Now in Beta: New Default Workspace

[Catie Bass]

Hi All,

We've made some changes to the Default Workspace in Beta, and we'd like to hear your thoughts!

These changes will not impact any custom workspace settings you have. To see the new Default Workspace, click the hamburger menu next to "Default" in the workspace toolbar, then select "Reset to Saved Layout". Please note that if you have previously changed and saved over the Default Workspace, you will have to reset your preferences to see the new Default Workspace.

In the new Default Workspace, the Libraries Panel is nested horizontally with the Project Panel on the left-hand side of the workspace. The Info Panel is stacked on top of the right-hand side, with Preview, Align, and Audio Panels nested horizontally. The Properties Panel is stacked directly below the Info Panel, with the Effects and Presets Panel nested horizontally.

Tell us what you think! Do you like the new Default Workspace? Do you hate it? Other thoughts? Your feedback is critical and much appreciated. 

[scrozier]

Feedback: 

• Not a fan of the libraries feature. I have never saught to use that. It feels like an abandoned feature by Adobe I've heard absolutely no noise about it. If people are actively using that please sound off below. 
• Have gotten used to the stacked/solo accordion features. Not seeking to do horizontally aligned tabs at this point and I don't think its necesarily an improvement.  
• I usually span the layers section across the entire screen. Side panel ends with whever the comp panel ends. The key feature of this software is animation and key-framing. That takes up screen priority to me. 
• Lastly, weird to have two workspaces that basically imply the same thing. What is the differnece between "standard" and default" 

Not my cup of tea but not actively terrible either. Power users will have like 3-5 script panels open at any time to fill all the holes in AEs development. rift+motion+pt_multiplate+true comp duplicator + duik etc. AE basically feels broken without those tools to me at this point

[SternFX]

My feedback:
I don't think the properties panel should occupy the entire right height.
Stacked panels works fine, more useful and easily discoverable.

The Libraries panel shouldn’t be part of the Default workspace. It feels very marketing driven. We already have a Libraries workspace when it's needed.
I would argue that the Effect Controls panel is much more important and should be near the Project panel by default.

If you agree, make sure to stretch it a bit to the right so we can the entire Levels Histogram effect (one of my most used effects).

I also don’t think we need so many workspaces on the top bar. Can I ask, Who is using Small Screen? I think 3 or 4 are enough.

Another tweak I would suggest is to make the Comp viewer 100% which works for most monitors and gives enough vertical room for the properties panel to show all the text properties.

Attached a screenshot of how I am working.

[scrozier]

I wish the levels effect scaled with the width of the effects controls panel. 

[Kyle Hamrick]

I often keep Libraries open for color palettes, but that's about it. Agree with other comments that it otherwise doesn't feel like a super-relevant need in AE, and probably doesn't need to be in the Default workspace. 

Preview and Audio need a lot more vertical space than they're given in the proposed layout. Wouldn't this cause a lot of manual adjustment for those two panels? I personally use a combination of stacked/horizontal panel groups, but imagine the combination of this with the vertical "Accordion" style might be less intuitive for newer users. 

I'm probably ok with the Props Panel extending to the bottom of the screen. It feels like it's more effective if you can indeed see more properties at once, and while horizontal space in the Timeline is already at a premium, I'm guessing this layout makes more sense for the intended users of this layout. 

Idea: Properties Panel incorporates the functionality of Effect Controls, making the latter mostly obsolete. (I'd want it to remain available for power users, though.)