Better documentation of AE API?

Question

hi,
What docs are you guys using when scripting for AE?
I'm using the CS6 pdf here:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/developer/aftereffects/scripting/After-Effects-CS6-Scri pting-Guide.pdf
And I'm looking at the data browser inside ESTK.
But isn't there a more efficient source to look up what methods and properties certain classes have?
Something like this (outdated I think and no AE, just an example):
API Documentation
Suppose I want to know what I can do with an ItemCollection. Then searching for 'ItemCollection' in the pdf gives me way too many results
to work with in a fast way. Looking up ItemCollection in the data browser doesn't gve me any info either, but
maybe I'm not looking at the right ItemCollection in there? This is just an example of course,
which goes for all Classes.
Thanks,
Jeff.

Answer 1

Hi Jeff,
i'm using the two tools you are mentionning and most of the time it is fine.
Two things:
(1) When browsing ESTK data, you should look at an instance of ItemCollection, not the constructor function itself.
For instance:
     var items = app.project.items;
     put a breakpoint there and look in the browser the properties/methods of the 'items' variable.
(2) And the pdf is well organized, it has bookmarks/table of contents, so you can get to the ItemCollection paragraph pretty fast, without using the search function.
I use the pdf for generic things (for instance, find properties/methods of objects) and the data browser for precise info about a specific object (for instance: get the property's actual value, is this group elided?, is this layer "name set"? etc): not the same usage.
Xavier.