Useful Assistants FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

• What Adobe® After Effects® versions will Useful Assistants work with?
• Is there a demo version of Useful Assistants?
• (Mac OS) The text in the UA Assistants and UA Presets palettes has irregular character spacing.
• (Mac OS) Clicking OK or Cancel in an assistant’s settings dialog box does not work.
• (Mac OS X) I’ve upgraded to Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), and After Effects displays several error message on startup.
• (Mac OS X) After Effects 6.0 locks up during the “Cleaning Up” phase on startup.
• I’ve upgraded to After Effects 6.5, and I can no longer create or use presets.
• I’ve upgraded to Useful Assistants v1.6, but the About box (and the ua_version constant) still shows v1.5.

What Adobe® After Effects® versions will Useful Assistants work with?

Check the Specifications page for a list of supported After Effects versions.

Note: The Useful Assistants software is not an After Effects effect plug-in, so it will not work in After Effects plug-in-compatible hosts like Apple® Final Cut Pro® and Discreet™ combustion® software, as well as in an Avid® editing system with the Elastic Gasket™ plug-in.

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Is there a demo version of Useful Assistants?

There is no demo version of the software, but there are Web-based demonstrations of several of the bundled assistants in the Bundled Assistants page, and screen shots of the settings dialog boxes for assistants that have adjustable settings on the individual assistant pages.

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(Mac OS) The text in the UA Assistants and UA Presets palettes has irregular character spacing.

The labels for the inactive palette tab and some assistants and presets can appear with odd character spacing. There is no workaround.

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(Mac OS) Clicking OK or Cancel in an assistant’s settings dialog box does not work.

Clicking OK or Cancel in the settings dialog box does not always work on the first click; you need to click in the dialog box to switch focus, and then clicking the OK or Cancel button will work on the first click.

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(Mac OS X) I’ve upgraded to Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), and After Effects displays several error message on startup.

If you have upgraded to Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), be aware that the Panther install erases the important “PythonCore 2.2.2” and “PythonCoreCarbon 2.2.2” files in the Library/CFMSupport folder because Panther installs Python 2.3. If you have Useful Things or Useful Assistants installed, these missing files will cause After Effects to display one or more of the following message(s) on startup:

After Effects error: couldn’t load plug-in “ScriptCore” (problem with fragment “<><><>”) — code fragment library not found (-2804).

After Effects error: couldn’t load plug-in “UA" (problem with fragment “<><><>”) — code fragment library not found (-2804).

After Effects error: couldn’t load plug-in “UTCore" (problem with fragment “<><><>”) — code fragment library not found (-2804).

To recreate these two files, simply double-click the ConfigurePythonCarbon icon in the Python 2.2.2 folder.

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(Mac OS X) After Effects 6.0 locks up during the “Cleaning Up” phase on startup.

You might be using Useful Assistants version 1.1 or 1.2. This problem has been addressed in version 1.5. Please upgrade to v1.5 or later to resolve this issue.

If you are currently using version 1.5 or later, try double-clicking the ConfigurePythonCarbon icon in the Python 2.2 folder (located in the Applications folder) to recompile the Python files used by Useful Assistants.

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I’ve upgraded to After Effects 6.5, and I can no longer create or use presets.

This was a problem with Useful Assistants v1.2. Please upgrade to v1.5 or later.

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I’ve upgraded to Useful Assistants v1.6, but the About box (and the ua_version constant) still shows v1.5.

For Useful Assistants v1.6, the version number displayed in the About box (and, for script writers, returned by the ua_version constant) will still show as v1.5 because no changes were made to the core functionality since Useful Assistants v1.5. You will know that you have v1.6 by the presence of the ReadMe_v1.6.0.txt file in the UsefulAssistants folder (and, for Windows users, a “README v1.6.0” program icon in the Profound Effects > Useful Assistants program folder in the Start menu).

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