Summary
Any category menu or user panel can become a real After Effects panel, docked wherever you want it. The tools you use constantly stay visible instead of being two clicks away.
Dock a panel
Click a category to open its menu, then click the Dock icon in the title bar. The menu becomes a panel you can drag into place anywhere in your After Effects workspace.
User panels dock the same way.
https://media.motionape.com/docs/mobar/images/dockable-panels.gif
After Effects remembers docked panels, so they're still there the next time you open it. There's no limit on how many you can dock.
Dock or detach
The two icons do different things.
- [icon:https://media.motionape.com/docs/mobar/icons/icon-dock.svg] Dock turns the menu into an After Effects panel. It docks alongside your other panels, moves with your workspace and persists between sessions.
- [icon:https://media.motionape.com/docs/mobar/icons/icon-detach.svg] Detach floats the menu as a free window on top of After Effects.
What works in a docked panel
A docked panel is a full MoBar panel, not just a menu. Hover any tool for the full tooltip, including a link to its documentation.
What else you can do depends on the panel.
- Category panels hold a fixed set of tools. You can hide the ones you don't use, but you can't reorder or edit them.
- User panels hold whatever you put in them. Drag items to reorder, and right-click to edit or delete.
💡 Keep the main panel open. Docked panels rely on it to run their tools, and won't work without it.
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Hide items you don't use
Category panels come with a fixed set of tools, so a docked category panel lets you hide the ones you don't need. The star icon next to each item becomes a hide icon. Click it and that item disappears from the panel.
https://media.motionape.com/docs/mobar/images/dockable-panels-show-hide.png
Unhide All at the bottom of the panel brings everything back. Click it again and your hidden items disappear once more, so you can pull up a hidden tool when you need it and put the panel back the way you had it.