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Where to write setProperty script
I’m quite new to script in After Effects.
I’ve been successfully improving the efficiency of a project I’m working on using scripts and expression controls but I’ve hit a snag.
I’d like to dynamically change the options of a series of dropdown lists as these options will change over time and manually changing them all would be time consuming and prone to error.
I believe that ‘setPropertyParameters’ is the solution but I don’t know where to write the code.
The example provided on Adobe’s After Effects Scripting Guide is below, but I don’t know where to put such code to make my dropdown list’s options change. The stopwatch on the Dropdown’s Menu property seems to want an index as the return value.var dropdownItems = [ "First Item", "Second Item", "(-", "Another Item", "Last Item" ]; var dropdownEffect = layer.property("ADBE Effect Parade").addProperty("ADBE Dropdown Control"); dropdownEffect.property(1).setPropertyParameters(dropdownItems); -
4 Replies
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This is a script, so you would save it as a .jsx file, and then execute it via the menu File > Scripts > Run Script File > (navigate to the script).
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Thanks very much Dan.
I’ve only ever worked with VBA before so appreciate your patience.
Couple of related follow up questions if that’s ok:
Firstly, could I write the script in a new text document and then save it with the .jsx file extension?
Secondly, There’s around 30 x dropdown menus who’s menu items are based on the names of the layers in a particular comp. When I make changes to this comp, (eg. add another layer), I need to update the menu items in all the dropdown lists to reflect the changes. So would I need to re-execute the script every time I updated this comp? Is there perhaps an event that is fired (such as ‘onCompChange’) which I could take advantage of to automatically run the script again in the background?
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You can probably create your script in any simple text editor that will generate a plain text file. Notepad will work on Windows.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think it’s unlikely that there’s an AE UI event that you could attach to so that your script would run automatically when you change something in a comp. You’re probably stuck launching the script manually.
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OK, thanks again Dan.
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