How the editor is laid out

The panels on the left: what can I add

Library is your own projects. Templates is the same 326 as the public library, grouped by what they do — applying one replaces the layers in the project you have open, so it is a starting point rather than something you drop into an existing design.

Channel fills your name, handle and mark into every layer that takes one. Elements is the raw material: text, buttons, shapes, images, SVG, a cursor, a press ripple, sparkles, and 3D objects. Motion is ready-made effects you can drop onto what is already there. Sound adds cues, with a character set so a project sounds like one thing. AI takes a description of what you want built or changed.

The canvas in the middle: what am I looking at

The canvas is the frame as it will export, played by the same renderer that does the exporting — what you see is what comes out, rather than an approximation that gets replaced at render time.

Selecting something puts handles on it: drag to move, corners to resize, and the handle beyond the corner to rotate. It works the same for a flat shape and for a 3D object, which turns in the same direction your hand does.

The panel on the right: what is this thing made of

Select a layer and its properties appear: position and size, text and typeface, fill and gradient, corner radius, border, shadow, and for glass how much it blurs what is behind it. A 3D layer adds its material, its lighting and how deep the extrusion is.

With nothing selected the same panel shows the composition — the size of the frame, how long the animation runs, and the speed, which retimes every keyframe together rather than asking you to move them one at a time.

The timeline along the bottom: when does it happen

Every layer has a row, and every row shows the moments where something about that layer changes. Those are keyframes. Dragging one moves when it happens; the animation between two of them is worked out for you.

The playhead is where you are in time. Move it and the canvas shows that moment — which is also how you add animation: with Auto Key on, move the playhead and then change position, colour, text or a 3D control, and the change is recorded at that point.

Questions

What is a keyframe?

A recorded value at a moment in time. Two keyframes on the same property — a position at half a second and a different position at one second — describe a movement between them, and the editor fills in everything in between.

What does Auto Key do?

With it on, changing a property while the playhead is somewhere records a keyframe there instead of changing the value for the whole animation. With it off, a change applies throughout. On is for animating; off is for setting how something looks.

Does applying a template replace what I have?

Yes. Applying one replaces the layers in the project you have open, so it is how you start a project rather than something to drop into a design you have already built.

Can I make the animation longer or shorter?

Both. Changing the length trims or extends the end without moving any keyframe; changing the speed scales every keyframe together, so the whole thing retimes and keeps its shape.