop."); //check if there are properties selected
  }
  else {
  var fmKeyFrameCount = 0;
  for (i=0 ; i 0 && key(1).time > time){" + "\n" +
  " loopIn('" + fmLoopType + "')" + "\n" +
  " }else if (numKeys > 0 && time > key(numKeys).time){ " + "\n" +
  " loopOut('" + fmLoopType + "') " + "\n" +
  " }else{ " + "\n" +
  " value " + "\n" +
  " } "
  }

  var fmPropertiesWithoutKeyframes = []; //set array for properties with no keyframes
  for (i=0 ; i 0) {
  var fmPropertiesWithoutKeyframesList = ""; //set up list of properties without keyframes
  for (i=0 ; i<fmPropertiesWithoutKeyframes.length ; i++) { //for every property without a keyframe
  fmPropertiesWithoutKeyframesList += "\n" + fmPropertiesWithoutKeyframes[i].name; //add name of property
  }
  alert ("The following properties had no keyframes:" + fmPropertiesWithoutKeyframesList);
  }

  }

  app.endUndoGroup(); //end undo group

  }

  }

  Frank Mansfield replied 12 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Dan Ebberts

  June 15, 2014 at 6:37 pm

  I can help you with your first question. I think this will give you the parent layer of any property:

  var myLayer = myProperty.propertyGroup(myProperty.propertyDepth);

  Dan
• 

  Frank Mansfield

  June 16, 2014 at 9:02 am

  That’s brilliant – thanks, Dan.

  It took me a while to work out how it was doing what it was doing, mind you… I specifically asked for ‘idiot-proof’ explanations! 😉

  Cheers again
  -f

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