Remove Timeline quick navigation and mode toggle + add timeeline toggles to Power User Tools

[ReinerBforartists]

I am not happy with the actual change to give the reintroduced timeline the quick navigation buttons from dope sheet, graph editor etc. . It is visual noise, and makes no sense, workflow wise. The timeline was never meant to be part of the animation editors to actually edit the animation. It never was in the past. It provides the play elements.

It is also troubled implemented anyways. It shows that you are in dope sheet and in timeline. If even then these elements should be grouped together, to actually have five buttons, and not four plus one, with inconsistent display and behaviour. Which button shall the user click here?

But as told, when it's about me then remove the quick navigation buttons from the timeline all together. When you need the Playback controls, then turn them on in dope sheet or the other three editors. You can show them as a footer there.

[Draise14]

Problem is...timeline IS the dopesheet but a mode now.

If it were to us and Blender we wouldn't even have a timeline. But user feedback has a resounding need to include a shorthand for the timeline mode of the dope sheet.

If you remove the shorthand for the mode, you ignore the artist.

It's legacy anyway so may be removed in 5.1. this is regression from Blender due to user cryout and vote. So I put the mode as explicit, that the timeline IS the dopesheet, just another mode so the UX of two editors is not confused as it previously was.

[Draise14]

What I can do is hide the animation editor toggles when the dopesheet is in Timeline mode.

It technically is NOT an editor.

[ReinerBforartists]

I see. But it breaks more than one UI UX design rule. It adds visual overload without to really bring any improvement to the workflow. Quite the opposite, the visual overload makes the workflow now more cumbersome. You have now to choose which path to follow. You start to drag editors around again, since the timeline is collapsed. And when you switch the timeline at the bottom to dope sheet, then you have to drag it to open it. And it is, as shown, faulty implemented.

The faster and more convenient way is to switch to the animation layout, where everything needed is already open and in place.

The user does not know the technics behind the curtain. Our job is in fact that the user nerver needs to look behind it. That the Timeline is now part of the Dope Sheet is just of interest for us developers. That's also the case with one of the other animation editors.

What happens when you listen to every individual voice can be seen at Blender. Our job is to care for the masses. To provide an actually consistent design that makes most of the users happy.

You know that i usually don't intervene. This is one of the cases where i do. Don't throw the user to death with all possible tools and settings. Don't give the users a more cumbersome way to do things, he might get used to it, and then we have a real problem.

I repeat, the timeline was never meant to be used together with the other four editors. It just provides the controls.

This change is not a good change. You don't do us a favour here. My wish remains. Please make an old man happy. Remove it alltogether from the Timeline, and in the other editors make the buttons four again, not five. As it was before.

[Draise14]

Ok... So once in the timeline we still gonna see the animation toggles since.. it's a dopesheet.

That would have to be also hidden conditionally

Also the Timeline toggle only shows in the dopesheet - all other animation editors doesn't not show the timeline mode toggle (el, no quick timeline mode toggle)

I can do this task to compromise:

1. Remove the animation toggles from the Timeline mode (but keep the mode toggle to go back to dopesheet and vice versa)

This is a compromise for artist requests (not blender) since they requested to keep the timeline as an animation editor.

Meaning you can opt in and opt out from the timeline mode only from dopesheet and timeline, but not see the editor toggles in the timeline mode - but can revert to normal dopesheet mode.

2. Keep the animation timeline isolated as we used to...

Considering we have already pushed this to socials, removal may cause confusion, and it keeps an animation editor separate from the other animation editors.

Imo, the timeline isn't used as only a header, but the whole timeline, as it's title, and can be used to adjust keys identically as the dooesheet. So it is a dopesheet UX ultimately, only with minimal header entries and playback now in header instead of footer.

But it is an identical dopesheet UX.

[ReinerBforartists]

Mh. Let me put it this way:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. There is now ways too much visual noise at the screen. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Ok... So once in the timeline we still gonna see the animation toggles since.. it's a dopesheet.

That's what code is for. It is a technical problem that can be solved, not written in stone.

Regarding requests, a blender user requested to have the mark seam going back into the UV menu after it was removed. It is also present in the Edge menu. Now Blender has it again in two menus asides. And this is what you ask for here.

Our job is not to fulfill requests from individuals to have individual workflows for each of them, our job is to provide consistent UI UX design for everybody. This makes compromises necessary sometimes. For the user. Not for the design. The design should go in a direction that leads the user to the goal with as few problems as possible.

Considering we have already pushed this to socials,

Sell it as a further improvement ^^

Give me a workflow where it is really an improvement to toggle between timeline and dopesheet. I know of none. And i did lots of animation back in the days. The only thing i see here is that any possible workflow now becomes more cumbersome when you really give the folks a way to switch between the editor types here.

[Draise14]

This assumes two levels of animation: simple and deep keyframe editing. The animation editor group is deep animation editing, and the timeline is simple animation editing.

First Pro:

From Defualt workspace

Typical workflowv

1. Pull up timeline
2. Edit keys timing on block out or timing. It also needs to be pulled up for timeline scrolling.
3. User needs to go deeper into animation editing eventually for curves or key type edits.

They have now a few choices:
A. Switch to animation workspace

B. Unhide animation toggle and find the dopesheet or graps editor in a submenu

C. Split editor, toggle to Dopesheet or graph.

Now if the timeline could immediately go into "animation mode" for all animation editors, from the header, this mean there is no need to split editor, switch workspace, or unhide the editor toggle.

Second pro

From the Sequencer workspace

We have a pinned timeline and sequencer editor. The goal here is to get into keyframing transitions and blur effects on strips. Meaning we need to get into deeper key tuning with the animation editors.

Like the first workflow, typically we gotta split and toggle, unhide and toggle, or spawn a new editor.

If we want to go to graph, we would could alternatively pull up timeline, and toggle into the graph.

Same applies to the compositor animation workflows.

Summery

Basically the long route to get into deeper animation requires changing the workspace, splitting editors or unhiding editor toggles. User have complained often that they can't find the editor toggle enough, so if we were to contain animation in the animation editors, we need a way to go in and out of the timeline editor in a discoverable way from contained animation workflows/editors.

[Draise14]

third solution

I'll remove and revert this then add this to the power user tools add-on , I can do that if you'd prefer @ReinerBforartists

No problem.

Don't wanna cause trouble and you too are the artist.