[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I’d send in a Bug Report for sure. Bonus Points if you can attach the AEP.

Hope this works out.

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I’ve been using Template Literals in AE for years and so have others.

What happens when you try it on your system? Do you get any specific error or a silent exit/non-display?

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I’ve been using Template Literals for years, in After Effects.

You may be confused between ExtendScript which requires ECMA 3 compliance and the After Effects Javascript Expression Engine which supports quite a fair number of Modern Javascript.

More Info here –
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/expression-language-reference.html

It does state – On Windows, After Effects uses the V8 open-source JavaScript engine.

I’m now wondering what the difference is on macOS.

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I like using Template Literals – so, my solution would look like this –

const baseText = text.sourceText;

const addText = thisComp.layer(“add Text”).text.sourceText;

${baseText} ${addText}

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

See if this works – take note that it doesn’t account for keyframing the checkbox which will result in position jumping –

for xPosition –

if (effect(“Checkbox Control”)(“Checkbox”) == 1 || thisLayer.parent == null) {

// When checked or no parent, use normal/parented position value

value;

} else {

// When unchecked, counteract parent’s position

parentLayer = thisLayer.parent;

// Get parent’s world position at current time

parentWorldPos = parentLayer.toWorld([0,0]);

// Get parent’s world position at time 0 (initial position)

parentWorldPosT0 = parentLayer.toWorld([0,0], 0);

// Calculate parent’s position change

parentDeltaX = parentWorldPos[0] – parentWorldPosT0[0];

// Subtract parent’s movement from our current position

value – parentDeltaX;

}

for yPosition –

if (effect(“Checkbox Control”)(“Checkbox”) == 1 || thisLayer.parent == null) {

// When checked or no parent, use normal/parented position value

value;

} else {

// When unchecked, counteract parent’s position

parentLayer = thisLayer.parent;

parentWorldPos = parentLayer.toWorld([0,0]);

parentWorldPosT0 = parentLayer.toWorld([0,0], 0);

parentDeltaY = parentWorldPos[1] – parentWorldPosT0[1];

value – parentDeltaY;

}

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

An efficient workflow will be to leave the Expression as is and then use a script to do the counting. Again, this may be more efficient OR NOT depending on your workflow.

My thoughts are to let Expressions do quick calculations and then use scripts to perform one-off calculations – as a rule of thumb.

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I’d look at adding “.value” to the end of this line –

from this –
var bgControlDropdown = bgControl.Effects.addProperty(“ADBE Dropdown Control”);

to this –

var bgControlDropdown = bgControl.Effects.addProperty(“ADBE Dropdown Control”).value;

HTH

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Another options is to use a ScriptUI which does support graying our controls that are disabled.
HTH

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Thanks for the info Yoan. And just as I thought!!! They only work when someone else uses them!!!

😀

On a serious note, did you try the others?

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Thanks Yoan, I got that info from this URL – https://ae-expressions.docsforadobe.dev/text/style/?h=space#textstylesetfontsize

And I tried them out but couldn’t get anything to move – like nothing was affected. Hence, my coming here to post. I thought code snippets that work for someone will be a good start.

Cheers

ae-expressions.docsforadobe.dev

Text Style - After Effects Expression Reference

Text Style - After Effects Expression Reference