A CEP panel that puts your presets, sound effects, easing curves and the small jobs you repeat every project into one dock — instead of four folders, three menus and a scratch comp.
The easing curve is live — drag the handles or pick a preset. Everything that needs After Effects behind it will tell you so.
Sixteen tools, all built while editing on a deadline. Nothing here is a wrapper around a menu item you already have a shortcut for.
Point it at your presets folder and browse the lot from inside the panel. Apply to the selected layer in a click, and save whatever you just built back into the library without leaving After Effects.
Browse · save · applyScans your sound library recursively, so subfolders don't hide anything. Search by name, preview in the panel before you commit, then click to import straight to the playhead. It remembers the folder between sessions.
Search · preview · importAdjustment Layer, Null, Drop Shadow, Fit to Comp, Solid with Fill, Tint, Freeze Frame and Blur — each one button. Individually trivial, collectively the thing you do forty times a day.
8 actionsSwitch motion blur on from the panel instead of hunting for the layer switch in the timeline — one button, every time you finish a move.
One buttonBuilds a glassmorphism layer for you, instead of you reassembling the same stack from memory every time the look comes back into fashion.
GlassmorphismA set of ready text animations plus a gradient text generator, so titles get built and coloured from the panel rather than from a precomp you copied out of last month's project.
+ gradient generatorTakes straight position keyframes and bends them into a curved motion path. The A-to-B move that reads as robotic becomes the arc you'd have drawn by hand, without dragging bezier handles in the comp viewer.
Curved motionPick any of nine directions, then set colour, strength, spread and feather. Directional edge darkening for depth, or a full vignette — four controls instead of a mask and a curves layer.
9-direction pickerThe Apple emoji set, searchable by name, with a skin-tone filter and a size dropdown. Optional pop-in animation on import. No more screenshotting emoji out of a browser tab and keying the background.
Search · skin tone · pop-inConsolidates duplicate footage, sorts everything into folders by type and colour-labels layers in one pass. Run it before handover so the project someone else opens doesn't look like a crime scene.
Consolidate · sort · labelWiggle, Loop and Bounce from a button. The three you set up on almost every job, without rebuilding them each time.
Wiggle · Loop · BounceDrag the handles, watch the curve, apply. The Graph Editor without the fight — and an easing you can reuse consistently instead of eyeballing it again.
Drag handlesA nine-position grid that snaps the anchor point where you actually want it, plus Centre in Comp, Pre-compose and Un-precompose. Un-precomp alone is worth the dock space.
9-point gridOne button, current frame out to disk — without a detour through the render queue.
One buttonA swatch library inside the panel, so a brand colour is one click away instead of an alt-tab to a spec doc.
Swatch librarySet your own accent colour and the panel follows the After Effects host skin, so it reads as part of the app rather than a bright website someone bolted to the side of your workspace.
Matches AE skinEverything runs locally against your own folders. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is tracked, and the panel works with the network off.
The panel drives standard After Effects features through ExtendScript. What it builds is ordinary layers, effects and keyframes — so a project you hand over opens and renders anywhere.
A real CEP panel — dock it next to Effect Controls, resize it, save it into your workspace. It's there on every project without being asked twice.
Preset folder, SFX folder, accent colour and tool settings all persist between sessions. Point it at your library once and it stays pointed there.
Buy once. New tools and fixes arrive as a fresh .zip you drop over the old folder — no upgrade fee, no re-purchase for the next version.
Most of these tools exist because a job annoyed me twice. If there's something you rebuild every project, email me.
It's a manual install — a folder you drop in the right place. Written instructions come with the download, and if it doesn't appear, email me and we'll sort it.
Extract the com.xianaetools.panel folder into your CEP extensions directory — either the shared one under Common Files\Adobe\CEP\extensions or the per-user one under %APPDATA%\Adobe\CEP\extensions. The readme has the exact path to use.
Open Window → Extensions → X-Tools. If it's not listed, the readme covers the usual causes in a few lines.
Paste the key from your email once. Then dock the panel, save your workspace, and point it at your preset and SFX folders.
I've built and tested it on Windows 11 with After Effects 2023. CEP panels are cross-platform by design and the install path is the macOS equivalent of the Windows one, so it should run — but I haven't verified it on a Mac and won't claim otherwise.
If you're on macOS and want to try it, buy it and tell me how it goes. If anything's broken the fourteen-day refund applies, no argument.
2023 is what I develop and test against daily. Neighbouring versions share the same CEP and ExtendScript foundation, so they may well work — but they aren't tested, so treat them as unsupported. If you're on a specific version and want certainty, email me before buying and I'll tell you honestly.
You get a .zip that unpacks into your CEP extensions folder — a copy-paste, not an installer. It takes a couple of minutes, and the readme walks through the path and anything Windows needs before the panel will load.
If it doesn't show up after a restart, message me — it's usually a quick fix.
No. Everything runs locally against your own folders — there's no cloud service, no account and no analytics. Your folder paths and settings are stored on your machine and nowhere else.
Yes. The panel drives native After Effects features, so what it creates is ordinary layers, effects, expressions and keyframes. A client or collaborator without X-Tools opens and renders the project normally — they just can't regenerate things from the panel.
For those two tools, yes — the preset library and SFX importer are browsers for folders you already have. They make your existing library fast to search and apply; they don't ship a library with them. The emoji importer does include the Apple emoji set, and the text animations, glass generator and motion helpers all work with nothing but a fresh comp.
No time-limited demo — the fourteen-day refund does the same job with less friction. Install it, use it on a real project, and if it isn't earning its keep, email me and you get your money back.
Yes, unlimited commercial use. Client projects, monetised content, paid ads — all covered. The only restriction is redistributing or reselling the panel itself.
Email me at workwithxian@gmail.com. It reaches my inbox rather than a ticket queue, and I answer install problems as fast as I can.
$49 once. Runs offline, lifetime updates, fourteen days to change your mind.
Send this and I'll reply with a payment link, the download and install instructions.
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