Text 2 Layers Script

[Christopher R. green]

Hi Ashley.
Just by luck I caught this post. Unfortunately I don’t have access to CS5 right now. I’m wondering if there is still some way of diagnosing the problem. Perhaps we can begin by you telling me what if anything happens when you run the script. Does it do anything at all?

-Chris

[Ashley Mckenzie]

Thanks for replying Chris, after futher investigate it does appear to be a CS5 issue, in both CS3 and CS4 the script works as, well it imports the text. In CS5 the a digalog opens and let you set the paramiters for the import but when you click OK it doesn’t open a dialoge to select the text file. In CS3/4, a dialoge opens half the options are missing (i don’t need them so its a solve) but when you click ok it does open a select file dialoge and it succufully imports the text so I’ll use another machine.

Can anyone see a reason not to have AE CS4 and 5 on the same machine ?

[Christopher R. green]

You must be on Windows. There is a Windows bug that either the folks at Adobe or the folks at Microsoft never fixed which makes objects in panels in jsx user interfaces not work. I forgot to make a non-panel version of this script. I’ll have to upload that tonight. On a more serious note, it appears the script may crash AE (OSX) when using the ‘live leading’ feature if the text file contains certain characters. I haven’t diagnosed that yet.
Having CS4 and CS5 on the same machine shouldn’t be a problem.

All you would need to do to make the script work for you on Windows (with all options available) is to put two forward slashes (//) in front of this line:

win.textOpsPnl = win.add('panel', [10,35,244,221], '');

so that it looks like this:

//win.textOpsPnl = win.add('panel', [10,35,244,221], '');

or delete the line altogether.

Important: Just make sure that you edit and save the file as plain text, NOT rtf or anything else!

Best of luck and thanks for the info

-cg

[Christopher R. green]

Here is the full script, no-panel version (copy and paste into text editor, save as text with “.jsx” file extension):

// Based on Dan Ebbert's script at motionscript.com
// crg_Text_from_File.jsx
// v2: added user interface, top-down layer order
// v3: added 'live leading' feature, and makes sure text layers are at top
// This script reads a user specified text file and
// either makes one text layer with all the text,
// or creates and places a bunch of text layers, one for each line
// read from the text file. Includes a few 'text layout' options.
// And yes, I'm still using the amazing jEdit (jedit.org -- not to be confused with similarly named apps) to write my scripts.

var win = new Window('dialog', 'Text Import Options',[300,100,553,410]);
var w = buildUI();
if (w != null) {
w.show();
}

function doBigOppBool(windo, bool) {
windo.lineSpaLbl.enabled = !bool;
windo.lineSpaAmtLbl.enabled = !bool;
windo.dnBtn.enabled = !bool;
windo.upBtn.enabled = !bool;
windo.dnTenBtn.enabled = !bool;
windo.upTenBtn.enabled = !bool;
windo.liveLeadCheck.value = false;
windo.liveLeadCheck.enabled = !bool;
}

function buildUI() {
if (win != null) {
//win.textOpsPnl = win.add('panel', [10,35,244,221], '');
win.oneFileCheck = win.add('checkbox', [52,8,202,28], 'Import as One Layer');
win.oneFileCheck.onClick = function () { doBigOppBool(win, this.value); };

win.lineSpaLbl = win.add('statictext', [70,42,180,63], 'Line Spacing:');
win.lineSpaLbl.justify = "center";
win.lineSpaAmtLbl = win.add('statictext', [105,68,145,90], '10');
win.lineSpaAmtLbl.justify = "center";

win.dnBtn = win.add('button', [72,65,102,87], '-', {name:'dn1'});
win.dnBtn.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.lineSpaAmtLbl, -1); };
win.upBtn = win.add('button', [149,65,179,87], '+', {name:'up1'});
win.upBtn.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.lineSpaAmtLbl, 1); };
win.dnTenBtn = win.add('button', [17,65,67,87], '-10', {name:'dn101'});
win.dnTenBtn.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.lineSpaAmtLbl, -10); };
win.upTenBtn = win.add('button', [184,65,234,87], '+10', {name:'up101'});
win.upTenBtn.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.lineSpaAmtLbl, 10); };
win.topSpaLbl = win.add('statictext', [70,102,180,124], 'Space from Top:');
win.topSpaLbl.justify = "center";

win.topSpaAmtLbl = win.add('statictext', [105,128,145,150], '10');
win.topSpaAmtLbl.justify = "center";
win.dnBtn2 = win.add('button', [72,125,102,147], '-', {name:'dn2'});
win.dnBtn2.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.topSpaAmtLbl, -1); };
win.upBtn2 = win.add('button', [149,125,179,147], '+', {name:'up2'});
win.upBtn2.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.topSpaAmtLbl, 1); };
win.dnTenBtn2 = win.add('button', [17,125,67,147], '-10', {name:'dn102'});
win.dnTenBtn2.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.topSpaAmtLbl, -10); };
win.upTenBtn2 = win.add('button', [184,125,234,147], '+10', {name:'up102'});
win.upTenBtn2.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.topSpaAmtLbl, 10); };
win.leftSpaLbl = win.add('statictext', [70,162,180,184], 'Space from Left:');
win.leftSpaLbl.justify = "center";

win.leftSpaAmtLbl = win.add('statictext', [105,188,145,210], '10');
win.leftSpaAmtLbl.justify = "center";
win.dnBtn3 = win.add('button', [72,185,102,207], '-', {name:'dn3'});
win.dnBtn3.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.leftSpaAmtLbl, -1); };
win.upBtn3 = win.add('button', [149,185,179,207], '+', {name:'up3'});
win.upBtn3.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.leftSpaAmtLbl, 1); };
win.dnTenBtn3 = win.add('button', [17,185,67,207], '-10', {name:'dn103'});
win.dnTenBtn3.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.leftSpaAmtLbl, -10); };
win.upTenBtn3 = win.add('button', [184,185,234,207], '+10', {name:'up103'});
win.upTenBtn3.onClick = function () {changeSpaNumber(win.leftSpaAmtLbl, 10); };

win.liveLeadCheck = win.add('checkbox', [52,8+223,202,28+223], 'Add "Live Leading"');

win.okBtn = win.add('button', [160,267,240,289], 'OK', {name:'OK'});
win.okBtn.onClick = function () {main(win);this.parent.close(1)};
win.cancBtn = win.add('button', [66,267,146,289], 'Cancel', {name:'Cancel'});
win.cancBtn.onClick = function () {this.parent.close(0)};
}
return win
}

function main(winDough) {
inManyLayers = !winDough.oneFileCheck.value;
withLiveLeading = winDough.liveLeadCheck.value;

// create undo group
app.beginUndoGroup("Text from File");

// Prompt user to select text file

var myFile = fileGetDialog("Select a text file to open.", "");//, "TEXT txt");

if (myFile != null){
// create project if necessary

var proj = app.project;
if (!proj) proj = app.newProject();
var activeItem = proj.activeItem;
var compBG = [.8,.8,.8] // comp background color

// create new comp named 'text_comp'
// or use the selected comp
if (activeItem != null && (activeItem instanceof CompItem)){
var myComp = activeItem;

} else {
//8.5x11 inches @ 72dpi
var compW = 612; // comp width
var compH = 792; // comp height

var compL = 15; // comp length (seconds)
var compRate = 24; // comp frame rate

var myItemCollection = app.project.items;
var myComp = myItemCollection.addComp('text_comp',compW,compH,1,compL,compRate);
}
myComp.bgColor = compBG;
lineSpa = 12;

if (inManyLayers) {
lineSpa = parseFloat(winDough.lineSpaAmtLbl.text);
}
topSpa = parseFloat(winDough.topSpaAmtLbl.text);

leftSpa = parseFloat(winDough.leftSpaAmtLbl.text);

// open file
var fileOK = myFile.open("r","TEXT","????");
if (fileOK){

var allText = "";
var o = 1;
var addForLead = 0;

// read text lines
// until end-of-file is reached
var textCollection = new Array();

while (!myFile.eof){
write("Reading and writing line #" + o + " ... ");
text = myFile.readln();
// script will likely throw amusing error*
// if line is empty
// * "having to focus on ourselves"
if (text == "") { text = "\r" ;}

if (inManyLayers) {
// if user chose 'many layers' option, make new text layer each iteration
thisText = myComp.layers.addText(text);
thisText.property("Position").setValue([(leftSpa), ( (lineSpa * o) + topSpa)]);
if (o != 1) {thisText.moveAfter(myComp.layer(o));}

// I figure, why use the memory if we don't need to:
if (withLiveLeading) { textCollection[(o-1)] = thisText; }

} else {
// if user chose 'one layer' option, keep appending text variable:
allText = (allText + text + "\r");
}
o = (o + 1);
clearOutput();
}
clearOutput();

if (! inManyLayers) {
// if user chose 'one layer' option, now make one text layer:
bigTextLayer = myComp.layers.addText(allText);
bigTextLayer.property("Position").setValue([leftSpa, topSpa]);
}
// close the file before exiting
myFile.close();

if (withLiveLeading) {
//add null
leadingNull = myComp.layers.addNull();
leadingNull.name = "Leading Control (Adjust Y Pos)";
leadingNull.property("position").setValue([0,0]);

//give text expression for adjustable line spacing
for (t = 0; t < (textCollection.length);t++) {
textCollection[t].property("position").expression =
"v=value;\r[value[0], (value[1]+index-2)+thisComp.layer(\"Leading Control (Adjust Y Pos)\").transform.position[1]*(index-2)];";
}
alert("Adjust the leading (line spacing) by adjusting the top layer's Y position.\r (don't forget, kids: \"Leading\" rhymes with \"heading\"!)");
}
} else {
alert("File open failed!");
}
}else{
alert("No text file selected.");
}

app.endUndoGroup();
}

function changeSpaNumber(theField, amt) {
i = parseFloat(theField.text);
i = (i + parseFloat(amt));
theField.text = i;
}


[Ashley Mckenzie]

Man, just realized your the author of this script, man humbled as 🙂 thanks for your help

[Christopher R. green]

Just to let you and others know, the text script has been updated to work with CS5.

I’ll be checking other scripts in the coming days.

-cg