This content requires Flash

To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.

Download the free Flash Player now!

Now before we go into more detail in the project window, there are a couple more very important features I want to talk about regarding the new interface. The first one is one of my absolute favorite new features of After Effects and it is called the maximize feature. Now what it allows you to do is pick any of the windows that your see on screen and blow them up immediately to fit the entire screen that you are currently working on, and all the others get pushed out of the way.

Now do not be fooled into thinking that you have to click in the window to activate it such as over here in the timeline. You see that I have clicked in here and it gets this yellow border around it to show it is selected. This is not necessary. I am going to position my cursor instead here in the composition window but not click. I am going to use one simple keyboard shortcut and it is the tilda key. Now if you do not know where this key is it is on the top left hand side of your keyboard underneath the escape key into the left of the 1. It has a small squiggle on the top and a grad accent underneath it.

If you simply hit the tilda key once, the entire composition window now blows up to fit the screen. Hitting it again will drop back down. Now you will notice that has now become the active window, but if you come down to the timeline, again no need to click. Hit the tilda key to zoom the entire timeline up so you could maybe take a very detailed look at all the key frames in the animation now and once again hit the tilda key to zoom back down.

Now really you could do the same with the project window. This gives you access to absolutely everything just by hitting the tilda key and you can do it if you needed to, to things like the info pallet. Like I said, any window that you hover over with the mouse and hit the tilda key, this shortcut will work. But really in practice, it will mostly be for the composition, the timeline, and occasionally the project.

Now before we go into more detail in the project window, there are a couple more very important features I want to talk about regarding the new interface. The first one is one of my absolute favorite new features of After Effects and it is called the maximize feature. Now... click to read more