effectcraft/docs/preferences.md

Settings, keyboard shortcuts, auto-save and crash recovery

Settings (Preferences)

EffectCraft ▸ Settings (macOS) or Edit ▸ Preferences (Windows/Linux), Cmd+Alt+;. The dialog has After Effects 2026's pages (General, Startup & Repair, Project, Composition, Previews, Appearance, Grids & Guides, Labels, Type, Import, Export, Audio, Disk, Memory & CPU, Video, 3D, Scripting & Expressions) with OK, Cancel, Previous and Next. Older page names still open the right page (prefs.open {"page": "Auto-Save"} opens Project, Media & Disk Cache opens Disk, Memory & Performance opens Memory & CPU).

The model is effectcraft_engine::prefs::Prefs: serde, versioned (version), addressed by dotted keys (general.undoLevels, autoSave.intervalMinutes, labels.3.name). It is stored as prefs.json through the session's ConfigStore (the desktop app uses the platform config directory: ~/Library/Application Support/EffectCraft on macOS, %APPDATA%\EffectCraft on Windows, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/effectcraft on Linux; the web app keeps it in browser storage: the Origin Private File System, or IndexedDB where OPFS can't write, see web.md). Loading migrates older layouts, keeps unknown keys (from newer versions) and falls back to defaults for values that don't parse.

Commands (CLI, MCP, control channel):

Command	Parameters
prefs.get	{key?} (omit for everything)
prefs.set	{key, value} or {values: {key: value}}
prefs.reset	{page?} (omit for everything)
prefs.open	{page?} opens the Settings dialog
prefs.pages	the page schema: every row, its key, type, range and whether it is wired

Settings that change behaviour

• general.language: interface language (system / en / ja / zh-hans / zh-hant / uk / es / pt-br), Settings ▸ General ▸ Language; menu labels change immediately. system (Match System, the default) follows the operating system's interface language where EffectCraft has a translation and is English otherwise: a Simplified Chinese locale (zh, zh-CN, zh_CN.UTF-8, zh-Hans-CN, zh-SG) selects zh-hans, a Traditional one (zh-TW, zh-HK, zh-Hant, zh_MO) selects zh-hant, a Ukrainian one (uk, uk-UA, uk_UA.UTF-8) selects uk, a Spanish one (es, es-ES, es_MX.UTF-8) selects es, a Portuguese one (pt, pt-BR, pt_PT.UTF-8) selects pt-br; the browser build stays in English with it. Choose Español or Português (Brasil) for Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese menus (panels stay in English for now); choose Українська for Ukrainian menus and cataloged panel, dialog, button and tooltip text; Ukrainian uses the bundled UI fonts. Native Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese UI uses installed system fonts; the web host must supply a Japanese font. The same setting picks the CJK fallback for the interface and the Han preference of the text engine, so the composition's own text is drawn with the same language's glyph forms (the text engine's preference is process-global); swapping the language reinstalls the fonts, so it applies without a restart. Two catalogs back the text: the menus are keyed by (command, English label) (crates/ui-egui/src/i18n.rs), and the rest of the interface - panels, dialogs, buttons, tooltips - is keyed by its English source string (crates/ui-egui/src/i18n/ui.rs, with rows for Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese and Ukrainian), where a panel writes tr("Rename"), or tr_args("Proxy Use: {}", &[&quality]) when the row carries a value. A row that is missing falls back to English, so a new string shows up untranslated rather than empty; the tests in that module fail on an unused row and on a hard-coded string in a converted panel.
• general.undoLevels: Levels of Undo
• general.pathPointSize: Path Point and Handle Size
• general.recentItems: Recent Projects Shown
• general.showToolTips: Show Tool Tips
• general.createLayersAtCompStart: Create Layers at Composition Start Time
• general.defaultSpatialLinear: Default Spatial Interpolation to Linear
• startup.showHomeOnLaunch: Show Home Screen When Launching
• startup.offerCrashRecovery: Offer to Open the Latest Auto-Save After a Crash
• startup.windowGraphics: Window Graphics (auto / gl), what the desktop window draws with from the next launch. auto lets the platform pick (DirectX 12, Vulkan or Metal); gl uses OpenGL, with CPU compositing, for graphics drivers that crash with the others. A launch leaves a launch-pending marker in the settings folder until its window has been drawing for a few seconds (or the app quits normally before that); a launch that stops earlier (a graphics driver crashing as the window opens or as its surface is re-created) leaves the marker behind, and the next launch switches to gl and says so (not on macOS, which has no OpenGL backend). WGPU_BACKEND overrides both.
• project.useTemplate: New Project Loads Template
• project.templatePath: Template Project
• autoSave.enabled: Automatically Save Projects
• autoSave.intervalMinutes: Save Every
• autoSave.maxVersions: Maximum Project Versions
• autoSave.location: Auto-Save Location
• autoSave.folder: Custom Location
• autoSave.saveOnRenderStart: Save When Starting Render Queue
• composition.showRenderingProgress: Show Rendering Progress in Info Panel and Flowchart
• previews.adaptiveResolutionLimit: Adaptive Resolution Limit (the lowest resolution Fast Previews ▸ Adaptive Resolution drops to while you drag; a playing preview keeps the viewer's resolution)
• previews.cacheFramesWhenIdle: Cache Frames When Idle (Composition ▸ Preview): after a second without input or edits, the viewer renders the work area into the RAM preview in the background, from the current time on, until it is cached or the budget is full
• previews.fastPreviews: Fast Previews (Draft 3D, Faster Effects)
• appearance.appearanceMode: Appearance Mode (auto / dark / light). auto (Sync with System) follows the operating system's light or dark appearance while the app runs: on Linux the desktop app reads the XDG desktop portal (org.freedesktop.appearance color-scheme) once and then listens for its SettingChanged signal on a worker thread, repainting only when the value changes (nothing polls); gsettings runs at most once at start-up, by absolute path, when the portal gives no answer. Elsewhere it uses what the window system reports. With no answer it shows the dark theme. New installs stay dark; Sync with System is opt-in. The Tools bar's appearance button (a monitor, sun or moon) cycles Sync with System, Light and Dark (view.theme.toggle, Next Appearance Mode).
• appearance.darkTheme: Dark Theme (dark / darker), shown in dark appearance
• appearance.lightTheme: Light Theme (light), shown in light appearance. Settings ▸ Appearance shows the mode above a light and a dark theme card, each with a preview of the EffectCraft window in that theme.
• appearance.favoriteThemes: a list of unique theme ids (dark, darker, light), empty by default. Hover a theme row to star it; saved favorites keep an accent-colored star. Right-click the appearance button for Appearance Settings and favorites grouped light first, then dark. Selecting a favorite fixes its appearance family and preserves the opposite family choice; left-click still cycles modes. Settings OK saves favorites and Cancel restores them. Unknown or duplicate ids are rejected by prefs.set and removed when loading old settings.
• appearance.theme: the single theme from before appearance modes, kept for older settings files and automation. A saved file with only theme loads as a fixed Dark or Light mode showing it; setting it (prefs.set, ui.set {"theme": …}, view.theme.dark|darker|light) selects that theme and fixes the mode to its family. While the mode is Dark or Light it mirrors the theme in use.
• appearance.brightness: Brightness
• appearance.uiScale: UI Scale, the size of the whole interface (any whole percentage from 75 to 200, on top of the display's own scaling), dragged or typed; it applies as soon as it is dragged or entered
• appearance.useLabelColorForHandles: Use Label Color for Layer Handles and Paths
• grids.gridColor: Color
• grids.gridSpacing: Gridline Every
• grids.gridSubdivisions: Subdivisions
• grids.guideColor: Color
• grids.actionSafe: Action-safe
• grids.titleSafe: Title-safe
• import.stillFootage: Still Footage
• import.stillSeconds: Still Duration
• import.sequenceFps: Sequence Footage
• audio.outputDevice: Default Output (device list from the desktop host)
• audio.outputLeft: Left (Audio Output Mapping)
• audio.outputRight: Right (Audio Output Mapping)
• memory.layerCacheMb: Layer Cache (in the browser at most 512 MB, see web.md)
• memory.mediaCacheMb: Footage Frame Cache (in the browser at most 256 MB)
• memory.previewCacheMb: Preview (RAM) Cache
• threeD.defaultRenderer: Default 3D Renderer
• labels.N.name / labels.N.color: the 16 label names and colours, used by the Label menu, the timeline, project panel, render queue and viewer handles
• general.switchesAffectNestedComps: a precomp layer's Quality (Draft / Wireframe) and Motion Blur switches limit the layers of the nested comp (viewer, Render Queue, render)
• general.preserveConstantVertexCount: adding or deleting mask / shape path vertices at one keyframe does the same on every other keyframe (added vertices split the matching segment)
• general.syncTimeRelatedItems: moving the current time moves it in the comps nested in this one and in the comps that nest it (through the precomp layers' timing)
• general.expressionPickWhipCompact: off, the pick whip writes match names (thisComp.layer("A")("transform")("opacity"))
• general.createSplitLayersAbove: where Edit ▸ Split Layer puts the new layer
• startup.showHomeOnOpenProject: the Home screen comes up after File ▸ Open / Open Recent
• composition.motionPath, composition.motionPathSeconds, composition.motionPathKeyframes: how much of a position motion path the viewer draws (all, none, N seconds or N keyframes around the current time)
• previews.showInternalWireframes: outlines of the layers inside a selected collapsed precomp
• previews.zoomQuality: Faster = nearest-neighbour viewer scaling, More Accurate = averaged (bilinear, mipmapped) when the frame is shown below 100 %; magnified frames show their pixels as blocks in both modes, and the frame sits on the physical pixel grid, so 100 % is exact
• previews.displayProfile: the monitor's colour space for View ▸ Use Display Color Management
• appearance.useLabelColorForTabs: Composition / Timeline tabs show the comp's label colour, Effect Controls / Properties the layer's
• appearance.cycleMaskColors: new masks cycle through the mask colours (off: all the first)
• appearance.useGradients: soft gradient on panel tab strips
• appearance.inWindowMenuBarMac: on macOS, draw the menu bar inside the window instead of the native menu bar
• grids.gridStyle, grids.guideStyle: lines, dashed lines or dots (grid, proportional grid, guides); grids.proportionalHorizontal / grids.proportionalVertical: View ▸ Show Proportional Grid divisions
• type.textEngine: South Asian and Middle Eastern shows the paragraph direction and the World-Ready composers in the Paragraph panel
• type.fontPreview: a "Sample" preview in each font of the Character panel's font menu
• type.recentFonts: how many recently used fonts head the font menu
• type.fontNamesInEnglish: off, fonts with a native-language family name show it
• import.reportMissingFrames: gaps in an image sequence's numbering are reported on import (they show as colour-bar placeholders, as in After Effects; see footage.md)
• import.autoReloadFootage: Automatically Reload Footage, off, nonSequence (the default, as in After Effects) or all (image sequences too). Every two seconds, and as soon as the window comes back to the front, the desktop app compares each footage file's size and modification time with what they were, and reloads what another app saved: a Photoshop file edited in PhotoCraft or Photoshop shows its new pixels without File ▸ Reload Footage. It is not an undo step and doesn't modify the project; a layer item stays on its layer (found again by name), and a file that can't be read yet (still being written) is tried again once it changes again. footage.reloadChanged runs the same check once (CLI, agents)
• import.unlabeledAlpha: alpha of TGA / TIFF / movie footage (Ask opens Interpret Footage; Guess takes premultiplied for movies, straight for stills)
• import.dragImportAs: layered files dropped on the window import as footage or a comp
• export.defaultOutputFolder: where relative Render Queue outputs go
• export.segmentSequences, export.segmentSequenceFiles: sequences split into numbered folders of N files; export.segmentMovies, export.segmentMovieMb: movies split into numbered files of about N MB (cut at the frame count the output's data rate gives)
• export.appendBitsToName: Comp 1.png → Comp 1_16bpc.png
• audio.previewSampleRate: the rate previews are mixed at (and the device is opened at, when it supports it)
• disk.diskCacheEnabled, disk.diskCacheMaxGb, disk.diskCacheFolder: the persistent disk cache of processed layers and frames (in the browser: frames in the Origin Private File System, at most half the origin's quota; the folder setting does not apply there). The Disk page also shows Browser Storage in the web app: usage and quota, persistent storage, Clear buttons (storage.info / storage.persist / storage.clear, see web.md)
• disk.mediaCacheFolder: audio waveform summaries kept between sessions (Peaks/)
• disk.conformedMediaFolder: decoded (conformed) footage audio, written once per file and sample rate and read back instead of decoding again
• memory.ramReservedGb: the cache budgets together leave this much physical memory free
• memory.reduceCacheWhenLow: cache budgets halve while the system is low on memory (checked every 30 s by the desktop app, on a background thread)
• video.enableOutput, video.device, video.outputDuringPlayback, video.mirrorOnMonitor, video.disableWhenBackground: Video Preview, a second window (or full screen on the display it is on) showing the composition frame, Mercury Transmit-style
• threeD.showReferenceAxes: world X/Y/Z axes in the viewer corner of comps with 3D layers
• threeD.extendedViewer: 3D layers reaching beyond the comp frame are outlined on the pasteboard
• threeD.realtimeShadows: draft (Fast Previews) renders keep 3D shadows
• scripting.allowScriptsWriteFiles: the scripting file / network gate (and File.execute())
• scripting.warnExecutingFiles: File.execute() asks before opening a file
• scripting.editorFontSize, scripting.syntaxHighlighting, scripting.lineNumbers, scripting.autoComplete (Tab accepts), scripting.bracketMatching, scripting.wordWrap: the Timeline's expression editor
• scripting.errorBanner: a banner along the bottom of the Composition panel names the first failing expression (click: reveal it)
• roto.model (Settings ▸ Roto Brush): the segmentation model Roto Brush 2.0 / 3.0 use, classical (built in) or mobilesam (once installed). The page lists every registered model with its authors, licence, size, source and status, with Download, Install from File… and Remove (roto.models / roto.model.*); weights live in the models folder next to the settings, each with a .NOTICE.txt naming its authors and licence
• face.model (Settings ▸ Face Tracking): the model face tracking uses, classical (built in) or mediapipe-face (once installed); the same page of models (face.models / face.model.*)

Display-only settings

These rows are in the dialog for After Effects parity and are stored, but have no EffectCraft behaviour to change. prefs.pages reports them with "live": false; a test keeps this list in step with the schema.

• general.useSystemColorPicker: EffectCraft has one colour picker on every platform and the web; there is no pure-Rust way to open the system colour panels.
• composition.hardwareAcceleratePanels: the Composition, Layer and Footage panels are always drawn by the GPU (egui on wgpu).
• scripting.enableJsDebugger: the JavaScript engine has no step debugger; script errors report their file and line in the Script Console.

Effect Controls uses compact, fixed 20 pt parameter rows, as After Effects does: each group level is indented beneath its effect, sibling names and values align, and a gap separates effects. The timeline keeps its fixed 19 pt rows. Both follow the whole-interface UI Scale.

Keyboard shortcuts

Edit ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts (Cmd+Alt+') opens the shortcut editor: an on-screen keyboard showing which keys are assigned for the held modifiers (purple: application-wide, green: panel-specific, both: split), modifier toggles, a searchable list of every command (all engine commands, menu entries with bound parameters and the frontend's tool / panel commands), and a preset menu.

• Presets. "EffectCraft Default" is After Effects' default layout and is read-only; editing it creates a "Custom" copy. Custom presets store only their differences from the default and can be duplicated, renamed, deleted, exported and imported (JSON). The active preset is what the menus show and what the shortcut dispatcher runs.
• Assigning. Select a command, then press keys in the shortcut field (or type them), or click a key on the keyboard with the modifiers toggled. Conflicts with other commands in an overlapping scope are listed before you assign.
• Scope. Menu and engine commands are application-wide; timeline commands work in the Timeline and viewer commands in the Composition panel.

Commands: shortcuts.list {query?, keys?, assigned?}, shortcuts.set {command, params?, keys}, shortcuts.reset {command?}, shortcuts.preset {op: select|new|duplicate|delete|rename, name?, from?, newName?}, shortcuts.export {preset?, path?}, shortcuts.import {path? | preset?}, shortcuts.conflicts.

Auto-save and crash recovery

• Every n minutes (Settings ▸ Project ▸ Auto-Save) a project with unsaved changes is written to an EffectCraft Auto-Save folder next to it (or the custom folder) as <name> auto-save N.ecproj. Slots rotate through 1…maximum versions, overwriting the oldest. Untitled projects go to the custom folder, or to EffectCraft Auto-Save in the config directory.
• Every project and auto-save write is atomic: a temporary file is written and flushed, then renamed over the target, so a crash mid-write leaves the previous file intact.
• While the app runs, session.lock in the config directory records the open project and its latest auto-save. A clean quit removes it. If it is still there at the next launch, the app offers to open the latest auto-save (Settings ▸ Startup & Repair can turn this off).
• File ▸ Open Recent lists recent projects (stored in the settings), File ▸ Revert reloads the saved project, File ▸ Increment and Save saves Intro.ecproj as Intro 2.ecproj.

Headless MCP clients can opt in with effectcraft-cli mcp --autosave. Unlike the desktop's interval, this writes changed dirty projects before sending each tool reply, with separate version slots per server under EffectCraft Auto-Save/MCP/ (or the custom folder's MCP/). It reads settings without sharing the desktop's writable settings store or session.lock. See headless recovery for how to reopen a checkpoint after a client restart.

Commands: file.autoSave (now), file.recoveryInfo, file.openRecent {index? | path?}, file.clearRecent, file.revert, file.incrementAndSave.

Logs

The desktop app writes its log records to standard error and to Logs/effectcraft.log in the config directory. Each launch moves the previous log to effectcraft.1.log (and that one to effectcraft.2.log), so the log of a run that crashed survives the next start; a log stops growing at 16 MiB. A launch from the Dock, the Start menu or a launcher has no terminal, so attach these files to a bug report. Help ▸ Reveal Logging File shows this run's log (or Help ▸ Enable Logging's EffectCraft Log.txt while that is on, which keeps every EffectCraft record across launches).

By default the log has info records from EffectCraft and warnings and errors from everything else. RUST_LOG replaces that with env_logger-style directives: debug, warn,effectcraft_render=trace, wgpu_core=info. The control-channel token is never logged.