“option” + drag to duplicate keyframes and layers

We were recently evaluating part of this request, to duplicate keyframes by holding the Alt/Option key and dragging. This is something we'd love to add to After Effects. But we've run into a couple of issues.

As mentioned in the video, Alt/Option + dragging keyframes is currently occupied by the time-stretch keyframes behavior. The video suggests changing that behavior to use the Control/Command key + dragging, however that begins to get fuzzy because Control/Command + _clicking_ on a keyframe changes its interpolation to Continuous Bezier; there's a lot of opportunity here for accidental clicks.

A related problem is muscle memory. Any time we change a mouse or keyboard input behavior, we get negative reactions from our user community. The video tends to dismiss the need for time-stretching keyframes, but I both disagree with that, and want to emphasize that changing muscle memory is very disruptive.

Another complication is that Alt/Option + dragging on a layer's in/out points will time-stretch the layer. (This was added in recently, in After Effects 16.0, but we used time-stretching keyframes as the model for which keyboard shortcut to use.) If we change the meaning of Alt/Option + dragging keyframes, we may need to align other behavior as well, breaking more muscle memory.

Regardless, we agree that the existing convention of Alt/Option + drag to copy is a desirable feature for After Effects (for both keyframes and other types of objects, but one thing at a time). We discussed what other keyboard modifiers the time-stretch keyframe behavior could be moved to, but we could not find an obvious answer because After Effects is already heavily loaded with modifier key + mouse click/drag behaviors. Even something as simple as adding the Shift key would interfere with snapping behaviors.

Given those complications, how would you suggest the behaviors of clicking and dragging keyframes in After Effects be adapted?

- What modifier key + click/drag combos would you like to see?
- How do you feel about disrupting muscle memory, for both yourself and other artists?
- Do you feel a preference or UI option would be needed to allow users to enable/disable the new behaviors and return to prior muscle memory?

We will continue discussing this internally. Your opinions will help shape the conversation.

This is a fantastic idea and I would love to see this feature it would make my workflow so much faster!

I LOVE this. Even though I have already set a keyboard shortcut for reversing keyframes, I think having that functionality that Sander is describing here built into AE would be a huge improvement.

How many times have I wanted to do this!!!

But then how would we option+drag to stretch/space out keyframe groups in the timeline?

I would like to see ALT+Drag to copy/duplicate for layers in the timeline and assets in the project panel. Its a standard function for the rest of the adobe suite and for some reason its missing from AE. There's not even an alternate function, its just missing. I understand holding alt and dragging selected key frames in the timeline does temporal stretch. so I see why it might be harder to implement for key frames without upsetting current functions. But, this seems to be a missing feature that would be widely appreciated for those of us that use the wider adobe tool set.