Participant

Released

Ability to read text values of dropdowns in expressions

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 28, 2022
19 replies
3245 views

It's pretty cumbersome to have expressions work with dropdowns because currently you can only get the number value of a dropdown. Here's an example:

if (thisEffect("dropdown").value == 1) value = 13;
else if (thisEffect("dropdown").value == 2) value = 50;
else if (thisEffect("dropdown").value == 3) value = 100;

Now let's say you use the dropdown to control 12 properties. Then you make some mistake or you decide to change the values of this dropdown. Have fun.

SOLUTION

A solution would be to have a .textValue property of dropdowns. Here's how that would work with the example:

if (thisEffect("dropdown").textValue == "Style 1") value = 13;
else if (thisEffect("dropdown").textValue == "Style 2") value = 50
else if (thisEffect("dropdown").textValue == "Style 3") value = 100

Now the code is a LOT more readable and easier to work with.

Pinned Reply By JohnColombo17100380

Hi all,

Expression access to the text in Dropdown Menu Controls’ Menu property is now available in the release of After Effects 26.0. Details on how to access the selected string or all the strings are documented here: https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/expression-language-reference.html#dropdown-menu-attributes.

Thank you again for your requests for this feature!

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

JohnColombo17100380

Community Manager

In Development→Released

JohnColombo17100380

Community Manager

Hi all,

Expression access to the text in Dropdown Menu Controls’ Menu property is now available in the release of After Effects 26.0. Details on how to access the selected string or all the strings are documented here: https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/expression-language-reference.html#dropdown-menu-attributes.

Thank you again for your requests for this feature!

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

JohnColombo17100380

Community Manager

Hi all,

Thank you for your requests to read the text in dropdown menus! You'll be happy to know that this functionality is now available to test in our Beta builds.

Full details here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-beta-discussions/expression-amp-scripting-access-for-dropdown-text-and-keyframes-in-after-effects-beta-26-0x40/td-p/15601512

R

ricar2

Known Participant

How come this still not a thing?

People are requesting this since 2022

Kyle Hamrick

Community Expert

I was coming to make a request regarding expressions being able to count how many entries exist within the dropdown list (so you could tie a property to always reference the LAST option, for example), but I think the above request probably fulfills any use case I can think of... That said, I wouldn't be sad about both! 😅

E

E11World

Inspiring

I wasted hours thinking I'm not suure what I'm doing only to find out it's not even possible. Such basic feature should have been there 10 years ago at least

H

Harchenko

Inspiring

Hi, I would like to be able to get a text value from the Dropdown menu list, besides its numeric value.
This will add more features for automating and writing expressions via the API.
For expressions, it would also be useful

L

Leigh McG Art

Participant

This would solve a big headache for me I'm currently facing! Would be overall very helpful in scripting and layer control.

R

ReginaldUser555

Inspiring

I second this.

A

Aaron Cobb

Inspiring

To clarify/correct Seth Jansen's earlier comment, Dropdowneffect.setPropertyParameters() is a scripting function, not an expressions language function.

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded