Aegisub / Automation

The name Automation covers the entire scripting functionality of Aegisub.

About Automation

The single purpose of Automation is — as the name implies — to automate various aspects of subtitle creation and editing. To date this has mainly been for creating karaoke effects but Aegisub 2 introduces Automation 4 which also allows creating more general purpose macros and also changing the style definitions and other meta data for the subtitles.

Some of the goals of Automation:

  • Macros to automate complex subtitle editing tasks
  • Export filters to generate complex effects from simpler input
  • Karaoke effects
  • Translation note boxes
  • Probably several yet-undiscovered uses

Using Automation

Aegisub comes with several Automation scripts already packaged and ready to use. This includes the advanced Karaoke Templater script (which covers everything simple-k-replacer, line-per-syllable and multi-template did in Automation 3) and a collection of macros to simplify some editing tasks.

Aegisub almost always has several Automation scripts loaded at a time. You can see what scripts are loaded, and load/unload more from the Manager window.

All Automation scripts also present themselves in Aegisub in one way or another. Some appear as macros in the Automation menu and others appear as filters in the Export dialog. Some scripts even appear in both places.

Automation for programmers

Automation supports scripts in Lua 5.1. Other languages used to be supported, but no one used them.

There is several example scripts included with Aegisub to give you a head start on writing your own ones. A word of warning: Unless you are an experienced programmer the kara-templater.lua script is a very bad place to start!

The Automation 3 scripting interface used in Aegisub 1.10 and earlier is no longer supported. If you have previous experience with writing Automation 3 scripts, there is an overview of changes from Automation 3.

Future goals

In future versions of Aegisub (perhaps 3.1), Automation will be replaced with a backwards-compatible scripting interface to the full capabilities of Aegisub, rather than being limited to merely manipulating subtitle files.

Automation 4
Overview: Automation Manager • Running macros • Using export filters • Standard macros • Changes from Automation 3
Karaoke Templater reference: Declaring templates • Execution order • Modifiers • Inline-variables ($-variables)
Code lines and blocks • Execution envirionment
Lua API reference: Registration • Subtitles object • Progress reporting • Dialogs • Misc. APIs
Lua Modules: karaskel.lua • utils.lua • unicode.lua • cleantags.lua • clipboard • re
Karaskel concepts: Style tables • Dialogue line tables • Syllable tables • Inline effects • Furigana