Option to prevent Auto open of properties panel PLEASE

[tristansummers]

Hello alll.

The new properties panel is causing crashes, but much more importantly, I want complete control over mu own workspace.

It is currently auto-opening whwnever I select a tool.

Please can a preference be added to turn off this behaviour?

And in the meantime, if anyone knows a hack to do it myself, I would appreciate it.

I think it is conflicting with complex expressions and third party script panels and basically is not yet a replacement for simply pressing UU.

I am sure it will be a great development when it is stable.

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[Ishan Y]

Hey tristansummers,

I'm sorry to hear about this. You can disable the properties panel by going to Window > Properties. Could you share more information about the crash? Do you see any error codes or messages? I'd like to help you troubleshoot.

Thanks,

Ishan

[tristansummers]

Hi

No you can't. It reopens every time you switch tools. hence the post!

Closing it has stopped the crashing on projects with a lot of shape layer expressions or with Overlord.

error code 41 I think last time

But I also trashed preferences again just to make sure

[Jessica McMillan]

@tristansummers 

Could you explain a workflow, where you closed properties panel on a workspace, did xyz actions and the properties panel came up again? Preferably after you had already experienced the discoverability popup of it?

I know that there was some discoverability features added so the first time you did some actions it would display along with a coachmark explaining the feature. Any time you reset/trash preferences, this would reset that discoverability check and would pop up the properties panel and that coachmark as well as resetting your workspaces where the properties panel would be present again.

Also - if you have an example project you could send us that crashes with the properties panel, that would be of interest to our engineering team to track down the source of the issue.

Thanks for your post.

All the best,
Jessica McMillan
AE Engineering

[tristansummers]

Thanks for looking into this.

the workflow is change tools any time ever.

So if I have the arrow tool selected anf I press G for the pen the properties panel pops up.

If I dock it, close , it opens again when I go back to another tool.

System seems stable at the moment but the conflict with overlord was a documented bug that kept BattleAxe users from being able to upgrade. 

Currently AE becomes unstable at about twenty concurrent expressions, but the properties panel causes expression error reporting because the error prompts before the expressions have finished calculating.

It is trying to read stuff that isn't there yet rather than looking at acahce and waiting for it to be filled. So it just freaks out and goes to the pub. Which is what I would do if I wasn't at the mercy of clients and producers

I just want it closed because it is of no use to me. It shows not enough information I can access faster in other ways. It does not show all the Shape stuff hidden away in twirl down inception insanity. A massively expanded versionm of it could be a useful tilde expandable addition but not this.

[JohnColombo]

Hi @tristansummers,

No hack required; with the Shape or Pen tool selected, disable "Auto-Open Panel" in the toolbar. The same is true for the Type tool.

I'd be curious to further investigate the crashes you are experiencing and attributing to the Properties panel. Have you submitted crash reports with your email so we could take a look at what's happening?

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

[tristansummers · Accepted solution]

Thanks that does it. guess I hadn't made the link that what used to open the charcter palette would open the not quite as useful properies panel.

If crashes didn't happen in the middle of nightmare deadlines I would have time to submit more detailed reports. I let the app submit reorts on the day it happened a lot but after the hunderedth time it seemed pointless. 

[JohnColombo]

I do see one report from you from within the last week that has some clues that we can investigate, so thank you! Even if you don't have time to type in detailed steps, simply filling out the email will allow us to reach out for information and connect the crash to your forum reports. We make lots of fixes based on reported crashes—they are a huge help as we continue to stabilize and improve AE.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

[Diana Souza]

Thank you so much, JohnColombo, for pointing us toward the "Auto-Open Panel"… geez… that auto-opening Properties window was driving me crazy too.

[jeremyw54803074]

I am also finding the properties panel to be frustrating, for a few reasons.

If I don't want it open, it means I don't want it open.

I can access the same information elsewhere, at any time, when I decide I need to.

We organize or apps so that it works for us. We don't want intrusive, unwanted, pop-ups, or redundent panels. If you want to have a properties panel, that's fine, but don't force its presence on us. Screen realestate is important and deliberate.

Lastly, when you have a panel that you need to close more than you use it, it is a problem.