How to view layers beneath a pre comp while working in a Precomp

Hi
I have recently transitioned from Motion to AE (a bit of jump but it's going OK) and one of the things I'm struggling with is Precomps. I'm treating them like I would a Group in Motion but I find it difficult when I want to edit the contents of a precomp and see in realtime what the changes look like over the layers beneath. In Motion you would twirl down the group track and then make changes to the elements in that group. These would update in the comp window in realtime, but opening up a Precomp is very different as you have to go into the precomp with no visual reference for the layers beneath.
I came across a suggestion that involved opening up a new viewer for a precomp, so that you have two windows (one for the precomp and one for the composition), but this is a bit unsatisfacory as changes are not updated in realtime and if you are working in 3D with multiple camera views, you end up with loads of windows.
Any suggestions
Thanks

You can create a new viewer in the Composition Panel and drag Timeline tabs to separate windows. You can use the lock features in Effects Control and Comp windows to keep things in view. Every panel in AE can be moved to a new location or attached to a panel group. You can save custom workspaces.

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How to view layers beneath a pre comp while working in a Precomp

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