Expressionist

Expressionist improves the expression workflow by giving you basic IDE features such as syntax highlighting, line numbers and multiple cursors. It allows you to quickly add an expression to multiple properties and gives you inline error messages. Expressionist is available for Adobe After Effects 2025 (25.0) and up.

Contents

• Installation
• Edit Expressions
• Pickwhip
• Scripting
• Folding Code
• Shortcuts
• Flyout Menu
• Known Issues
• Changelog

Installation

Install Expressionist by using the aescripts ZXP installer. Do not use Adobe Extension Manager! It has been discontinued and never supported After Effects.

You will need After Effects 2025 (25.0) or newer to use Expressionist. Previous versions are not supported due to various bugs in the extension platform that made Expressionist unusable.

After the installation you will find Expressionist under:
Window > Extensions > Expressionist

Make sure to read the known issues!

Edit Expressions

Add Expression

Select one or more properties in the timeline panel and type your expression in Expressionist. Click on the button Add Expression or use the shortcut Cmd-Enter (or Ctrl-Enter on Windows) to add the expression to the selected properties.

Load Expression

If you already have an expression applied to a property, select that property and press the Load Expression button or Cmd-Shift-click(or Alt-Shift-Click on Windows) on the Expressionist editor. This will load the expression into the editor.

When multiple properties are selected it will take the expression from the first property in the selection list. Due to After Effects’ constraints, this is not the property that was selected first.

Toggle Expression

This toggles the expressions on/off on the selected properties. It inverts the state of the expression, so if it’s enabled it will be disabled and vice versa.

Clear Expression

To clear the editor and/or expression on the selected properties press the Clear Expression button or use Cmd-Shift-Enter (Ctrl-Shift-Enter on Windows).

Pickwhip

You can pickwhip properties by selecting a property and using Cmd-P (Ctrl-P on Windows) in the editor. This will give you the reference to that property:

thisLayer("Transform")("Position")

To get relative references to your property, first load that property into the editor and then select the property you want to pickwhip. This will result in:

thisComp.layer("Layer")("Transform")("Position")

Of course this also works across comps:

comp("Other Comp").layer("Other Layer")("Transform")("Position")

Having nothing selected will reference to:

thisComp

Selecting the same layer will result in:

thisLayer

And selecting another layer will result in:

thisComp.layer("Other Layer")

Comps and footage items can be pickwhipped from the project panel as well:

comp("Main")
footage("item.png")

Reference Dimension

When you pickwhip a multidimensional property, the editor will show a widget with the available dimensions for that property. Click the button of the dimension you want to reference.

The editor will now append the dimension, i.e. [0] to the property.

Scripting

To quickly run scripts from within After Effects you can turn on Scripting Mode. This is done by clicking the Extendscript icon in the bottom left corner. Cmd-Enter (Ctrl-Enter on Windows) will now execute the script. When Sublime shortcuts are enabled the shortcut is Cmd-Alt-Enter (Ctrl-Alt-Enter on Windows).

Turn on Enable Javascript Debugger in the After Effects preferences to get detailed error messages.

Folding

You can fold arbitrary code by using the following comments.

Regions

By using region and endregion:

//region [optional description]
[code];
//endregion

/*region [optional description]*/
[code];
/*endregion*/

Brackets

By using { } or [ ] at the end of a line comment:

// [optional description] {
[code];
// }

Asterisks

Or by using single line blockcomments:

/*** [optional description] */
[code];

Shortcuts

Scroll down for the Sublime shortcuts.

Expressionist

Line Operations

Select

Multicursor

Go to

Fold

Other

Sublime

Expressionist

Other

Flyout Menu

Expression Language Menu

This is the complete expression reference as you know it. Click on any of the items to add the reference to the editor.

Options

Here you can turn on Sublime Shortcuts, Highlight Active Line and Word Wrap as well as change the Font Size.

Scripting Mode

Toggle Scripting Mode. This will enable/disable the respective menu items.

Help…

Brings you to these pages.

Known Issues

If any of the solutions described below don’t work for you, or you ran into an issue that is not described here. Please let us know!

Report a bug from the fly-out menu via:
Support > Report Bug…

Two versions in the extensions menu

Please delete the old version (1.0.0) with the aescripts ZXP installer.

Editor seems focused, but isn’t

Sometimes the editor seems focused, but actually isn’t. So pressing any key on the keyboard will focus the After Effects window. Make sure to click inside the editor before typing.

Mac OS X

The Cmd-D Sublime shortcut deletes the selection!

This is due to a bug with the CEP system of Adobe. A fix cannot be provided, but will hopefully be solved in the next major update of After Effects.

Selection removed when using shortcuts

Some shortcuts will remove the selection. Instead of having a selection, keep the caret(s) inside the word or on the line/lines when using the shortcut.

Undo/Redo doesn’t center selection

When using undo/redo the editor does not automatically scroll to the location where the undo/redo is happening. Make sure to scroll to the line manually.

Some shortcuts don’t work

It might happen that a shortcut doesn’t work, because the timeline was previously in focus. Try focusing the project or info panel, before using the shortcut in the editor.

Windows

Can’t change the font size

The shortcut for increasing, decreasing and resetting the font size doesn’t work. Please use the options in the fly-out menu.

Changelog

1.6.0 - 2026-08-13

Changed

• Sublime shortcut for Add Expression and Execute Script is now Cmd-Alt-Enter (Ctrl-Alt-Enter on Windows)
• Sublime shortcut for Clear Expression is now Cmd-Alt-Shift-Enter (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Enter on Windows)

Removed

• License checks have been removed
• Support for After Effects 24.0 and lower

1.5.6 - 2019-09-11

Fixed

• Editor not showing

1.5.5 - 2019-09-05

Added

• Support for MacOS 10.15 Catalina

1.5.4 - 2018-09-04

Fixed

• Conflict with Templater 2
• Update check not connecting to server

Added

• Support for floating licenses

1.5.2 – 2018-08-16

Fixed

• Pickwhip only showing 2 axes for light and camera properties

Added

• Missing data-driven animation methods to expression reference for AE 15.0+
• New project properties to expression reference for AE 15.1+

1.5.0 – 2018-04-06

Please note there is a bug on OSX with AE CC2018 regarding selections and shortcuts. Read the known issues for more info.

Added

• Support for AE CC2018 (15.0)
• Path Property reference for CC2018+
• Pickwhip a dimension from a multidimensional property
• More Sublime shortcuts
• Better licensing experience, with update notifications and improved support tickets
• Code folding
• Specific comments to fold arbitrary code
• Similar word highlighting
• Scroll past the end of the editor
• Shortcut to toggle between expression-/scripting mode

Changed

• The default shortcuts have changed
• The trial version is now unlimited for 7 days
• Errors now appear in the gutter, not as a widget
• New syntax theme

Fixed

• Edit all properties, i.e. paths, puppet-pins, etc
• Errors not appearing or disappearing
• Shortcut Cmd-A/Ctrl-A for Select All

1.0.0 – 2016-03-19

• Initial Release