Improving the Playhead of the Storyline 360 Timeline

Hi E-Learning Heroes,

In the recent update of Storyline 360 significant time saving upgrades were included for everyone to enjoy. A small issue regarding the scroll bar was resolved very quickly later on by the Articulate Team as well, which made the Timeline even better.

After nearly two months with these new time saving upgrades and some good discussions within the teams that I work with we found a small issue that could be resolved to massively improve the timeline.

The new update has made the playhead more important, when you copy content it's always pasted in front of the playhead (amazing!) and above the object that is currently selected (great!). These new functionalities make the playhead more relevant and therefore the playhead NEEDS a small change.

Right now if you select on object on the timeline and you click the playhead to a new location, Storyline 360 deselects the objects you have selected. This was fine before the April update but now the playhead has become an essential part of the timeline. Using it is integral to realize it's time-saving potential. But now you have to be careful because any time you "touch it" Storyline 360 deselects all the items you previously selected. 

This is important because you need to have an object selected in the timeline to make use of the time saving feature "paste with confidence" (see: Storyline 360: Enhanced Timeline Management). You want to have an object selected and the playhead in the right position to copy an object exactly where you need it. Now you see the problem, you can't safely interact with the playhead because Storyline 360 deselect(s) the object(s) you had selected. As you can see in the video you have to go back to the object and select them again.

This idea came to our mind after using the new timeline for the past two months and after looking at timelines of other software (e.g. Adobe After Effects) we realized how much of a difference this change would make.

In short: Please update the playhead of the timeline and adjust its functionality so users can move the playhead without deselecting the object(s) they currently hold selected. 

Together with my team I want to give as much feedback as possible on these new timeline upgrades and quite often small changes can make a big difference. Just like the fix that was implemented recently, which stopped Storyline 360 from jumping to the top of the timeline if something was copied to the bottom of the stack. 

Best Regards.
Melvin