Formatting values

Scripts often turn numbers into readable strings - a countdown, a percentage, a timecode for a diagnostic log. The engine deliberately ships without Intl (locale tables would make renders differ between machines - see JavaScript support), and plain JavaScript covers the ground well. These are the house recipes.

Numbers#

const price = 1234.5;

price.toFixed(2);            // "1234.50" - fixed decimals
String(Math.round(price));   // "1235" - whole numbers
String(price).padStart(8, " "); // "  1234.5" - column alignment

For thousands separators, group by hand - three digits at a time from the right:

function thousands(n) {
  const [whole, part] = Math.abs(n).toFixed(0).split(".");
  const grouped = whole.replace(/\B(?=(\d{3})+(?!\d))/g, ",");
  return (n < 0 ? "-" : "") + grouped;
}

thousands(1234567); // "1,234,567"

Deterministic and identical on every machine - which is the point.

Padding and counters#

String(7).padStart(3, "0");   // "007"
String(42).padEnd(5, ".");    // "42..."

Timecodes#

Build timecodes from the canonical clock - frame and fps - never from float seconds:

export function frame({ frame, fps }) {
  const total_seconds = Math.floor(frame / fps);
  const minutes = String(Math.floor(total_seconds / 60)).padStart(2, "0");
  const seconds = String(total_seconds % 60).padStart(2, "0");
  const frames = String(frame % fps).padStart(2, "0");
  const timecode = minutes + ":" + seconds + ":" + frames;
  console.log(timecode); // "00:01:05" at frame 1625 of a 25 fps comp
  return value;
}

The same shape gives you countdowns (total_seconds counting down from the comp's duration) and cue labels.

Where formatted strings go#

Text CONTENT is in the drive set: declare a text layer's content.text as an output and return the formatted string, and the layer's source text follows the script per frame. Swap the console.log above for a return on such an output and the timecode becomes a live caption; the frame reference's countdown example drives one digit layer the same way. Text takes a per-frame HOLD (there is nothing to interpolate between two strings), so return values that change exactly when you mean them to - whole seconds, not raw float time. Formatted strings also serve diagnostics (console.log) and comparisons, and the quick start's countdown shows the multi-layer variant with five digit layers and one script.