2 Workflower

|| Matting ||
– All matting tools (creating single/multi-layer mattes, creating ‘Group Mattes’ & merging mattes) now conform to AE’s new ‘Selectable Track Matte’ system (introduced in AE 23). Especially ‘Group Mattes’ benefit significantly, making them many times faster. When, within a ‘Group Matte’, existing track mattes have to be merged or you reference another matte layer (like the group header), an ‘Intermediate Matte Merge’ (Inter-Merge) has to be added above the ‘Group Matte Layer’ that is being used as track matte for group layers. Read the updated user guide chapter on matting for more information.
– If you create a ‘Matted Adjustment Layer’ to a single Layer in AE 23 and up, an adjustment layer with a track matte set to the selected layer will be created (instead of an additional clone).
– When you execute ‘Create Matte’ on a single layer while having a ‘Set Matte’ effect on the layer selected, now the created matte layer will NOT be used as a track matte but the ‘Set Matte’ layer control will be set to the new matte layer instead. This also works for other effects too, e.g. to create to depth map layer to a ‘Camera Lens Blur’ effect. Please read the user guide chapter on ‘Matting’ for more information.
– ‘Invisible Mattes’ now display the icon ‡ for easier detection of the layer type.
– ‘Matte Clone Collection Groups’ will now get deleted if there are no clones within anymore once upon executing ‘Merge Mattes’.

|| Relabeling ||
– Using ‘Relabel Layer/s’, you can now affect keyframe label colors, too (introduced in the AE 22.6). Instead of layers, select keyframes and execute ‘Relabel Layer/s’.
– When keyframes are transferred (for example when Workflower adds a special opacity slider to apply group opacity), keyframe label colors are now transferred as well.
– Now, when you have keyframes selected and you execute ‘Select Group’, all keyframes of the selected label color will be selected.
– When using the relabel panel with keyframes selected and you hold down Ctrl+Alt (Win) / Cmd+Opt (Mac) while clicking on a label color, all keyframes in the current comp with the old label color old the selected keyframe will change to the new one.
– On the relabel panel, you can now press keyboard shortcuts to quickly apply label colors (0 – 9, A – G).

|| Learning ||
– Extended tooltips with additional info when hovering over function buttons. You can also disable the extended tooltips under the ‘Miscellaneous’ settings tab.
– Ability to disable any kind of tooltip on the ‘Main Menu’. To do this, go to the ‘Miscellaneous’ settings tab.
– When first executing certain functions (like creating a group), Workflower will now display useful tips about the functions.
– When you right-click on any function in the ‘Main Menu’, a menu will open with links to the user guide and video tutorial chapter on the function.

|| Layer Tagging ||
– New functions: ‘Tag / Untag Layer/s’ & ‘Perform Action on Tagged Layer/s’. Tag layers and groups with a specified label color by using the ‘Tag / Untag Layer/s’ panel. Afterwards, use ‘Perform Action on Tagged Layer/s’ to execute any of these actions on them: activating (= enable & solo if necessary), selecting, enabling, soloing, locking, toggling effects, toggling motion blur & jumping to the top-most layer of a ‘Tag Group’.
– New functions: ‘Activate / Deactivate Tag Group 1 / 2 / 3’: (De)activate ‘Tag Group 1’, ‘2’ or ‘3’ quickly without the need for first opening up the ‘Perform Action on Tagged Layer/s’ panel. ‘Activate / Deactivate Tag Group 3’ only available via shortcut.

|| Group Functions ||
– Now you can expand/collapse a group simply by double-clicking on a group header. Select a group by Alt/Option+double-clicking, enable/disable by Shift+double-clicking, and solo by Alt/Option+Shift+double-clicking. Only works when you have a single group header selected. For multiple groups, use Workflower’s dedicated functions. For the double-clicking behavior to work, you need to have the WQ plug-in installed that’s provided in the installation files. Read the installation instructions on how to set it up.
– When you execute ‘Ungroup Layer/s’ on a group-less layer, it will now be moved after the next group.
– When you create a group of a single layer, Workflower will now suggest the layer name as group name.

|| Trimming ||
– New function: ‘Trim Layer to Keyframes’ (Ctrl/Cmd+click on ‘Paste Stored Layers’ button / Not available via shortcut).
– New function: ‘Trim Layer to Layer’ (Alt/Option+click on ‘Paste Stored Layers’ button / Not available via shortcut). With two layers selected, trims 2nd to 1st selected layer. With more than two layers selected, either trims to 1st layer, or trims 1st layer to other layers.

|| Precomposing ||
– When using Workflower’s ‘Precompose’ while having multiple layers selected, you now have the option to create a precomp for each selected clip.
– When using Workflower’s ‘Precompose’ and having checked ‘Adjust Composition to the Time Span of the Selected Layers’, you can now add handles before and after the precomposed clip/s.
– When using Workflower’s ‘Precompose’, you now have the option to choose ‘Leave only Transform Attributes’ if you have a single layer with a source item.
– When using Workflower’s ‘Precompose’ with ‘Leave all/only Transform Attributes’ checked, you can now choose to ‘Adjust Composition to the Time Span of the Selected Layers’ too.
– When executing ‘Precompose’ while having a precomp layer selected, you can choose to rig multi-pass layers from the precomp’s contained layers (still experimental!).

|| Naming ||
– When you execute ‘Rename Layer/s’ while having a layer property selected, the selected layer will be renamed to the property name, e.g. to the selected mask name. (Please note that this is disabled by default. Enable it by going to ‘Settings > Naming > When Property is selected while executing ‘Rename Layer/s’, rename Layer to it’.)
– Group elements (‘Group Mattes’, ‘Group Inter-Merges’, ‘Group Adjustment Layers’ and ‘Group Clones’) will be renamed to their group header name automatically within ‘Refresh Layout’. You can also deactivate this in the ‘Naming Settings’.
– ‘Matte Merge’ layers will be renamed to their matted layer name automatically within ‘Refresh Layout’. You can also deactivate this in the ‘Naming Settings’.

|| KBar Integration ||
– Now you can execute *every* Workflower function from KBar. (4 previously not available functions were added + 7 functions introduced in v2.0.) Check out the user guide chapter on ‘Installation’ for more.
– When installing a WF KBar Toolbar from the ‘Layout Settings’, the buttons will now be installed *without* modifier keys.

|| Miscellaneous ||
– When you execute ‘Reveal Layer Opacity’ while having properties selected, all contained properties with an opacity will now be revealed too (e.g. clone stroke opacity properties when having the ‘Paint’ effect selected).
– When using ‘Add / Remove Layer References’ and the 1st selected layer has properties selected that contain a layer control (e.g. ‘Set Matte’ effect) & only 2 layers in total are selected, the function now sets the layer control to the 2nd layer (regardless of whether it’s a a ‘Precomp Clone’, ‘Matte Merge Layer’, or ‘Linked Adjustment Layer’).
– Upon executing ‘Preview Custom Clone Size’, the ‘Precomp Size’ of the ‘Precomp Clone’ will now be automatically set to ‘Custom Size’.
– In the ‘Cloning Settings’, ability to turn off automatic ‘Refresh Connections’ of ‘Precomp Clones’ that happen within various functions, e.g. when executing ‘Parent Layers to Group’, clones will be generally updated to the new parent. However, this can slow down the execution of these functions significantly when working with larger clones and thereby hinder your workflow. When turned off, you will have to execute ‘Refresh Connections’ yourself to update these clones.
– Functions have been updated to work when AE’s new ‘Mercury 3D’ renderer is active.
– Workflower now has its own scripting API in beta. Please be aware that the API is experimental at the moment and has to be used with caution! Some functions might not work as expected. Read the user guide on the ‘Scripting API’ for more information.

|| System ||
– Updated to AEScripts licensing framework 4.1.4.
– Improved support and better error messaging for online activation.
– When checkboxes hold a tooltip with additional info, the icon [ ? ] will now indicate this.
– Workflower will now remember the last position of a borderless panel separately when executed from the ScriptUI Panel/KBar and when executed via a shortcut.

[CHANGED]

|| System ||
– IMPORTANT (Win only): Due to AE now occupying Shift+J & Shift+K, the default shortcut for ‘Parent Layers to Group’ has been changed to Ctrl+Alt+3 & for ‘Set Parent Exception Layer’ to Ctrl+Alt+Shift+3.
– (Win only in AE 22 and below): Due to ‘Activate / Deactivate Tag Group 2’ now occupying Alt+F5, the default shortcut for ‘Unshy Layers’ has been changed to Alt+9.
– Due to great usage, ‘Delete Layer / Clone / Group’ has been moved on the ‘Main Menu’ to the spot of ‘Ungroup Layer/s’ so that you don’t have to a press modifier key to access it. Now press Shift to access ‘Ungroup Layer/s’ & Ctrl/Cmd to access ‘Dissolve Group’.
– ‘Relabel Layer/s’ has been moved on the ‘Main Menu’ to the ‘Groups’ category since it’s mainly used for group relabeling.
– ‘Precompose’ has been moved on the ‘Main Menu’ to the ‘Layer’ category.
– ‘Delete Layer / Clone / Group’ has been moved on the shortcuts panel from the ‘Layers’ to the ‘Groups’ functions section since it’s mainly used for groups.
– ‘Duplicate Group’ has been renamed to ‘Duplicate Layer / Clone / Group’ to better reflect its functionality.
– System-related settings have been moved from the ‘Miscellaneous’ settings tab to the new ‘System’ tab.
– Logging is now enabled by default in order to make troubleshooting easier.
– Made online activation period more graceful.

|| Group & Layer Functions ||
– For improved visual clarity, sub-group headers will now NOT display the extra icon (Win: └ / Mac: >) left to the expanded/collapsed icon in ‘Indented Layout’.
– Automatic trimming of regular track mattes to matted layers is now disabled by default due to resulting in confusing automatic trims in some instances. (Re-enable it by going to the ‘Trimming Settings’.)
– The clone border expansion of ‘Clones in Comp’ will now be set to 0% by default.
– The experimental option to combine track mattes on one layer when merging mattes has been removed due to low usage.

[FIXED]

|| System ||
– Fixed a bug that would cause a ‘JSON.parse’ error.
– Fixed error in alert to open After Effects preferences to allow scripts to access network.
– Fixed a bug that caused Workflower not to find AE’s shortcut file if you only had a major AE version installed whose version number had three digits.

|| Group & Layer Functions ||
– Fixed a bug when using Workflower’s ‘Precompose’ that would shift a precomposed layer’s position if it were parented to a layer outside of the selection.
– Fixed a bug when using Workflower’s ‘Precompose’ that would not set the created precomp to the correct length if ‘Leave all Attributes’ was checked.
– Fixed a bug that would copy group-less layers in the wrong order to the clipboard after selecting all comp layers using ‘Select Group’ without any layer selected.
– Fixed a bug when using ‘Delete Layer / Clone / Group’ that would cause layers to shift position if they were parented to deleted layer.
– Fixed a bug that would throw an error while refreshing ‘Group Mattes’ when a ‘Matte Merge’ layer was the first layer within the comp.
– Fixed a bug within ‘Store Layers’ that prevented a group from being copied into a ‘Store Comp’ when only the group header was selected.
– Fixed issues that occurred when you executed Workflower on a comp with existing non-Workflower layer comments which could have caused Workflower to malfunction. Now, all existing layer comments will be deleted by Workflower beforehand.
– Fixed a bug that would cause AE to crash if illegal group header/footer constellations existed. Workflower will now exit the execution to prevent the crash and give instructions on how to fix the comp structure.
– Fixed a bug that would falsely remove the ‘Group || Settings’ effect when converting all comps to another layout and enabling ‘Remove all Layer/Comp Comments’.
– Fixed a bug that would falsely add a ‘Group Opacity’ slider to a disabled track matte within a disabled group.