The Pickwhip

Writing a property reference by hand means remembering thisComp.layer(...) syntax and getting a layer name exactly right. The pickwhip — formally the Insert Property Reference popover — skips that entirely: it's a searchable, bounded tree of your actual composition that you click your way through instead. It also reaches past the comp you have open: every composition in the project is browsable from the same popover, without After Effects moving off what you're looking at.

Opening the pickwhip

Press ⌃⌘R anywhere in the editor to open it. The popover reads the shared native snapshot for the active comp; change detection refreshes that snapshot after structural edits in AE. One snapshot is bounded to 512 layers, 50,000 properties, 32 levels of nesting, and two seconds of host work. If a budget is reached, the popover labels the tree partial and continues to show the valid portion instead of presenting it as complete.

Inserting a reference

• Click a leaf to insert its absolute reference — thisComp.layer("X")... — at your cursor.
• Alt-click a leaf to insert the same-layer-relative form instead.

Either way, the reference lands exactly where your cursor is, ready to keep typing around.

Right-click a property or layer row → Reveal in timeline when you want to navigate instead of insert. eXLib selects that exact row in After Effects, activating the row's own composition first when you are browsing a background comp, and then closes the pickwhip. This uses the same shared reveal behavior as the pin chip, Comp Expressions, and Dependency Map; see Reveal in Timeline.

Live values, and inserting one component

Eligible leaves can show a live sampled value right next to them — a Position property reads as its sampled current numbers, not a placeholder. The value pass is separately capped at 4,000 leaves and two seconds, so a large tree can contain valid rows whose inline value was not reached. Click an individual numeric component within a multi-value property (the 540 inside 960, 540, say) to insert just that indexed reference, rather than the whole property.

These values come from the native companion. While they're on their way the popover says "Reading live values…", and if they can't be read it says which of two things happened rather than showing blank rows: "Live values didn't load — rows show names only." (with a retry), or "Partial scan — some rows have no value yet." when the comp was too large to walk in full.

Browsing another composition

The Compositions button at the top of the popover collapses the layer tree into the project's list of compositions. Its tooltip says which way it will go: "Browse every composition in the project" when the layer tree is showing, and "Back to this composition's layers" once the list is open.

The list is the project's own shape, not a flat dump:

• Root comps sort alphabetically.
• Precomps sit indented under every parent that uses them — a comp used in two places appears in both, because that's where you'd go looking for it.
• A comp that would repeat inside its own branch is marked cycle and isn't clickable, with a tooltip naming the comp it already appeared under.
• Search filters comp names, with the placeholder changing to "Filter compositions…" while the list is open. A name that matches brings its whole branch into view.
• The comp After Effects currently has open is marked active.

Click any comp to browse its layers. After Effects does not move: the comp you have open stays open, the viewer doesn't switch, and nothing is selected on your behalf. The layer and property tree behaves exactly as it does for the active comp — twirl down, read live values, click a leaf to insert.

While you're in another comp, the popover's header names it, and an Active comp button appears beside the Compositions button to take you straight back ("Back to the composition After Effects has open"). Pressing Compositions again returns you to the list with the comp you were browsing still marked.

References you insert from a browsed comp name that comp. A leaf clicked inside another composition inserts comp("Ball Rig").layer("Ball")… rather than thisComp.layer("Ball")…, because thisComp would resolve to whichever comp the expression ends up living in. References inserted from the active comp are unchanged. One consequence worth knowing: Alt-click's same-layer-relative form has no meaning across comps, so while you're browsing another composition it inserts the same comp-qualified reference a plain click does.

Pins from a browsed comp are comp-safe. ⌘⇧-clicking a leaf in another composition pins it exactly as it does in the active one, and the pin carries that composition's identity rather than just its name — so two comps that share a name can't be confused for each other. See Pinning an Apply Target.

When the list can't be read, the popover says so plainly instead of showing an empty tree:

What you see	What it means
"Reading the project's compositions…"	The list is still being read.
"This project has no compositions."	There is nothing to browse yet.
"No matching compositions."	Your filter matched nothing — clear it.
"Partial project list — some compositions are not shown"	The project was too large to walk in full. Retry re-reads it.
"Companion update required for project browsing"	The installed companion can read your open comp but can't list the project. Update it in Settings → Companion, then relaunch After Effects.
"This composition's live values need a newer eXLib companion — rows show names only."	The comp browses fine; only its live values need a newer companion.

Comp browsing isn't offered everywhere the picker is: the layers-only pickers — the ones that choose a destination layer for new controls — stay scoped to the active comp, because a layer chosen out of another composition would land on the wrong layer.

Opening a comp in its own tab

Right-click a comp row → Open in tab. The new editor tab carries that composition as its home scope, so a pickwhip opened from that tab starts in that comp instead of the active one — which is how you keep working on a precomp without ever switching to it in After Effects.

The entry states why it can't run when it can't: "The editor is already at its tab limit" when all twelve tabs are open.

Searching the tree

Type in the search box to filter the tree and auto-expand whichever branches match — useful the moment a comp gets past a handful of layers. While the Compositions list is open the same box filters comp names instead.

What it hides, and what it tells you

Housekeeping that isn't addressable from an expression — markers, and AE's own "Compositing Options" group — is hidden from the tree entirely, so you're never tempted to reference something that wouldn't resolve. If a comp is too large to walk in full, a truncation notice tells you so rather than silently showing an incomplete tree. A comp that was deleted since the list was read says so by name when you click it, rather than opening empty.

A legend along the bottom of the popover restates the modifiers for whatever you're looking at — Click absolute · Alt-click same-layer · ⌘⇧-click set Apply target over the property tree, and Click open this composition · Right-click open it in a tab over the comp list.

⌘⇧-click a leaf instead of a plain click, and instead of inserting a reference, it pins that property as the active tab's Apply target — see Pinning an Apply Target for what that does. And once you've inserted a reference this way, tokenizing it turns it into a reusable, property-sourced variable — see Creating Variables.

Related

• Pinning an Apply Target — what a ⌘⇧-click on a pickwhip leaf actually does
• Reveal in Timeline — what the property/layer right-click action does in After Effects
• Creating Variables — turning an inserted reference into a reusable variable
• Comp Expressions — the other way to find something by what it already carries
• The Native Companion — why the pickwhip needs it, and what happens without it