Beginner's questions about the timeline

Elements
1

I’ve been using Hype for just over a month and I’ve managed to do a lot of things, thanks also to the help of the people who are more experienced here than me (thanks!).
I still have some doubts about the management of the timeline and its actions. I’ve read the guide online but my English is pretty “poor” and so I’m afraid I didn’t really understand some things. Here are some questions:

  1. Is there a way to command from a MAIN TIMELINE a timeline inside a Symbol? How?
  2. Can I command from a Symbol timeline the timeline of another Symbol? How?
  3. Can I control the MAIN TIMELINE from a Symbol timeline? How?
  4. Can I control the timeline of a Symbol that is inside another Symbol from this last Symbol? How?
  5. I didn’t really understand what the “relative timeline” is for…any concrete examples?

Thank you very much!

2

points 1 to 4: read on custom behaviours
point 5: @jonathan did some explanations on this topic in the past. may be even a video exists … in the gallery there’s the one great example with the ufo and the sheepes …

2 Likes
3

1 to 4: I understand the way, thanks
5: I run to see sheeps and Ufo!

4
  1. A relative timeline animates from a variable starting position meaning it takes the initial position as given and doesn’t manipulate it opposed to a regular timeline that reset the initial state to exactly the spot your animation was set up from. Example animation of red square from position left 10 to left 50 is a regular animation and if it is set relative and the red square is currently by chance at left 100 it will animate from left 100 to left 50 rather the be reset to left 10 before starting its animation.
5

1-4 custom behavior is not the only way but the easiest!

6

As mentioned, Custom Behaviors is probably going to be the easiest way for a lot of your cases, especially if you are targeting all instances of a symbol. To elaborate on other methods that can work with single instances:

  • On a symbol instance element, you can set a Symbol Action (in the properties area) that can control playback. Thus a parent can directly control a child.
  • You can use the JavaScript API to directly control instances. Generally you’d first call hypeDocument.getSymbolInstanceById() and then use the playback methods on that object like symbolInstance.startTimelineNamed(), but your usage in looking them up may vary, so please refer to the API.

To add onto number 5, there’s a section in the documentation that also includes a demo document that might be easier to understand.