Batch Sequence Layers on Multiple Compositions from Project Panel

[Dan Ebberts]

It seems like it should be pretty straightforward. Something like this maybe:

var mySelection = app.project.selection;
var myComp, delta;
for (var i = 0; i < mySelection.length; i++){
  myComp = mySelection[i];
  if (! (myComp instanceof CompItem)) continue;
	for (var j = myComp.numLayers; j >1; j--){
		delta = myComp.layer(j).outPoint - myComp.layer(j-1).inPoint;
		myComp.layer(j-1).startTime +=delta;
	}
}

[Luke Theobald]

Fantastic Dan, thank you so much this is great! Just have one further question…

It works like a charm as long as there are no locked layers in the compositions, if there are locked layers it gives an error after the first composition and doesn’t affect the following compositions selected in the project panel. Is there any way around this, for the script to ignore errors and keep running?

[Dan Ebberts]

What should it do when it encounters a locked layer?

[Luke Theobald]

Ideally, the script would ignore the locked layers. I am using this script to sequence certain (unlocked) layers in many compositions, but I want other layers (locked) within these same compositions to be unaffected by the layer sequencing process.

Thanks for your help with this!

[Dan Ebberts]

Try this:

var mySelection = app.project.selection;
var myComp, delta;
for (var i = 0; i < mySelection.length; i++){
  myComp = mySelection[i];
  if (! (myComp instanceof CompItem)) continue;
	for (var j = myComp.numLayers; j >1; j--){
		if (myComp.layer(j).locked) continue;
		for (var k = j -1; k > 0; k--){
			if (myComp.layer(k).locked) continue;
			delta = myComp.layer(j).outPoint - myComp.layer(k).inPoint;
			myComp.layer(k).startTime +=delta;
		}
	}
}

[Luke Theobald]

This is perfect Dan! Thank you so much for your help. This will save me a ton of time.

[Brie Clayton]

Thanks for this solve, Dan!

[Dan Ebberts]

Actually, that last one isn’t quite right. This should be better:

var mySelection = app.project.selection;
var myComp, delta;
for (var i = 0; i < mySelection.length; i++){
  myComp = mySelection[i];
  if (! (myComp instanceof CompItem)) continue;
	for (var j = myComp.numLayers; j >1; j--){
		if (myComp.layer(j).locked) continue;
		for (var k = j -1; k > 0; k--){
			if (myComp.layer(k).locked) continue;
			delta = myComp.layer(j).outPoint - myComp.layer(k).inPoint;
			myComp.layer(k).startTime +=delta;
			break;
		}
	}
}

[Luke Theobald]

I’ll swap this one in, thank you again Dan!