Comments on: Expressions and External Documents – Revised for CS4

By: chromaKiki

chromaKiki — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:50:24 +0000

On my Win 7 (64 bit) this is how expression works like a charm:

try {
myPath = “c:\\Temp\\testText.txt”;
$.evalFile (myPath);
eval(thisComp.name)[0];
}
catch(err){“Not found: ” + myPath};

A big Thanks to guys setting this up and sharing.

By: Lloyd Alvarez

Lloyd Alvarez — Mon, 17 May 2010 19:45:05 +0000

Make sure you have the full path to your file including the drive or volume.

By: Lloyd Alvarez

Lloyd Alvarez — Mon, 17 May 2010 19:43:50 +0000

The reason you use -1 is because the the indexOf() function will return the index of the matching string unless it can’t find it in which case it will return -1
http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_IndexOf.asp

By: admin

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:00:34 +0000

“Open 2″ is not a variable. It sees you saying “Open” and then “2=..” which does not make sense. Also, do not use smart quotes. You have ′ instead of ‘

By: pw

pw — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:56:15 +0000

I get this error when attempting to duplicate the layer and add to the text file:

“After Effects warning: Expected: ; Expression disabled.

Error occured at line 3.
Comp: ‘Open’
Layer: 1 (”)
Property: ‘Source Text’
”

My file looks like this:

Open = ‘Test 1′

Open 2 = ‘Test 2′
;

By: Shawn

Shawn — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:24:42 +0000

Perfect. Thanks!

By: admin

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:28:00 +0000

for some reason, the path in Windows requires two slashes \\ for each \. Why? I dunno. In your case, I think there should be “2″, which would result in needing 4. Try that?

By: Shawn

Shawn — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:38:21 +0000

I’ve been working on this all day. Here is the code I have for my Windows 7 platform on AE CS4:

myPath = ‘C:\Expressions\data.txt’;
$.evalFile (myPath);
eval(thisComp.name);

I keep getting an error saying folder or file not found, even though this is the exact path. I’ve tried a few variations, including one that was almost exactly the prescribed code, but I get the same error.

Any ideas why?

By: kunda

kunda — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:26:27 +0000

i can’t download a preformatted text document and spreadsheet cuz’ the kink is over i think

By: jefaismonsite

jefaismonsite — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:53:54 +0000

Merci pour cette article, un info utile merci ,

By: Click Track Video Pt. 3 - ChurchMediaDesign.tv

Click Track Video Pt. 3 - ChurchMediaDesign.tv — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:45:47 +0000

[...] How to: setting up a extrenal text document [...]

By: admin

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:11:27 +0000

@ nikits

You are using smart quotes. This will cause an error. AE does not recognize these as quotes.