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Zoom tools in the graph editor

There are great tools to zoom in Audition and Premiere. How come no zoom tools in the graph editor? Yes, mouse wheel and alt+mouse wheel work, but why are there no buttons in the UI?

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Anonymous shared this idea  ·   ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
Needs More Info  ·  AdminTim Kurkoski (After Effects Product Owner, Adobe DVA) responded  · 

Thank you for filing this request.

Can you please elaborate on which zoom tools you’d like to see added to the graph editor? Please be specific.

At the bottom of the graph editor, there are four existing zoom tools:

  • The Zoom In – Zoom Out “mountain range” buttons and slider, which is present for the Timeline panel whether you’re viewing the graph editor or time layout.
  • The Auto-zoom Graph Height button (magnifying glass with double vertical arrow).
  • The Fit Selection to View button (graph box with one wavy line).
  • The Fit All Graphs to View button (graph box with three wavy lines).

More details about the graph editor is here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/animation-basics.html#the_graph_editor

Keyboard shortcuts for zooming (- and + keys, or Alt/Option + mouse wheel scroll) or panning (hold spacebar or H key to temporarily change to the Hand tool) in the Timeline panel also work when the graph editor view is open.

4 comments

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  • Peter Lund commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    and cool would be , if we could change the in and out point of the layer by moving the points around.

  • Frank commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I second this request. The navigation could be way more user-friendly.

    From the Adobe help:
    "To zoom using the mouse scroll wheel, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) while scrolling to zoom horizontally. Press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) to zoom vertically."

    Is it really useful to have this zoom be based on the mouse pointer location? Or is it based on something else? Sometimes it's hard to tell.
    For example, you'd like to zoom to the first 2 keyframes. Basically you have to move your mouse pointer outside the graph on the left side to zoom (alt+mouse scroll). Otherwise, the first keyframe will disappear on the left side.
    "Fit selection to view" is kind of workaround but there is no key shortcut for it.

    I really wish someone would finally prioritize updating the Graph Editor. Or at least add the possibility to assign shortcuts to "Fit selection", "Fit all graph to view" and so on.

    Thank you!

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I use the graph editor frequently, and have used AE since 1995. Since I use the whole suite (AE, PPro, Audition, etc.) I am advocating for consistent and useful UI across applications. In this regard, I find AE to have the poorest overall UI for detailed work in the timeline and editors.
    Take a look at the zoom tools in Audition and the double handled timeline zoomer in Premiere and then tell me that a whacked together combination of mountains, autofits and mishmash in AE makes any sense at all. It just doesn't.
    If you use this tool regularly, you usually end up with high peak velocity curves, low peak rotation values, and somewhere in between for other properties, and then Expression values don't show up at all. Constantly having to jump around in the submenus to toggle between speed and value, jacking the graphs up up up and down down down with no onscreen parameters or scale?
    Personally, would look at audio editing waveform tools (Logic, SoundForge, ProTools) for some help with this.

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