Is it possible to open comps in same tab?

[Chaz Chester]

I’m not sure if there’s a way to do that specifically, but separating your view of the main comp and pre-comps might be a solution.

In the composition window, click the lock on your tab to keep it from showing you other comps, then double-click on a pre-comp and it should open a second composition window. If it open as a tab in the same window, just drag it to the right trapezoid of the window. This makes it so your main comp stays open on the left, even when you’re viewing other comps. Then, in the timeline panel, open all of your pre-comps, navigate back to the tab for your main comp, and drag it to the left trapezoid of your timeline window to create a new panel group. This should make it so you always see you main comp on the left and all of your pre-comps on the right. Does that help?

[Oğuz Özaslan]

Firstly i want to thank you for your help but i think i couldn’t explain myself enough. Sorry for my english btw its not my main language. In the timeline panel i have one comp and this comp has 9 pre comps. Each pre comps i need to open 5 or 6 pre comps and i want to open them same tab. Like when you search in google chrome you click buttons and travel same tab if you want to open seperate tab you right click and open in new tab. I want this control in my timeline. Because i am opening like 50 more comps and closing 40. This open close thing takes too much time.

Thank you.

[Walter Soyka]

There is no way I know of to open a timeline in the same tab in Ae.

A couple of workarounds I could suggest:

1) Use a program like AutoHotkey (Windows) or Keyboard Maestro (macOS) to record a keyboard macro that opens the selected comp (Enter), moves back one tab in the timeline viewer (Alt+Shift+<), and closes the tab (Ctrl+W).

2) Learn to use the composition navigator, flowchart or mini-flowchart to navigate your project, and avoid opening comps you don’t want in the first place:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/precomposing-nesting-pre-rendering.html#opening_and_navigating_nested_compositions

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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