Timeline folders. We have them in Animate, Photoshop, Illustrator... precomps can utterly ruin your work and is NOT an alternatives to having a simple folder hierarchy - especially when dealing with shape layers or anything that requires continual rasterization.
What would be great is if you could create folders inside layer panel...so you can group together layers...and obviously name the folders etc. making it easier to work with folders rather than stacks of coloured layers.
Agreed. I think of precomps as being like smart objects in Photoshop. If I had to make a smart object every time I wanted to group things together, that would be a nightmare. Often I want to group layers while still maintaining the visual context of the larger comp. This is not possible with a precomp. The only other option is to have an endless scroll of layers. Shy guy arguably helps with this, but I have yet to find a particularly productive way to use it in my workflow.
Really really need this. I use shape layers a lot, and shapes can be grouped within individual shape layers, so why not in the timeline generally? Even if it had no function beyond just organising huge project a bit better. Frankly it's kinda ridiculous that they don't have this feature in AE, especially when it's in literally every other programme.
Yes and yes. Would be a huge + when timelines has tons of layers. Currently i use the shy button to hide layers, but having the option to select layers you want to hide, but keep in the comp, and hit ctrl G to bring them all under a single layer would be great. without losing all the blending modes.