by Motion Embassy·Workflow
Images © Motion Embassy. Used for product review; image policy.
The Positioner earns its place in the aescripts library for keeping layouts responsive as designs change, with pinning, ten scale modes and the Box It! companion tool handled from a single ScriptUI panel.
The Positioner is a ScriptUI panel for After Effects that aligns, pins and auto-scales layers to the edges of a composition or to other layers. As a design changes, positioned layers stay responsive, and the whole workflow runs through a clean visual interface built for fast positioning.
The panel offers pinning to composition edges and to layer edges, plus ten scale modes: Fit, Fit Width, Fit Height, Fill, Stretch, Stretch Width, Stretch Height, Shrink, Shrink Width and Shrink Height. Padding can be applied uniformly or set individually for left, top, right and bottom, and Limit Size keeps width or height within a set percentage. A companion tool, Box It!, builds self-resizing text boxes, lower thirds, chat bubbles and similar elements.
The Positioner requires After Effects CC 2024 and newer, with the Expressions Engine set to JavaScript in Project Settings. Install it through the aescripts + aeplugins manager app, then open it from Window > The Positioner. This catalog lists the script as free.
The Positioner is best for after Effects artists building responsive layouts who need to align, pin and auto-scale layers to composition or layer edges.
The Positioner is completely free to download and use.
The Positioner requires After Effects CC 2024 and newer, and it is listed as compatible with After Effects 2024, 2025 and 2026. It also needs the Expressions Engine set to JavaScript, which you can change under Project Settings > Expressions > Expressions Engine > JavaScript. Setting that option is part of the stated requirements, so it is worth confirming before you install. If you are on a release older than CC 2024, the developer lists it as unsupported.
The easiest way to install and license The Positioner is through the aescripts + aeplugins manager app, which handles both steps for you. You can also install it manually by placing the file in the ScriptUI Panels folder: on Windows that is Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects (Version)\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels, and on Mac it is Applications/Adobe After Effects (Version)/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels. After that, restart After Effects and open the panel from Window > The Positioner.
The Positioner includes Box It!, a tool for creating dynamic, self-resizing text boxes, lower thirds, chat bubbles and more. It complements the main panel's edge pinning and scaling, and the 1.1.0 update improved compatibility between The Positioner and Box It!. If your work involves elements that need to resize with their content, this is the part of the toolset aimed at that requirement.
The Positioner is listed here as free. A ten-day trial is also referenced, during which Auto-Scale is not available, so some functionality may be limited in trial mode. For current licensing terms and any details about the full version, check the developer's page on aescripts, where installation and licensing are handled through the aescripts + aeplugins manager app.
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