Yeah, those are part of my current workflow.  I was hoping for something to step through shape layer properties.  Oh well, After Effects already does such an amazing amount of stuff...can't expect it to do everything.  Thanks for the reply. ... View more

Hey Smallpath2013, I have also tried to trace what Flex Effector does to figure out how to live-load Custom Effects.  You mention a system monitor to see what the script is doing...can you tell me what software that is and a general idea of how to setup that system?  Are you tracing system calls by AE or the script itself?  Stuff like that helps sniff out the breadcrumbs. Calvin ... View more

Yeah, you can always go to crazy lengths to reverse engineer code (and I've gone to plenty).  I'm more asking if anyone knows already. I forgot about this one before but the more accurate example of what I want to do is Pseudo Effect Maker.  You create the effect with the script and then it's available to you right away.  Again, it's probably a pretty hard won piece of information that someone would rather keep to themselves...I totally get that.  Trade secrets and all... ... View more

Yeah, that pretty much does the trick.  Throw in a check on propertyValueType != PropertyValueType.CUSTOM_VALUE or PropertyValueType.NO_VALUE and you might be good to go. THANK YOU! ... View more

Hey eh3d, Obviously years later but to my knowledge there is no way to access either of those within the scripting environment.  Accessing in both cases will generally throw an error.  However, if you've already created a plugin, you might be able to embed some custom code to set the value of your particular custom value and expose that functionality as a C/C++ library and call it with an ExternalObject.  You might even be able to put it right into the plugin itself. Check this for some background: Re: Accessing sdk plugin methods from extend script Calling ExternalObject in OSX gives me IOError: I/O Error. I've never tried this so it's a total hypothetical.  I can't say how easy, hard or even possible this would be but from a purely theoretical perspective...this could definitely work. ... View more

BOOM!  Thanks all! ... View more

And I'm just looking to access what the value is...not change it. ... View more

Yeah, there's always a brute-force/hack way around everything but if there's a way to do it already provided within the app framework, it'll be easier and take less time.  If it comes down to it I'll do that but there's GOT to be a way to access that preference. ... View more

Ok, one last thing...when I try to access that preference both via the settings object and the preferences object it does not appear to exist.  app.preferences.getPrefAsBool("Main Pref Section v2", "Pref_TOOL_TIPS"); app.settings.getSetting("Main Pref Section v2", "Pref_TOOL_TIPS"); Since it's a preference that lives in a file outside the main prefs file with a section name shared across multiple files (Main Pref Section v2), is there a different way to access it?  I would assume all the files get consolidated into a single preference/settings object.  Maybe I'm missing something simple... ... View more

Does anyone know the name of the Preference to check for this one?  Scanned through all the files located in ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/<VERSION>/ and couldn't find one that jumped out at me.  It's important for me to at least be able to check for this pref because my UI is going to be 99% button/icon based to avoid using text and save on screen real estate. THANKS! ... View more

Welp, looks like I'm a big ol' dumb dumb.  That's EXACTLY it.  The silver lining is that it illuminates a use case I need to account for...when the user doesn't have "Show Tool Tips" set. THANK YOU! ... View more

Welp, in 15+ years of software development, this isn't even close to the first time I've come across spec'd out functionality that doesn't work (for me at least).  It's probably some real small needs to be set or deleted or changed in my system to get this to work. Here's the quick test I'm using: var win = new Window("palette", "Test IconButton helpTip", undefined, {resizeable: true}); // resource specifications var res = "group { \      iconBtn: IconButton { text: 'test', preferredSize: [29.5, 29.5], helpTip: 'test helpTip', properties: { style: 'togglebutton', toggle: true } }, \      }";            win.mainGrp = win.add(res);   win.show(); This simply doesn't work on my system (see below): Anyone at Adobe have any thoughts?  ... View more

Yup, it's spec'd out in the Javascript Tools Guide as part of IconButton but I just can't seem to get it to work.  I've found a way to override onDraw for the IconButton and evaluate when the mouse is over but can't figure out how to popup a tooltip. iconbutton.onDraw = function(drawState) {      if(drawState.mouseOver) {           //do mouse over stuff      }          this.graphics.drawImage(this.image, 0, 0); } I know in HTML/CSS you could use a <div> and explicitly set it's position to that of the mouse.  To my knowledge, this isn't possible and while I haven't tried this using a window...it's not exactly what I want so I'd like to avoid if at all possible. My absolute backup is to have a StaticText in the UI that I can use as a console to display any messages from program to user. Thoughts? ... View more

This is great guys! It has been my experience that names don't auto update so it's nice to know they potentially can work.  I am doing a pretty complex expression with variables and control structures so maybe that's what's throwing it off.  I'm pretty strict about syntax...so I generally don't forget semi-colon's or write code sloppily.  As far as "writing separate reference on a new line for each", are you saying storing data in variables and a new line for each might affect the name auto-update?  Is it a good practice to make expressions as few lines as possible?  I break things out into variable because it makes the expression that much more readable and understandable even though it makes the expression "longer." However, it still brings up the issue of a) times when the name doesn't auto update and b) time when the user renames the layer to a name already used by another layer.  I'd like to make this as bulletproof as possible. Also, any thoughts on making an expression control uneditable?  Probably not possible since it's not in the documentation but I've found you can do some pretty interesting things if you get creative... ... View more

Hey guys, I have also been experiencing this issue to my total frustration and could not find a solution AT ALL.  But, taking a little of what you described here and playing around, I think I may have found a solution.  I didn't love having to call win.update() after every add for the potential performance hit (minimal yes, but amplified for longer listboxes).  But it appeared necessary as every call would refresh the the most recent addition (and for some reason calling win.update() AFTER all the adds happened didn't do it). After playing around with some other things, I found that if I set the listbox.active = false, did whatever I needed to do, then called win.update() a single time at the end and set listbox.active = true, voila!  It worked!  This essentially forced the window to refresh and then re-draw as the focus was set to the listbox.  AND you don't take the performance hit (again, minimal) of calling win.update() a bunch of times.  And you need to initially set the listbox.active = false or else it doesn't force the re-draw on subsequent clicks of the button. I hate jumping through hoops and as frustrating as it is, I can totally understand why Adobe hasn't kept up with improvements to the ScriptUI package.  It seems like CEP is the way of the future and piggybacking on HTML5 and CSS must be much easier than keeping an internal javascript UI library up to date. ... View more

You can actually do it the way you describe since properties are basically indexed lists.  It can get a little tricky as you dig down deeper into the layer properties (watch for infinite loops!).  I would suggest checking out Property, PropertyBase and PropertyGroup in the Scripting Guide. function recurseProps(obj) {      for(var k=1; k<=obj.numProperties; k++) {           var curProp = obj.property(k);                if(curProp.numProperties > 0) {                recurseProps(curProp);           }      } } I also had a background in programming so I think you'll take to scripting in AE quickly.  It's not without its quirks but overall, I've been very happy with what I've been able to accomplish.  Plus, the forums are pretty great for finding answers!  Hope I helped. ... View more

Hi, You can absolutely use scripting to accomplish what you're trying to do.  It's not something that's super simple to explain but I can point you to the important pieces of scripting and let you figure out how the functionality needs to work to fit your wants. Firstly, to precompose layers within a comp, you'll use the following code: var comp = app.project.activeItem; var indices = [/* array of layer indices to be precomposed...pulled via layer.index /*]; comp.layers.precompose("New Name", indices, true); Now, handling the expressions is a little trickier because you need to disable them, update them, precompose and then enable them to avoid getting an error.  That functionality should be relatively straightforward.  When you're ready to update the expressions...you'll do it like this.  Below is an example for accessing the Scale expression var layer = comp.layers(1); var scale = layer.property("ADBE Transform Group").property("ADBE Scale");  //can also do layer.transform.scale if(scale.expressionEnabled) {      scale.expressionEnabled = false;      var curExpression = scale.expression;      scale.expression = curExpression.replace("old reference", "new reference"); } } You can also look into Regular Expressions (RegExp object in Javascript) for more advanced ways of doing a search and replace. Just make sure your ordering is disable expression, update expression, precompose layers and then in the new comp...iterating over all layers and re-enabling their expressions. Hope that helps! Calvin ... View more

Thanks David.  I had checked out textselection and unfortunately it doesn't fully cover the functionality I need.  I want to eventually use the textselection to insert but I need to know where I am in the text so I can search forwards and backwards for certain patterns to close.  I think between Christian's idea and yours it'll cover what I need.  ... View more

Hey Christian, This is actually a great solution...definitely out of the box thinking.  It usually takes a brute force solution when a language/architecture leaves out certain useful functionality.  I'm gonna play around with this for sure!  Calvin ... View more

No problem!  I also see it's mentioned in Peter Kahrel's guide on ScriptUI for InDesign (although it's relevant across all the Adobe scripting environments).  It's a pretty comprehensive guide that has been keeping relatively up-to-date with all the new releases. ScriptUI for dummies | Peter Kahrel ... View more

It was an addition to the ScriptUI functionality in CS6...although I only saw it reported as part of the After Effects upgrade. scripting changes in After Effects CS6, plus new scripting guide | After Effects region of interest ... View more