Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 25

You can scroll in a panel even if it is not currently active, as long as you move the pointer over it. For instance, you
can scroll in the Composition panel even if the Effect Controls panel is currently active.
Open panel, viewer, and context menus
Panel menus provide commands relative to the active panel or frame. Viewer menus provide a list of compositions,
layers, or footage items that can be shown in the viewer, as well as commands for closing items and locking the
viewer. Context menus provide commands relative to the active tool or selected item.
A. Triangle for opening viewer menu B. Triangle for opening panel menu
• To open a panel menu, click the triangle in the upper-right corner of the panel.
• To open a viewer menu, click the name of the active composition, layer, or footage item in the viewer tab.
• To open a context menu, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS).
Work with viewers
A viewer is a panel that can contain multiple compositions, layers, or footage items, or multiple views of one such
item. The Composition, Layer, Footage, Flowchart, and Effect Controls panels are viewers.
Locking a viewer prevents the currently displayed item from being replaced when you open or select a new item.
Instead, when a viewer is locked and a new item is opened or selected, After Effects creates a new viewer panel for
that item.
Instead of housing multiple items in a single viewer and using the menu to switch between them, you can choose to
open a separate viewer for each open composition, layer, or footage item. When you have multiple viewers open, you
can arrange them by docking or grouping them together, just as with any other panels.
For example, you can create one Composition viewer each for different 3D views (Top, Bottom, Back, Front) so that
you can maximize each of the views with the ` (accent grave) keyboard command, which maximizes or restores the
panel under the pointer.
To create a custom workspace with multiple viewers, ensure that all viewers are unlocked before you save the workspace.
Locked viewers are associated with a specific project context and are therefore not saved in the preferences file.
• To create a new viewer, choose New from the viewer menu.
• To lock or unlock a viewer, choose Locked from the viewer menu, or click the Toggle Viewer Lock
• To lock the current viewer, split the current frame, and create a new viewer of the same type in the new frame,
press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+N (Mac OS).
• To cycle forward or backward through the items in the viewer menu list for the active viewer, press Shift+period
or Shift+comma.
See also
"Choose a viewer to always preview" on page 128
Activate a tool
The Tools panel can be displayed as a toolbar (as shown here) or as a normal panel.
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AFTER EFFECTS CS3 19
User Guide
button.