For question 1, yes it's a simple matter of setting a different panel layout (from the tool bar on the lower left side of the screen) or from the viewport menu "Panels". Then spacebar will toggle the most recent panel layout and full view of one of the panels. You can also create custom layouts and save them.

For question 2, yes that is possible I believe, but it's a bit more complex and I don't know the details. You should be able to do some google searching and get a lot of information about transferring rigs and animation to new models.