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imrankhan1
Participant
April 26, 2026
Open for Voting

Native Alignment Tools and CSS-style Syntax for Shape Contents

  • April 26, 2026
  • 0 replies
  • 7 views

The Problem:

Currently, the Align Panel only works for Top-Level Layers. If I have a single Shape Layer containing multiple shapes (e.g., a "Small Square" and a "Large Square"), I cannot use the Align tools to center the small square perfectly inside the large one.

To do this now, I have to manually math out the "Offset" values or use "Group" transforms, which is slow and imprecise. This is a major bottleneck when building complex UI mockups or geometric visualizations within a single layer.

 

The Requested Feature:

  1. Align Panel Support for Shapes: When double-clicking into a Shape Layer, the Align Panel should allow me to align selected "Rectangles" or "Paths" relative to each other or the Layer's bounding box.

  2. CSS-style Expression Methods: Provide a simple way to align shapes via code. Similar to how we use Flexbox or Grid in CSS, we should be able to write expressions like:

    • content("Rect 1").align("center", "middle", "Rect 2");

    • content("Rect 1").position = align("left", "top");

  3. Anchor Point Autocentering: A toggle for shapes to automatically keep their anchor point in their geometric center when their size or path changes.

Why this matters:

For users creating "Technical Edutainment" or data-driven animations, we often keep multiple elements in one layer to keep the timeline clean. Having to create a new layer for every single box just to use the Align tool makes projects messy and uses more RAM Adding a "CSS" logic to expressions would make After Effects feel modern and much more intuitive for developers.