About The Tools Panel; About The Info Panel; To Select A Tool; To Show Or Hide Tool Tips - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

•
To display MOV or AVI movies in the standard Footage panel, Alt-double-click (Windows) or Option-double-
click (Mac OS) the footage item in the Project panel.

About the Tools panel

A B C D E F G
Tool panel
A. Selection B. Hand C. Zoom D. Rotation E. Orbit Camera, Track XY Camera, Track Z Camera F. Pan Behind G. Rectangular Mask,
Elliptical Mask H. Pen, Add Vertex, Delete Vertex, Convert Vertex I. Horizontal Type, Vertical Type J. Brush K. Clone Stamp L. Eraser
M. Axis Mode buttons
Note: Related options for some tools appear when the tool is selected.

To select a tool

❖
Do one of the following:
•
Click the tool's icon. If the icon has a small triangle at its lower right corner, hold down the mouse button to view
the hidden tools. Then, click the tool you want to select.
•
Press the tool's keyboard shortcut. Positioning the pointer over a tool displays a tool tip with the tool's name and
keyboard shortcut.
•
To cycle through hidden tools, hold down Shift and press the tool's shortcut key.
•
To momentarily change from one tool to another tool, hold down the shortcut key for the desired tool; release the
shortcut key to return to the previous tool. (This technique works with most tools.)
To view optional panels for a tool, click the desired tool icon, and then click the panel icon
See also
"Keys for selecting tools" on page 642

To show or hide tool tips

Choose Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > General (Mac OS).
1
Select or deselect Show Tool Tips.
2

About the Info panel

The Info panel provides context-sensitive information, such as the progress of rendering a preview. As you drag
across a footage frame in the Composition, Layer, or Footage panel, the Info panel describes the area under the
pointer. This panel displays values for the pixel color (R,G,B), alpha channel (A), and coordinates of the current
position. When you modify a layer property graphically, the bottom portion of this panel displays precise values that
relate to the layer instead of the pointer. For example, when you drag a layer, the Info panel displays the coordinates
of the layer's center point and the offset from its last position. This makes it easy to move a layer by a specific number
of pixels in either direction. If a keyframe is selected, the Info panel displays the keyframe's spatial and temporal state
as well as its position in time. Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) two markers or keyframes to display
the duration between them in the Info panel.
H I J K L M
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0
User Guide
if available.
22