AE LiveDocs for CS4 +Premiere

AE LiveDocs for CS4 are up.

There's a PDF, a page that describes all changes to the UI, and a new features page. Commenting won’t be turned on until the software is released.

Update: Todd Kopriva has more in After Effects CS4 Help is live! (...but it's still in beta).

Update 2: Adobe has also posted Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Help on the web where you can search it. You can also go straight to the list of new features.

After Effects Tips + Search Help

Trish and Chris Meyer posted another in their series of After Effects Tips. They also mention and host a Firefox plug-in by Todd Kopriva of Adobe that targets the Adobe Community Help search to make searches more efficient.

Vote LiveDocs + Fade with camera distance

Along with AE 8.02 was an update of AE Help (PDF) and LiveDocs for AE 8. On the AE-List Todd Kopriva, keeper of the docs, urged all to take a survey so Adobe has feedback about how well LiveDocs is working. He continued:

"One of the things that we heard from last quarter's survey was that After Effects documentation is incomplete (but accurate, yay!). One very fast way to fill some gaps is to point users to the example projects, tutorials, and other materials that people like you create and publish. Some of you have been adding LiveDocs comments to Help on the Web that point to these great materials. We intend to do much more of this if you tell us that you find it valuable."

A good example of value came in a recent AE-List post from Todd:
If you do decide to fade a layer's opacity based on its distance from the camera, here's a [LiveDocs] link to an expression that does the trick...You can thank Dan Ebberts for that.

Again, here's the survey to give Adobe feedback about how well LiveDocs is working. And an overview of AE scripting and expression resources can be found at AE Scripts Galore.

Live Docs

Adobe apps have a Help system, but there's also web versions called LiveDocs that give you Help as well as a list of resources and new features. To find them just go to the Help Resource Center, pick an app, then click on LiveDocs. The advantage of these is they are continually refined and updated by Adobe. Also, when you're at a LiveDocs site, like the one for AE8, you can easily Go to the Photoshop LiveDoc via the pulldown menu in the left pane.

Incidentally, you can suggest revisions or just add information on any of the topics by posting comments directly onto the LiveDocs pages.