Lost your panels in the UI - here is how to fix it...
I have seen people ask this question a couple of times, and there is actually an easy fix to the problem. The layout for an editor (editors are for example the mapping editor, the data object editor, the profile explorer etc.) is saved per computer to the file system. These files are written everytime the layout is changed and when running the editor OWB reads the layout. That is why, if a panel is "gone" it will stay that way...
When the product is newly installed these editor layout files are not there, so removing them is the solution to "missing panels". Removal means the panels are appearing as they are in "factory defaults".
You can find the layout files in "<Oracle Home>/owb/bin/admin" and they are typically either named <editorname>layout.xml (most of them) or <componentname>.layout. For example for mapping, the layout file is MappingEditorLayout.xml, for the console (the designer) the files is called console.layout.
I typically remove the file from the file system, but you may want to try renaming it if you are unsure that this is what you want to try...
