• Adobe After Effects

  AE Startup Script

  Posted by Louis Jaime on September 8, 2008 at 5:36 pm

  was wondering if anyone could point me to, or share with me an AE startup script that loads an AE template file or AE project file upon starting up AE.

  Thanks in advance

  Lou

  Rob Stemm replied 17 years, 6 months ago 4 Members · 7 Replies
• 7 Replies

• 

  Kevin Camp

  September 8, 2008 at 6:14 pm

  try posting in the after effects expressions forum, i think you’ll get more responses over there.

  you can also checkout aenhancers.com to see if any one has something similar, or even put in a request for that script.

  i think you may actually need a visual basic (pc) or apple script to run that will open ae and have it import a project file (your template). i believe this is true due to the requirement to open the application (an os function), then import a project (an ae function). if you use a java script, i think you may need to run it from after effects via file>scripts>run script, and at that point you could have just imported the project manually…

  i’m not an expert on scripting in ae, but that’s my understanding of a limitation with java scripting in ae…

  if there is an easier way, i hope somebody chimes in…

  of course, you could just open the template project file (from a shortcut on the desktop or something), then do a ‘save as’ to rename it so you don’t modify your template… but i think that maybe what you are trying to avoid.

  Kevin Camp
  Senior Designer
  KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
• 

  Lloyd Alvarez

  September 8, 2008 at 11:13 pm

  Hi Louis,

  I wrote a script that will do just that. You can get the script here:
  https://aescripts.com/2008/09/08/load-project-at-startup/

  -Lloyd

  https://aescripts.com
• 

  Louis Jaime

  September 9, 2008 at 3:02 pm

  Thanks Lloyd,

  I’m sure I’m doing something wrong here… I can’t get the scripts to work on a Mac or PC respectively. Both scripts exist where your instructions say they should. In the Preferences/General the “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network” is ticked. I also tried with the “Enable JavaScript Debugger” on and off. Anything else I’m missing here?

  Thanks again,
  Louis
• 

  Lloyd Alvarez

  September 9, 2008 at 4:36 pm

  Hi Louis,

  Have you run the loadProjectSetup.jsx script? You run it by selecting it from File->Scripts. You should then be able to select the project to load at startup and as long as loadProject.jsx in in the Startup folder in the Scripts folder you should be good to go. What happens when you select the loadProjectSetup.jsx script?

  -Lloyd

  https://aescripts.com
• 

  Lloyd Alvarez

  September 9, 2008 at 6:08 pm

  Hey Louis,

  I just realized I had uploaded the wrong script which was hardcoded to a test file I was using. Please re-download the scripts and let me know if it works for you.

  -Lloyd

  https://aescripts.com
• 

  Louis Jaime

  September 9, 2008 at 7:01 pm

  Lloyd,

  YOU ARE AWSOME. It works like a champ! What a time saver. Thank you so so so much.

  Sometimes it’s those little things that matter most. 😉

  Thanks again,

  Louis
• 

  Rob Stemm

  November 18, 2008 at 5:30 pm

  There is one area for improvement on this script and that is to not load the template file if a specific project or .aep file was double clicked to start the application. Currently if you are trying to open a project the application loads and opens the template instead of the project you double clicked. Is there a way to determine if the application was opened by clicking on the application icon or by double clicking an already existing project / .aep file.

  Thanks,
  Rob

  Rob Stemm

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