Today’s Question: Every now and then in Lightroom Classic the left and right panels (but not the top and bottom panels) will disappear. I have to click on the left and right edges of the screen to get them back. Is this a glitch, or am I doing something to cause this issue?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The most likely explanation here is that you are inadvertently pressing the Tab key, which will hide (or reveal) the left and right panels in Lightroom Classic.
More Detail: Keyboard shortcuts in software can be incredibly convenient, unless you accidentally press a key resulting in some change you weren’t intending or anticipating. In this case, it sounds like you’re accidentally pressing the Tab key, which hides or reveals the left and right panels.
The Tab key enables you to cycle through text fields, and so for example in Lightroom Classic you might press Tab to switch between the editable fields in the Metadata section of the right panel in the Library module. But if a text field isn’t active, pressing Tab will instead hide the left and right panels. If that happens, you can simply press Tab again to reveal the panels, so you don’t need to click on the edge of the screen to bring the panels back.
Note that you can also hide or reveal all four panels by holding the Shift key while pressing the Tab key.
Whenever you have a situation where something changes in Lightroom Classic where you believe an accidental keyboard shortcut may have caused the issue, there are a couple of ways to figure it out. You can scan the menus in Lightroom Classic, where keyboard shortcuts are found to the right of applicable commands. You can also review (and search) the list of keyboard shortcuts for Lightroom Classic on the Adobe website here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/keyboard-shortcuts.html
