Locking ACTION layer / Creating EXPRESIONS out of ACTIONS

[prabhat]

Hi,

Need some help on the following.

I have few independent actions like 'Eye rolling', 'mouth closing', 'tongue rolling' in independent layers.

Now, I want to create 'stock expressions' like, let's say, 'whistling' or 'singing' wherein I need to use combinations of independent actions as mentioned above.

1) Is it possible to create a GROUP layer that will hold few action layers and be treated as an expression layer?

2) I tried a forced method. I created a new action layer called whistiling and tried to do the POINT ANIMATION in mouth, tongue and eye layers.
But everytime, i move from one layer to another, the control in action window 'quitely' shift to the mainline(?). And all the changes I made would appear in the main time line rather than action timeline.

Is there a way to 'LOCK' the action layer during editing? This will help us edit all independent object layers for a particular action.

Or, atleast have POP-UP window before the 'control' shifts out of a particular action layer.

Regards

Prabhat MOHANTY