inserting clips and automatically moving layers forwards in time

[Mark Pearce]

No.

Its precisely because it’s a comp/animation package that you’d expect this kind of functionality.
(though afx is rarely used for comp these days)

For example: inserting and removing time to the world track in the 3dsMax Dope Sheet is trivial.
And you have can cascade that to children or not as you see fit. A dope sheet where you can work with keys and blocks of keys would be awesome.

Sure you can be dismissive and say use another tool… or make a bit of noise and submit feature requests.
After this long it seems like a glaring omission in the toolset.

and while were bitching about basic features missing from after effects… How about a link constraint?
so you can swap parent layers during an animation….

[Francesco Mari]

Here it is the solution for this type of problems 🙂 https://creativedojo.net/dojo-shifter-script/

[Arturo Sinclair]

This is the solution, elegant and simple. And FREE! or rather pay what you want. SO I guess reading the above discussion which started to become pretty silly,you think Adobe should pay VinhSon a quarter of a million dollars? Obviously this is a very needed feature that some engineers simply did not think about. Every program I use has that feature in one way or another, and yes, we should ask developers to do a good job, their products are not free, I don’t care if it is a bicycle or an airplane. User centric design is the number one priority and they have to listen to their customers if they are to stay in business.
Thank you for the link and thank VinhSon Nguyen for solving the badly needed feature.

[Tomasz Kaye]

I’m posting a new answer to this old question since I just needed to figure this out and this thread came up in my search. Here’s a bearable workaround that works in AE CC and perhaps in earlier versions:

“an Insert Edit will place a new layer in the timeline and push back all layers to the end of the added layer. So, if the new layer is 2 seconds in length, all existing layers at that point will be pushed back 2 seconds. Bear in mind that if the existing layers do not end at the CTI/playhead, an insert edit will split them in two, so that the first part is before the new layer, and the second part jumps after the new layer’s duration. This happens because After Effects uses layers, rather than tracks as editing applications do. If existing layers end or begin at the the CTI, this won’t happen.

To perform an insert edit, alt-double click a footage item in the project panel, and this will open the footage panel. Pick an In and Out point (use the { and } buttons) for the footage to set duration and then press the Insert edit button (see image below). This will insert the footage item as a new layer at the current time, and push back everything to the new layer’s end.”

Source: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/514252

(Also, Dave LaRonde’s posts are routinely condescending and dismissive. I suggest readers looking for answers save valuable time by skipping over them).

[Anton Frolov]

Hello from 2016!
Here is my issue:

The only possible way to extend the ‘blue arch’ to the size of the ‘red arch’ is to use the script called “RIFT”.
Find it on aescripts.com
Check the tutorial video there. The first thing done in it is what we (me at least) need.

[Anton Frolov]

Forgot to mention, I had to click the Shift button (inside the plugin) at least 5 times for different situations on that screenshot:
for txt and shape layers that we are ON right now – tho they dont have the out point ‘solid’,
for comp layers that we are ON right now but they have their out point solid,
for layers that we are not on right now, since we need them to be shifted forward as well,
etc – just dont expect it to be a magic wand, however it will save u loads of time