"Fit timeline to longest object" function not working

Mar 20, 2024

Brett Conlon
By Brett Conlon

When I first heard about this feature being added to the updates, I was excited, but I've never been able to get it to work.

Typically, I use an existing slide from another course with the layout I want and all the triggers correctly set up and I right-click on the video and choose  the "Replace video > Video from File..." option. The new video is obviously different in length (they are often much longer or much shorter). But, whenever I try to use the "Fit timeline..." function, NOTHING happens - I don't recall I've ever had this feature work and, YES, I'm on the latest Storyline version.

Previously when I tried it - and failed - I'd just manually drag the end of the timeline to the right place (which is sometimes painful when I've replaced a 30+ mins video with a 2 min video) but I've currently got a project with 9 videos and I'd really like to get to the bottom of this!

What am I missing? I've tried right-clicking in the timeline's ruler and on any object in the timeline (including the video itself), then selecting the "Fit timeline..." function. It seems that Storyline's "Fit timeline..." function is not fully aware of the replaced video or it's new length.

In playing with it further, today, I've found a workaround where I first select "Reset timeline to default" (shrinks it to 4 seconds) and then I select INSERT > Video > Video from file to re-import another copy of it, the timeline jumps to the right length. Then I just delete the imported video so the first one remains. I'll keep doing this until I can find a proper solution.

Any thoughts???

Thx, Brett

5 Replies
Jose Tansengco
1 month ago03/21/24 at 6:00 pm (UTC)

Hi Brett,

Happy to chime in!

The "Fit timeline to longest object" feature shortens the timeline duration to the lengthiest object in the slide. Here's a quick video showing how the feature works. You won't see the timeline move if you have an object that is set to"show until the end". Check out to see all of the improvements that have been made to the timeline: 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Brett Conlon
1 month ago03/25/24 at 3:26 am (UTC)

Thanks, Jose, for sending the video and adding clarifying point about the "Show Until End" setting.

However, that raised a number of questions for me so I've had a good play with it and I think I understand what's going on now. Please find below the following behaviours I observed - maybe these will be helpful to someone else reading through this thread in the future.

  • As a default, all new objects placed on the timeline are set to "Show Until End" (including video objects).
  • When all objects on the timeline (including your video) are set to "Show Until End" you can move the timeline's end-point to wherever you like (ie. you can drag it to even longer or shorter than a video object on the timeline).
  • If you turn OFF the "Show Until End" feature for any object (incl. your video) you can only shrink the timeline down to as far as the end of that object (ie. you can't shrink it shorter than the end of that object).
  • If the END of the slide's timeline is beyond where the video ends (eg. the scenario where you've replaced a long video (30 mins) with a shorter one (5 mins) and the timeline's END-point is way longer than it should be) and ONLY the video object has the "Show Until End" function set to OFF, you can use the "Fit timeline to longest object" feature to shrink the timeline to the end of the video object. HINT: if the duration of the other objects on the slide don't need to be a set length, then turn the "Show Until End" setting ON for those objects. The video object will then govern the length of the timeline.
  • If you've trimmed the length of a video object (eg. a 10 minute video's duration is set to 5 seconds) and the end of the video sits on the timeline's END (ie. both the video and the slide's timeline end at the same time), when you preview the slide, the full video will play anyway, even when both the video's duration and the timeline's duration have completed.
  • [?A BUG?] If you've trimmed the length of your video (eg. by setting the duration of a 10 minute video to 5 seconds) and the video's end sits BEFORE the slide timeline's END (eg. even one-eighth of a second before the end), when the slide previews, the video's image will stop at it's set duration (eg. 5 seconds) but the video's audio continues to play on, even when the timeline of the slide has completed. Further to this, in my test project, I have set up 2 toggling layers for PAUSE and PLAY. When the video image stopped and the audio kept playing, I clicked on the screen which activated my pause button layer (this sets triggers to pause the base layer's timeline and pause the video) and the audio stopped playing. When I clicked again,  it activated my play button layer (this sets triggers to resume the base timeline and play the video) and I could now both see the video image AND hear the audio... all of this doesn't seem correct behaviour.
  • If the original duration of a video object has been changed (eg. a 10 min video has been changed to 5 seconds), and you want to reset it to the original duration, you'll need to either re-import it again or right-click on the video object in the timeline and choose "Timing" then manually enter the correct Mins/Secs in the Duration fields. There doesn't seem to be a "reset" option.
  • The "Fit timeline to longest object" feature really only works to "shrink" the timeline to the longest object. If you are replacing a short video with a longer one, then having the shorter video's "Show Until End" function set to OFF, before you replace it, will cause the timeline to re-position itself to the new, longer video. Using the "Fit timeline to longest object" when all objects on the timeline are set to "Show Until End" has no effect because, effectively, there are no objects with a set duration to snap to.
  • Going forward, I'll now always change the "Show Until End" setting to OFF for all my video objects and will leave other objects as ON (as their default) so that the "Fit timeline to longest object" feature will work when needed.

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the above.

Many thanks,

Brett

Jose Tansengco
1 month ago03/25/24 at 6:31 pm (UTC)

Hi Brett,

Thanks for sharing your observations! Most of them are expected behavior. You can find more details about Storyline 360's timeline feature here: 

I did want to test Point 6 that you raised since it appears that media is being played even when it shouldn't. Would you be willing to share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at what's happening? We'll delete it when we're done testing!

Brett Conlon
1 month ago03/26/24 at 12:25 am (UTC)

Thanks for replying, Jose.

Yes, I read the article you linked, but it doesn't go into the object's behaviours so I had to do my own testing.

I've attached the test files but I suspect that you'll see the same issue there. Here's my replication steps:

  1. Create a new project (16:9)
  2. Place a video (eg. 17 seconds) on the timeline
  3. Change the video's duration (eg. to 5 seconds)
  4. Place the end of the video on the end of the slide's timeline
  5. Preview the slide and observe that the video plays (image and audio) beyond the timeline
  6. Move the video on the timeline so that it ends just before the timeline ends (even a fraction).
  7. Preview the slide and observe that the video image stops when the slide's timeline ends but the audio continues to play beyond the timeline

BTW, if you change the duration settings of a video, should it stop playing at the new duration's ending? If not, what is the point of changing the duration?

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