Managing Bars

Bars Overview

A bar is a named collection of buttons. AEbar ships with five built-in preset bars. You can create your own, rename them, reorder their buttons, and share them as .aebar files.

All bar management happens in the Settings panel. Click the gear icon in the grid to open it.

Creating a Bar

In Settings, click New Bar in the Bars section header. A new empty bar is created and its name field activates for immediate renaming.

Renaming a Bar

Click the bar’s name in the Bars list. The name becomes editable. Press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel. Bar names must be unique; if you enter a duplicate, AEbar appends a number.

Deleting a Bar

Click the trash icon next to a bar. A confirmation dialog appears. At least one bar must exist at all times.

Switching Bars

Use the toolbar selector dropdown (visible in the panel when you have multiple bars) to switch the active bar. In rack mode, all bars share a single active selection. In standalone mode, each panel can show a different bar.

Reordering Buttons

Enter edit mode by long-pressing any button. Then drag buttons to reorder them within the grid. Hold Alt while dragging to duplicate a button instead of moving it.

Panels

AEbar supports up to four separate panels in After Effects. Each panel can display a different bar.

In Settings, the Panels section appears when running in standalone mode. From there you can:

• Add Panel to create a new AEbar panel slot (up to four).
• Assign a bar to each panel using the dropdown selector.
• Open Panel to launch the panel in After Effects.
• Remove Panel to delete a panel slot.

This lets you keep frequently used bars always visible while rotating others as needed.

Import and Export

Exporting a Bar

Click the download icon next to a bar in Settings. Choose a save location. The bar is saved as a .aebar file that includes all button configurations. JSX file sources are embedded automatically for portability.

Importing a Bar

Click Import in the Bars section header. Select an .aebar file. The bar is added to your list with a unique name.

AEbar also imports KBar files (.kbar or .zip). The converter maps KBar button types to AEbar equivalents and shows a summary of any actions that could not be converted.

Import Safety

When an imported bar contains scripts or shell commands, a confirmation dialog lists the unsafe actions and asks for approval before importing. This prevents accidentally running untrusted code.

Built-in Presets

When the bar is empty, the panel shows preset chips you can install with one click:

Installing a preset creates a new bar with pre-configured buttons. You can edit or remove any button after installation.