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FeedbackCommunityMember
Inspiring
September 28, 2022
Open for Voting

Text expression control

I'd love to see a "Text control" option for expression effects, where it would add a blank text box in the effects panel that a user could enter text in to be used in expressions, along with properties for text layers for things like font, alignment, leading, etc. that could be controlled via scripting.

    10 replies

    Oleh BetterMe
    Known Participant
    August 29, 2024

    So, after 2 years and 40 upvotes, nothing?? Adobe, please, we dont ask you about impossible...
    All people who do expression eventually thinking about this effect

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    JohnColombo17100380
    Community Manager
    JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
    Community Manager
    April 24, 2023

    @jkmgz Thank you for submitting a feature request. Your idea here was merged with an existing request for the same feature (a text field effect control). Your original post is now a reply under this thread to keep the discussion on this request in a single location. Please let us know if you feel like your request was incorrectly grouped with the others in this thread and what differentiates it.

     

    Thanks again for creating a feature request,

    - John, After Effects Engineering Team 

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    jkmgz
    jkmgz
    Inspiring
    April 24, 2023

    Why was I removed as the author of this post? Is it a privacy issue or something? It would be nice to have some sort of credit for it but looks like they don't want to give me credit?? Please explain.

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    Lionel29307185bmmn
    Participant
    April 9, 2023

    Once again, it will be great to have a Text Control (simple String) into the Expression Controls that can be added as an Effect to a (Null) Layer (so to the Essential Graphics Panel too) to be able to manipulate String objects without having to create Text Layers instead. As we do it for Numbers and Boolean with Sliders and Checkbox Control. It could also be very useful in Expression and Scripts and EG. In fact, be able to create a kind of JSON structure (with String, Numbers, Booleans and Arrays) as Effects into a single Null Layer. Hope i'm clear... Thanks.

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      Bruno Quintin
      Bruno Quintin
      Inspiring
      April 16, 2023

      Here is how I would see it: in the menu Layer / New there would be the possibility to create a layer of type txt, csv, tsv and json. This layer would have a source in the project as for the Solids. When you double click on this layer or footage, the Footage panel or the Layer panel becomes a code editor. This layer works like the data files you import, but it can be edited directly in After Effects. This data would remain saved in the project but it could also be generated as a separate file and linked to the project.

      These features would also apply to the data files that are imported. The data would be copied into the project file and could be modified and synchronised with the external file.

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        jkmgz
        jkmgz
        Inspiring
        September 28, 2022
        Similar to a slider controller, and injunction with essential graphic elements, I hope that someday we'll have a text box (similar to an HTML textarea) as an effect to be able to edit essential graphic source text with ease. It's already pretty busy with keyframes and layers below, it become more of a hassle to have to manage titles for text animations in the composition as it is currently.
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          Pyrosousa
          Participant
          September 28, 2022
          I think this is extra important with Master Comps, since the only way to edit text setup in them is to right click and hit edit text, and use the dialog box, which is rather slow/tedious.

          Right now I just setup text to pull from the name of the comp with an expression, so it's quicker to version, but that's still not ideal.
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            FeedbackCommunityMemberAuthor
            Inspiring
            September 28, 2022
            Not to be confused with the similar "Text expression control".

            I just want an expression control that is a string.

            Currently whenever we want to use a string like this we have to shove it into a textlayer and then it's textLayer.text.value.text or something because a textLayer value is a textDocument which has all the text attributes and whatnot

            I just want a string. A simple character array.

            Would simplify this textlayer workflow massively.

            it doesn't even have to be editable in the effects panel (IMO, though I'm sure people would ask for it eventually)
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              Sašo Janković
              Participant
              September 28, 2022
              Hello,

              I would suggest a new feature in Expression controls.

              My suggestion is to add a txt string box.

              A Txt string box would be useful when you have several
              different Suffixed finishes.

              Example: ["", "%", "€", "million €", "billion €", "000 €", "000 000 €", "$", "million $", "billion $ "," 000 $ "," 000 000 $ "," ₣ "," mil. ₣ "," billion ₣ "," ° C "].

              I am currently writing them in arey.
              When you add a new entry you have to change the arey and the structure of the script.

              It would be very easy to have an input field for txt as Expression controls that would link it to the script and you could write what you need into it.
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