Timeline Improvements

  1. What do you want to see in Hype?

Hello and just want to say I love Hype and is an extremely powerful program… thanks for the work!

Timelines:
Problem
When creating a new timeline for a given scene which is not already the main timeline, and then switching over to it in the drop-down menu, the same elements which are visible on the main timeline are also visible on the new created timeline… even if they are not going to be used on that new timeline. EX: If there is a circle, square, and svg shape on the main timeline, then those will also show up as potentially animate-able items in the newly created timeline for that same scene. The problem here is that when switching over to the newly created timeline, and then adding various animations, visually seeing all of the same elements available in all timelines slows down the mental processing time to remember "ok this element has no animations on timelines B & C, but does have them on The Main Timeline. This makes the user have to keep track mentally which timelines have or do not have animations for the same elements. The software does not visually tell this to you by simply looking at it by not including the elements with no animations. (Hope this makes sense)

Suggested Change:
For every newly created timeline in in the same scene, you could possibly add some sort of mini-menu which opens up and allows the user to click check boxes next to the elements which they want to appear in each timeline (Both the Main Timeline or any added timelines). The user would have the option to include the element in a specific timeline or all timelines. Basically its sort of like a filter which allows the users to pick what elements in that scene can be added for each timeline.

  1. Have you found a workaround for this problem?
    There really isn’t a workaround I have found except just keeping mental track of which elements have animations on which timelines.

  2. Are there examples of other apps with this feature? Or, have you seen examples of this elsewhere on the web? (Please include a URL)
    There are no other apps that I can think of which have this feature specifically. However, Adobe After Effects has a timeline system where you can nest elements inside of a timeline… and when the user opens that nested timeline, only those elements are inside… and not all elements. That way, the software does the thinking for the user and the user doesn’t have to think too much. This might not be a big deal for small animations… but once you get into more complex animations it becomes more of a problem.
    ** Note, Adobe After Effects has an excellent timeline system that is intuitive.

  3. How high of a priority is this for you?
    Very high because my designs are very timeline and animation driven.

[ ] Nice to Have
[X] Important
[ ] Can’t use Hype without it

1 Like

I would not want this,
I feel it would become a hindrence more than a help.

The Groups/ renaming elements etc… work well enough for me to keep things tidy if I so wish.

So for me this would be a complication that imho is not needed.

Still I am open to being convinced…

2 Likes

Thanks for the request!

I think the route we’d go is by better filtering that can apply to any timeline. This would include a search box and probably a few toggle options like if the element has animations. It isn’t clear to me if the filter should be remembered on a timeline basis yet; probably depends on the final UI.

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Hey Mark.

Actually I don’t think the idea would get in your way at all if you are already liking the current way that items are stacked on the timeline in Hype. The reason being is that if this feature was implemented by the Hype team… then the setup of your element stack in your timeline would be as it is now (and for those users who like it the way it is… this would just be optional), so you literally would not need any additional clicks beyond what you are currently doing. You would just ignore the option and it would be tucked neatly out of your way.

For folks like myself who use a variety of timeline software such as After Effects quite a lot, then AA basically doesn’t display an element in the timeline stack that is nested within another timeline (Unless you copy and paste the element into both timelines). This is nice because as the number of timelines used begin to grow very fast in AA (100+ sometimes in AA), yet not every element will appear in every timeline as in Hype. For EX: If I create 1 square and 1 circle on a top level master timeline (Hype calls it the Main Timeline), and then if I create a timeline that is nested within the main one… the elements appearing on the master timeline won’t appear in the nested one in AA. So the square and circle would not be included in the nested timeline and makes a cleaner UI experience. This is nice because it helps the user let the software visually tell the user what is in what timeline without them having to mentally keep track.

So a way to handle this might be… the checkbox idea… add a simple check box filtering system which is opened by an out of the way small button, and allows a user to include whichever elements they would want on whichever timeline they wanted. But really it would not need to be a check box system necessarily… it could any sort of filtering system as Jonathan mentioned which got a similar job done. Basically… it would just be a cleaner user experience, simplify the timeline, and allow the user to have the option to reduce the amount of unused non-animated elements in a stack.

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No problem Jonathan.

Yes something similar to what you mentioned. Basically a “yes-no” filtering system or “Include-Not Include in timeline” filtering system which would help the user keep their timelines simplified and clean for the elements which are not animated or not needed for that timeline for a given scene.

Yes, for me a filter is much better than something you have to manually dig through and click,click,click,click,click… to show or hide each element in each timeline

Option to persist filter may be helpful along with recent filter suggestions.

2 Likes

One item where Hype diverges from other tools is that the elements on the timeline is the only place you can get a listing of elements. I’ve seen apps that have an element list and a timeline only showing animated elements. But this seems redundant/wasteful of space for the most part. Some other tools have a coarser grained “layer” that multiple elements but aren’t individually animatable unless separated into a different layer. Whereas Hype lets every element be animated.

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Both really good points here… I have an idea that might be able to accommodate/handle both points (at least the first filtering system click, click, click point that Mark makes). After Effects has a really smart way of handling filtering elements on a timeline. I am referring to AA’s timeline only and not their upper left hand panel which is redundant to the timeline (and I think Jonathan’s point here touches on this redundancy). I could share another video on this topic Jonathan which I think would be useful but won’t make one unless you guys want one. Its easier for me to show a video than to type it out.

Alternatively, After Effects has a feature called “Shy” which allows the user to hide not only elements from a timeline, but also hide timelines from the main timeline if the user deems either elements or timelines themselves as “visually in the way”.

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I always like seeing other people’s workflows so you’re welcome to make a video, but I probably have a good grasp on this particular request and have ideas on how I want to handle it in the app :slight_smile:. We do have an item in our tracker specifically about the “shy layers” from AE which I learned about a while ago. Thanks!

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Ok… no problem… then I might not make one for this illustration in that case. :slight_smile: