Lock a composition's Work Area

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

My animation team as well as myself, have been begging for this feature for a really long time. We are constantly, accidentally clicking on our Work-Area bar, offsetting a couple of frames on a few occasions, and then sending for render, only to discover our opening fade in is half-way through it's transition, or our end is now too long and we have content disappearing.

We desperately would like to have the ability to right click on the work-area bar and select "lock". This would maybe put some strikethroughs over the range, similar to a locked layer in Premiere, do show that we can't make adjustments. If you click and try to set it it could say "would you like to unlock and make changes?", or you could right click and "unlock". Huge timesaver for those fire-drill projects that cause the stupid mistakes.

Thanks!

[Rafael12345]

Just came to ask for this one. Seems easy to implement and would be incredibly useful!

[pranjalB]

I am also begging for this feature :(. I mean how difficult it is to make that feature????

[Earthstar Smith]

This is a very, very long overdue feature, anyone who animates in After Effects, and has to scrub through the timeline will inevitably bump the work area over, since you have to click it to scrub the marker, this results in countless annoying undos at best, and shots having to be re-rendered due to work the area being off if you don't catch a nudge that you inadvertently made. Please Adobe, I am begging you to add a switch or option to lock the work area within a comp. This has been a thorn in my side animating for quite a long time, and seems like an obvious and simple fix to make.

[bigfootry1218]

As somebody who scrubs footage everyday, it shocks me this doesn't exist. Especially considering how seemingly it would be to implement.

[defaultg5ru6tga2x2z]

I just realized that I spent hours retiming mouth positions of a character, because I set the work area off by 3 frames accidentally, without realising it and thought I had made a mistake in Character Animator.
Stuff like that happens sooooo often. It is unbelievable, that this feature doesn't exist after what...15 years of development?
To explain to the develoeprs, why this is important:
Often you have larger pojects consisting of smaller parts in After Effects, that you combine in Premiere. Then you constantly work on details in the smaller parts, rendering multiple times. It's essential that the rendered Work Area remains the same, so the parts align correctly in Premiere.

[sethcshort]

Yes Please! I'm having to re-render and re-post a final video due to having accidentally moved the work area slightly. Such a waste of hours of render time, and my deadline crunch!

[DrewRae]

Adobe doesn't invest enough in developers for AE or even Premiere Pro. It's evident in the software itself. If I didn't have to use it for my job, I would have been gone a long time ago. I'm here cause I googled how to lock a composition's timeline and it made me laugh and cry when I saw it wasn't yet a feature. This is such a simple thing to implement and would save companies billable hours and frustration. But of course, Adobe doesn't see this as high enough on the totem pole to do anything about it... so it will likely never be implemented. 

[OllieMotion]

Yep that would be a great thing to fix. Please do that Adobe!

[lorilinstruth]

I just came here to ask for the same thing. Mind boggling that you can't do this simple thing. I'm constantly moving the work area accidentally when I go up to move a comp marker or when I'm scrubbing. Literally dozens of times per day. Drives me absolutely round the bend, contributes to RSI. I would love to be able to lock/unlock the work area with a keyboard shortcut. Does anyone know if it's possible to create a script that would do this? I'm guessing not, but had to ask.

[Rick Gerard]

Modify the render settings to use the comp length instead of the work area. You can save custom presets. Another good idea is to follow a checklist. 

[lorilinstruth]

The problem isn't during rendering (for me, anyway). The problem is that while working in AE, it's super freaking annoying to inadvertently move the work area when you're trying to move something else, like a comp marker. It's a small thing in the grand scheme, but is such an unnecessary annoyance and time waster.

[Earthstar Smith]

Thanks for the advice, but this isn't a fix or workaround to the problem at hand, which is wanting to make use of the work area, without it getting inadvertently nudged around in the process of animating.