How to make a script which allows me to do "save as" in AE?

[ofersh338]

How to make a script which allows me to create a new window using the plus button to "save as" a new version of  AE like 3D max?

thanks a lot!

[Question moved to the AfterEffects forum]

[Bernd Alheit]

What is AE?

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

You are in the scripting forum for Adobe Acrobat, not After Effects. I've moved your question to After Effects Scripting.

[ofersh338]

thanks

[P.M.B]

Assuming there is not some specific reason you want to do it with a script, which I'm not even sure is possible,

Here's what you do. (for windows...you'll have to translate to Mac if that's what you're on)

1)  go to Edit>Preferences>General  And click the "Reveal Preferences" button.

2)  In the window that opens look for the text file for "Adobe After Effects 14.2 Win en_US Shortcuts.txt". Open it.

3) "Find" the entry ""NudgeRotCW"" & delete "PadPlus" from inside the commas.  Leave the commas & quotations.

4) "Find" the entry "SaveAs" & replace "Ctrl+Shift+S" with "PadPlus"

5) Save it.  You may have to restart AE for it to take effect.

BTW, obviously there is already a shortcut for SaveAs but I'm assuming you knew that & want the plus key.

The "NudgeRotCW"  that you'll be disabling is for nudging the rotation of layer clockwise.

[ofersh338]

Ok I will try to make it clearer sorry about the confusion..

I will try again:

How do I write a script for After Effect which allows me to create a window and inside the window I'll have a button with a plus sign that pressing on it will "save as" a new version of After Effect?

Is it clearer?

[P.M.B]

AH...So your question really is... "How do I learn how to write scripts for AE?"

The most help i can offer you there would be to say that I believe you would do that using extendScript via the After effects scripting guide & other developer resources for writing plugins and scripts.   Basically you're going to have to teach yourself to write a little code.

All i can say is "After Effects Scripting Guide".  I believe that is the key.  Now you just need to find the door that that key opens. That may sound like a puzzle but you want to write code , right?   I can tell you that is you want to write code you have to like puzzles.

[P.M.B]

So I've dug a little deeper and here's what I am going to do because I'd like to learn a little AE scripting as well.

There's a company called "fxphd".    There are 3 courses they offer which seem very good.  AFX226  AFX303  & AFX304.

What I'm going to do at some point is subscribe for a month [$80]  & give myself a crash course in AE scripting.

I'm thinking I can learn enough in one month about AE scripting and more importantly AE scripting resources, that afterward I could successfully learn directly from the scripting guide.  That seems like an $80 value to me.

Time to buy some new notebooks!

Wish me luck.

[P.M.B]

Are you just trying to create a shortcut for yourself?

[ofersh338]

yes

[phlexib]

Hi, I've done those courses AFX303 and 304. Those are amazing but clearly you need some solid basis . Mathias is a great teacher, he goes really into details.

I've also done AFX 210 from Lloyd Alvarez, really good to, and that's better if you don' have any javascript Knowledge.

Anyway, before you do that , there's some free training to start with. I'll recommend you start with David Del Toro serie on provideocoition : https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.provideocoalition.com/after-effects-extendscript-training-complete-...

then if you like scripting and you want to improve your skills, do the fxphd courses. Those are awesome and totally worse every penny. Big Up to Mathias Mohl!!

Ben

[P.M.B]

phlexib  wrote

clearly you need some solid basis

Yes. I should have mentioned that although I believe the instructor does in the introduction.  I have a pretty solid foundation in MEL so I understand basic theories of C based language.  Do you think those 303 & 304 classes would be too advanced for me?

I went about halfway though an intro to Java on Lynda.com and found it too rudimentary even though I've never used Java.

Thanks

[phlexib]

Start with AFX 210 or AFX 226. If it's not for programming concepts, at least for After Effect Object Model.

I haven't done AFX 226, I'm sure it's a good one, but by the time it was out I felt I knew enough after.

AFX303 is more about better coding practices, writing better code, modularity. It's relevant for javascript in general.

AFX304 goes even further in programming workflow, introducing node.js and other tools. If your plan is just to learn After Effect scripting to do simple script, this might be overkilled. Still I loved it.

But, remember that After Effect Scripting official doc is the same since since CS6, so don't think that because a course like AFX210 or provideocoalition is old, it's outdated. nothing change, except a few methods added. You can find an updated documentation on enhancers :

Welcome to the After Effects Scripting Guide! — After Effects Scripting Guide

Hope that helps.

Ben

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Ofersh,

Are you still facing this issue? Please let us know.

Thanks,
Kevin

[carlosgradilla]

app.executeCommand(app.findMenuCommandId("Save As..."));

//Saludos desde GDL, Mexico.

[GCTOIS]

app.executeCommand(5);

[stib]

app.project.saveWithDialog();