New in AE Beta: Color Labels for Effects!

if it can make the youngsters stop breaking concatenation of colour it could be useful

This is great ​@sbali5 ! just two suggestions:

1. ROUNDED EDGES: we have to say goodbye to all these right angles, the entire interface has rounded edges except for those elements. 

   

    

2. LAYERS: It would be great if this extended coloring were also available for all layers.

Really welcome feature.

I share the same feedback as ​@Paul Slemmer but extending on point 4 I rather have it on over off by default for sake of discoverability. It's good that there is the option to hide it. Additionally I'd like to highlight again that information is key for professionals. It would thus be really welcome if effect's operating bit depth is also present. If ‘tidiness’ is a concern the color labeling and bit depth icon could even be combined where the color is overlayed on the icon. But given the accelerated FX icon is aligned right it would make sense to have depth icons also there.

Here's what I previously suggested for reference.

I would love to see this follow into the timeline, to give the same advantages for easy identification in busy comps.

If swatches were added to the timeline, then ​@sskaz ‘s suggestion makes a lot of sense, or using the same layout as for mask colour swatches next to the effect’s name in the timeline would be consistent and familiar.

I would guess that having options to choose whether swatches/backgrounds are shown in the effects panel and timeline as individual choices would be best - some users will like a combination, or just one or the other.

Given how visually dense things can end up, this is such a good advancement for usability. The camera aware / reset effect icons are neat as well 👍🏾

Hey, this is pretty rad.

Do the Labels that are applied to effects in the Effect Control Panel show up/can be changed in the Timeline? Not right now, but tell us how you'd like that to work and how it would help you?

I would love to see this carry over to the timeline. It would be a great way to quickly navigate the timeline when you have a ton of effects.

How would it work: Uhh basically the same? A more vibrant row for the effect name and the subdued color for all the controls, that stretches across the entire timeline panel. Controls to turn bits on/off

Would the label swatch icon also be in the Timeline? There’s a dedicated label column already, but since the Timeline indents controls in a funky way, it might look strange to see [swatch] [arrow] [EffectName]. Maybe the swatch icon is between the arrow and effect name like in the new EC panel.

Here’s a quick mockup using emoji. Even though the swatch is not in the timeline label column, it does line up nicely with the layer icon (star in this case) and has the bonus side effect of aligning the effect name with the layer name.

does this apply to project panel too?

This is very cool! I can appreciate the organization that this will yield, especially considering that colors are saved with effect presets!

A couple points of feedback:

1. If you turn swatches off, there is no UI for changing label colors at all. This makes the "swatches off / background on" combo essentially unusable unless you switch swatches back on temporarily.
2. The swatches are larger on effects than they are on layer labels. Consistency there would be nice, and the smaller swatches on layer labels create a more aesthetically pleasing/usable experience, so I would match that.
3. I think it is very important that all data represented in the effects panel is also represented in the timeline, so effects with label colors on should have some visual representation in the timeline. Whether that's just swatches and colorizing the effect name rows, or a background only on the left, or the whole background all the way across the timeline deserves some testing.
4. While nice for discoverability, having the swatches on by default feels unnecessary and visually "in the way," especially since they all default to None. My vote is for the default to be swatches off & background on.
5. It might be nice to be able to define default colors for each effect in the Effect Manager (eg. Fill is always red, etc.) similar to how layer types have default colors. Maybe even having defaults per category could be nice?

Great work on this! I can’t wait to get * c o l o r f u l *

Exciting! This isn’t something I’ve ever considered needing, but I can see straight away how this might be helpful, when handing off a project, in making it clear to a client which effects they should and shouldn’t touch.

On that note, if I turn these on, what happens when someone else on a different computer opens that same project? Do their Effects panel preferences take precedence, or will they see it with whichever settings the project was saved with?

Very cool!!