Hack Shortcuts, Text Preferences, or Projects
After Effects Shortcuts and Preferences are saved as textfi les that are fully editable and relatively easy to understand,
although if you’re not comfortable with basic hacking
(learning how code works by looking at other bits of code)
I don’t recommend it. The fi les are located as follows:
Windows: Documents and Settings\[user profi le]\Application
Data\Adobe\After Effects\8.0\
Mac OS: Users/[user profi le]/Library/Preferences/
Adobe/Adobe After Effects/8.0/
The names of the fi les are
Adobe After Effects 8.0 Prefs
Adobe After Effects 8.0 Shortcuts
These can be opened with any text editor that doesn’t add
its own formatting and works with Unicode. The default
applications, TextEdit on the Mac and Notepad on Windows,
are acceptable, although there are more full-featured
alternatives. Make a safety copy before editing by simply
duplicating the fi le (any variation in the fi le name causes it
not to be recognized by After Effects). Revert to the safety
by giving it the original fi le name should anything start to
go haywire after the edit.
The Shortcuts fi le includes a bunch of comments at the
top (each line begins with a # sign). The Shortcuts themselves
are arranged in a very specifi c order that must be
preserved, and if you add anything, it must be added in the
right place. You can add the line
”NewEffectsLayer” = “(Cmd+Option+Y)”
or on Windows
”NewEffectsLayer” = “(Ctrl+Alt+Y)”
between NewDebugComp and NewLight—this gives you a
shortcut to create a new adjustment layer. If you understand
this basic format, you can change other shortcuts
to be what you like. For example, if you don’t like the fact
that Go To Time was changed in CS3 (apparently to align
it with other Adobe applications), search for GoToTime and
make your changes to the shortcut in quotes after the =
sign; “(Alt+Shift+J)” becomes “(Ctrl+G)” on Windows,
“(Opt+Shift+J)” becomes “(Cmd+G)” on Mac (but make
sure to change the Group shortcut to something else).
Be extra careful when editing Preferences—a stray character
in this fi le can make After Effects unstable. Most of the
contents should not be touched, but here’s one example
of a simple and useful edit (for studios where a dot is
preferred before the number prefi x instead of the underscore):
change
“Sequence number prefix” = “_”
to
“Sequence number prefix” = “.”
In other cases, a simple and easily comprehensible numerical
value can be changed:
”Eye Dropper Sample Size No Modifier” = “1”
”Eye Dropper Sample Size With Modifier” = “5”
In many cases the value after the = is a binary yes/no value,
expressed as 0 for no or 1 for yes, so if you’re nostalgic
for how the After Effects render chime sounded in its fi rst
several versions, fi nd
”Play classic render chime” = “0”
and change the 0 to a 1. Save the fi le, restart After Effects,
and invoke nostalgic memories of past renders.
