How do I animate individual elements inside of a precomp?

This IS of course the correct answer, it IS AE Basics... but... I admit that I still haven't found a fantastic solution to the obvious issue that occurs when you apply this solution...
What of course happens is that you will see your character alone, not in the scene... pedantically answering the question really doesnt give any brownie points, in this case, as you KNOW there's another, follow up question, just around the corner...

What if you are animation a hand shake with another character, thats also in a pre-comp, or just running down a street that's scrolling past in the main comp? Or bouncing some text onto a floor?
If I find myself in this situation, I open another instance of the main composition window, LOCK the main comp window.. then double click the comp to go in... when you move something in the precomp, it WILL move in the main... but there is a lag... it waits for you to drop, but its ok if you animate by changing numeric transform values of puppet pins or nulls.
However.--- an EDIT IN PLACE /greyed out mode, like they had in Flash (didnt they? bit rusty now) would be nice... where the MAIN comp is greyed out but is still visible...

Just thought I wanted to add it, in case someone has a cool way of doing this I aint thought of...

M

You animate the stuff inside the pre-comp.

Mylenium