Peter, do not keep the "Object Related track" green. Click on it and make it gray before selecting the prop, then, when a prop/avatar is selected, click on the "Object Related track" to make it green (prop/avatar goes to the timeline) and click again.. back to gray. This way camera would not disappear from a timeline.
As to locking the items... unfortunately not and it annoys me a lot as well.
"Track Menu List" is the most useless and underdeveloped UI feature in iClone. With heavy loaded scene (avatars/props), it becomes cluttered with items, which nobody ever need to animate and have it on a timeline.
Things like CC_eyes, CC_teeth, upper, lower, hair.. etc. Who does ever animate those things? And they are all listed above the camera, which should be animated in every scene.
And the funnies thing is, that if you have 5 avatars, then in the "Hair" category for instance there would be 5 rows of just... "Hair".. But which is for which avatar???
You think OK, I'll tolerate and just collapse all useless categories... and you do.
But no, as soon as you reopen Track Menu, all are expanded back. I can go on and on...
Anyhow, I never open "Track Menu" list and mostly work with "Object Related track". I keep it gray all the time, then, when I need to place something to the timeline,
I'll select item first, click on "Object Related track" making it green (item to the timeline), and then click again, back to gray (otherwise, next time I select any item, it would jump to the timeline clearing all existed items).
Also very inconvenient, but that is all we have. I meant to open a ticket with FT about it, but then again statistically 95% of feature requests are getting ignored regardless of vote count.
But if someone from RL is reading this.... The track menu is a crucial animation interface (after the timeline itself)
At minimum it should have (just off the top of my head):
* Dock-able interface (track menu itself)
* Ability to resize the interface
* Ability to sort track list items (in the menu and on the timeline)
* Ability to assign custom placement priority (in the menu and on the timeline)
* Ability to lock items at the timeline, so they cannot be removed with Object related tracks.
* Tree like list for props/sub-props in the Track list menu.There probably more... feel free to add!