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jeroenr13836525
Known Participant
January 21, 2020
Answered

Native JS (es5) features "randomly" not supported in some environments (AE2020)

  • January 21, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 1461 views

Hey guys,

We are currently working on writing an extension for AE, however, we are running into bugs that we cannot explain.


In our code, we use the .filter method on an array. Something that should be possible in AE19 and above, and in fact, it works flawlessly - on some computers.
In the office we run 8 computers with AE, all running the newest updated AE2020 version, and on about half of them it works, where the other half says that .filter is undefined.

We tried reinstalling everything, tried it with/without extendscript toolkit, we tried it between different versions of windows and mac, but it appears to be completely random.

We had a look at the expression engine (legacy or JS) but that appears to only affect expressions as expected and not scripting.

So, bottom line, higher js commands like .filter seem to work, but depending on your system they sometimes appear to not be included in the scripting engine.
Extremely weird.

Does anyone have any clue as to what could cause such a discrepancy between installations?
Any help is very much appreciated

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Justin Taylor-Hyper Brew

ExtendScript and Legacy Expressions are ES3 based, so filter/map/reduce/etc will not exist there. The new JavaScript Expression Engine and CEP JavaScript is ES6 based so you can use those methods.

If you're seeing ES6 functions in either of those ES3 environments, it's because some script has modified the prototype which is very bad, and can cause the inconsistencies that you're seeing. Try launching AE on all your machines with the same Expression settings and WITHOUT any scripts or extensions open, and you should have the same results.

 

If you want, you can then start launching them one by one till you find the culprit, and then notify the developer.

2 replies

Justin Taylor-Hyper Brew
Community Expert
Justin Taylor-Hyper BrewCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
January 21, 2020

ExtendScript and Legacy Expressions are ES3 based, so filter/map/reduce/etc will not exist there. The new JavaScript Expression Engine and CEP JavaScript is ES6 based so you can use those methods.

If you're seeing ES6 functions in either of those ES3 environments, it's because some script has modified the prototype which is very bad, and can cause the inconsistencies that you're seeing. Try launching AE on all your machines with the same Expression settings and WITHOUT any scripts or extensions open, and you should have the same results.

 

If you want, you can then start launching them one by one till you find the culprit, and then notify the developer.

    Tomas Sinkunas
    Tomas Sinkunas
    Legend
    January 22, 2020

    I second @JustinTailor - AE scripting still uses old ES3 standard, so there's no native support to forEach/map/filter etc. functions. 

    If you're experiencing situations where these methods are available, it's because some other 3rd party tool is globally modifying Array prototype, and injecting these functions into the global scope.

    Therefore you should always code in the ES3 environment for Scripts and never rely on prototype modifications.

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    January 21, 2020

    At least where ESTK is concerend I could imagine compatibility issues if older versions of Adobe products are installed and the language and debug levels are set accordingly. It might be worth investigating that first.

     

    Mylenium

    J
    jeroenr13836525Author
    Known Participant
    January 21, 2020

    Valid point. The weird thing is however that even some machines with all kinds of versions simultaneously DO work, while another machine which never installed any adobe programs besides the newest AE does NOT work.
    Incredibly frustrating.

    What exactly do you mean by 'language' in this case though?

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    January 21, 2020

    You can set the ECMA script compatibility for some script engines as far as I remember. That may only apply to some versions Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign, though. I'm really not up to speed on all of that.

     

    Mylenium

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