Left sidebar panels
Four tabs are always there; Project is registered but opens on demand.
| Panel | Closable | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Scene | No | The layer tree |
| Assets | No | Imported media |
| Library | No | Motion GFX, transitions, SFX, Lottie |
| AI | No | The assistant |
| Project | Yes | Compositions. Opens from Window → Project |
Scene
The layer tree, virtualised so a project with hundreds of layers still scrolls smoothly.
- Search / filter box at the top.
- Label colours per layer, from the familiar AE palette, via right-click.
- Visibility / lock / solo / shy toggles.
- Drag to reparent and reorder.
- Right-click for rename, duplicate, delete, pre-compose, label colour, rig.
- Selection is two-way with the canvas and the timeline: select in one and the other two follow.
Assets
Imported images, video, audio, SVG and image sequences, with thumbnails and file sizes.
- Folders for organisation.
- Drag to canvas to place.
- Uses
content-visibility, so a large library does not stall scrolling.
An SVG thumbnail here is the raw file in an <img>, and the browser 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 four sections, switched by a strip inside the panel.
| Section | Items | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Motion GFX | 24 | Ready-made motion-graphics elements. The cards animate live in the panel — real frames, not recordings |
| Transitions | 20 | Phase-aware: the panel works out whether you are placing an in, out or cross transition |
| Sound FX | 12 | One-shots. Drag to the timeline |
| Lottie | 8 bundled | Plus file import |
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. It is hoisted above the dock tree, so switching to another tab mid-generation does not cancel the run.
Full detail: The AI assistant.
Project
Compositions — create, open, rename, duplicate, delete. All mutations route through the composition operations layer; the panel owns no logic of its own.
Registered but closed on a fresh session. Window → Project opens it.
Two panels that were removed
These were deleted as duplicates, not as features. If you are following an older tutorial that mentions them, this is where their functionality went.
Flow was a second full cubic-Bézier easing editor for the same keyframes as the Graph panel. It wrote through a separate ease-clipboard store rather than the animation engine, and only re-read its handles when the easing was already bezier — so it showed a stale curve after any preset applied elsewhere. Its one unique action, Copy / Paste Ease, now lives in the Graph panel.
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