Chapter 27: Importing and Exporting
Templates do not have to start blank, and they do not have to stay inside FX Express. The File menu handles both directions.
Getting a template out
| Command | Produces | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| File ▸ Download template (.fxt) | The template JSON alone | Version control, hand-editing, sending to someone who already has the media |
| File ▸ Download with assets (.fxz) | A ZIP with the template plus its images, audio, and custom fonts | Moving a template between accounts, projects, or regions |
| File ▸ Save to Library… | An entry in the shared Library tab | Making a design reusable inside your own workspace |
| File ▸ Duplicate | A copy beside the original | Branching a design without losing the original |
About .fxz bundles
An .fxz is a ZIP containing template.fxt, a manifest.json, and the referenced assets under assets/media, assets/fonts, and assets/audio. The manifest records how each original reference maps to a bundled file, so importing rewrites the references back correctly.
Two things do not travel:
- Media referenced through a
{variable}. A source likeproducts/{sku}.jpgnames a different file per render, so there is no one file to bundle. - Media that could not be fetched. Anything unreachable is recorded in the manifest as not bundled, so a hollow bundle announces itself rather than failing silently at the far end.
Scene layers are followed: an imported scene’s media is bundled from the source template’s directory, which is what makes an .fxz self-contained even when it contains borrowed scenes.
Getting a template in
File ▸ Import Template… is one picker for every supported format. The extension decides which importer runs:
| Extension | Importer |
|---|---|
.fxt, .json | Template JSON |
.fxz, .zip | Bundle — unpacks assets and rewrites references |
.idm | iDooMo / After Effects composition |
An unrecognised name goes to the template importer, which sniffs the bytes and reports its own error.
Importing After Effects compositions (.idm)
An .idm file is an After Effects composition exported by iDooMo. Importing one is not a mechanical file conversion — the composition is recreated:
- Reading the file — a deterministic extractor pulls out a digest: layer names, fonts, placeholder images, numeric evidence.
- Installing fonts — custom fonts found in the composition are uploaded.
- Recreating with Claude — a model writes the FX Express document from the digest. This is the slow stage; the progress dialog shows elapsed seconds so a multi-minute analysis doesn’t look stuck.
- Storing images — placeholder and embedded images are uploaded.
- Saving template — the result is compiled and saved.
The import report
When it finishes you get a report dialog:
- What came across — canvas size, duration, layers by kind, variables, media, custom fonts.
- What didn’t — diagnostics grouped by code, each with a count, the affected layers, and help text.
- The layer map — how each source layer was interpreted, with notes on what was recovered, what was inferred, and what was dropped.
Read the layer map. An AE composition has features FX Express does not, and the notes tell you exactly where the model made a judgement call — that is where to look first when something is off.
An import is a starting point, not a finished template. Expect to fix typography and timing by hand.
Authoring templates as FXHTML
For building templates from scratch programmatically — rather than clicking them together — FX Express accepts FXHTML, an HTML dialect that compiles to a template. It is the recommended route for AI-assisted authoring and for generating families of similar templates.
FXHTML is a developer feature rather than an editor one; see docs/ in the repository and the fxhtml-authoring skill for the profile and the compiler CLI.
Troubleshooting
The .fxz imported but images are missing. Check the bundle’s manifest for references recorded as not bundled — either they were variable-driven (nothing to bundle) or unreachable at export time. Re-export from a session where the media resolves.
“Unsupported bundle version”.
The .fxz was written by a newer FX Express. Bundle version is a hard compatibility boundary; importers refuse versions they don’t know.
The IDM import is taking minutes. Expected during “Recreating with Claude…”. The dialog counts elapsed seconds so you can tell it is still working.
The IDM import lost an effect or an animation. Check the diagnostics and the dropped notes in the report. FX Express implements a smaller feature set than After Effects; anything with no counterpart is reported rather than silently approximated.
Fonts came in with the wrong name. Custom fonts are installed from the composition and referenced by family. Check the Uploaded group in any Font Family dropdown and re-point the text layers if the family name differs from what the composition used.