Left sidebar panels
Four panels are there on a fresh layout; two more are registered and open on demand.
| Panel | On a fresh layout | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Layers | Yes | The project’s compositions, and the layer tree of the open one |
| Assets | Yes, cannot be closed | Imported media, and a browser for folders on disk |
| Library | Yes, cannot be closed | Motion GFX, transitions, sound effects, Lottie, components, shapes, text styles, templates |
| AI | Yes, cannot be closed | The assistant |
| Effect Controls | On demand | The selected layer’s applied effect stack. F3, or Window ▸ Effect Controls |
| Transcript | On demand | The composition’s spoken words, for text-based editing. Window ▸ Transcript |
Rail tabs print each panel’s name under its icon, and the + at the foot of the rail lists the panels on that side that are closed.
Layers
The composition list sits above the layer tree.
Compositions — open, rename, duplicate, delete, and open a composition’s settings.
The layer tree:
- Search, plus filters by layer kind, by label colour, by whether a layer is animated and by whether it carries effects. Ancestors of a match stay visible, so a match inside a closed group can still be reached.
- Label colours per layer, via right-click, and Select All with This Label.
- Visibility / lock / solo / shy switches.
- Drag to reparent and reorder, and a parent pick-whip on each row.
- Right-click for rename, duplicate, arrange, switches, label colour, track matte, parent, transform fits, align and distribute, the time commands, group / ungroup, pre-compose, shapes and masks from text, merge paths, and Rig Logo for Animation.
- Selection is two-way with the canvas and the timeline: select in one and the other two follow.
Assets
Two sub-tabs.
Project is the library: the files this project has imported — images, video and audio in one list — organised into folders, shown as a list or a thumbnail grid, sortable, filterable, tagged and colour-labelled, with a metadata drawer under it describing the selected file and the layers that use it.
Media Browser lists a folder on disk, so footage can be dragged in without an import dialog.
Importing does not place anything in the composition. It adds the file to the project, then offers one toast to add it to the composition if that is what you meant. Placing a file is its own gesture: drag it onto the canvas or the timeline, or use Add to Composition / Add at Playhead on the row.
The toolbar carries New Folder, add the selection to the composition or at the playhead, Interpret Footage, and New Composition from Footage.
Compositions are not listed here. They belong to the Layers panel, so that “delete” in this list only ever means a file.
An SVG thumbnail here is the raw file in an <img>, and the interface plays
any SMIL or CSS animation inside it for free. A thumbnail that animates proves
nothing about what the importer understood — see SVG import.
Library
One tab with eight sections, switched by a strip inside the panel.
| Section | Items | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Motion GFX | 30 | Ready-made motion-graphics elements — lower thirds, callouts, titles, data, shapes, loops |
| Transitions | 25 | Phase-aware: the panel works out whether you are placing an in, out or cross transition |
| Sound FX | 18 | One-shots and beds. Drag to the timeline |
| Lottie UI | 8 bundled | Plus file import |
| Components | — | Saved components |
| Shapes | 11 | Rectangle, ellipse, line, triangle, arrow, heart, cross, diamond, crescent, star, polygon |
| Text | — | Text style starting points — Title, Subtitle, Body, Caption and more |
| Templates | — | Template fields |
Two further catalogues feed the canvas from elsewhere: Cursors (24) and the UI Kit (15 components — double-click one on canvas to drill in).
See Content libraries.
AI
The assistant thread, arranged like a chat client. Switching to another tab mid-generation does not cancel the run.
Full detail: The AI assistant.
Effect Controls and Transcript
Effect Controls is After Effects’ panel of the same name: the applied effect stack for the selected layer, one row per parameter. The same stack is also the Effects section of the Properties panel.
Transcript shows the composition’s spoken words as chips. Click a word to seek; select a run of words and delete it to cut that time out of every layer and close the gap. See Cutting clips.
Panels that were removed or renamed
If you are following an older tutorial that mentions these, this is where their functionality went.
Scene is now titled Layers. It is the same panel.
Project, as a separate panel listing compositions, is gone. The composition list is the top of the Layers panel.
Flow was a second full cubic-Bézier easing editor for the same keyframes as the Graph panel, and showed a stale curve after any preset applied elsewhere. Its one unique action, Copy / Paste Ease, now lives in the graph editor’s toolbar — see Timeline & graph editor.
Comments never existed as a panel here. Review comments, the approval flow and shareable review links were removed outright — not gated, not hidden behind a plan. See Known gaps.
Related
- Anatomy of the screen — docking, pop-outs, layouts
- The inspector