Managing Bars

Bars Overview

A bar is a named collection of buttons. AEbar ships with five built-in 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.

Settings is where bar management lives. The same window also controls panel assignments, button sizing, and script-safety behavior.

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.

Creating a bar automatically switches the current panel to that bar.

The Bars Section

Each bar card shows the bar name, button count, and actions for export and delete. Click a bar name to rename it. Bar names must be unique; if you enter a duplicate, AEbar appends a number.

Renaming a Bar

Click the bar’s name in the Bars list. The name becomes editable. Press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel.

Deleting a Bar

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

Restoring Stock Bars

If you’ve removed or modified the built-in bars, click Restore stock bars in the Bars section to bring back the original five presets. This does not affect any bars you’ve created yourself.

Switching Bars

Use the Panels section in Settings to choose which bar each panel shows.

Reordering Buttons

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

Panels

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

In Settings, the Panels section lets you manage multiple AEbar windows:

• Add Panel creates a new AEbar panel slot (up to five).
• Assign a bar to each panel using the dropdown selector.
• Open Panel launches the panel in After Effects.
• Remove Panel deletes a panel slot.

Panels without an assigned bar show an unassigned state. Assign a bar from the dropdown to activate them.

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 or .json file. The bar is added to your list with a unique name. The imported bar highlights briefly in the settings list so you can find it.

KBar Import

AEbar also imports KBar toolbar files (.kbar format or .zip archives). The converter maps KBar button types to AEbar action type equivalents:

• KBar effects become AEbar Effect actions
• KBar scripts become AEbar JSX actions
• KBar menu items become AEbar Menu actions
• KBar extensions become AEbar Extension actions

Font Awesome icons from KBar are preserved as-is, so your imported buttons look the same as they did in KBar. If the converter encounters anything it can’t fully map, it shows a summary report before importing. Clean imports proceed without interruption.

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. The safety prompt applies regardless of the “Confirm Script Execution” setting.

Built-in Bars

AEbar starts with these five bars already available in Settings:

You can rename, edit, export, or remove these bars just like your own.