Forum Discussion
Scrubbing the timeline
Is there a way to scrub the play head on the timeline so you can see your animation in action without previewing or hitting the play button on the bottom left corner? I find these 2 methods highly inefficient especially when I'm only making minor adjustments and want to see how they look right away.
54 Replies
Hi, all!
I have some great news to share. We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 66, we’ve included important fixes and new features.
One of the features we’ve included is:
Scrub the timeline to quickly see when timed elements appear and disappear on the stage without previewing the entire slide.
To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.
Please let me know if you need additional help!
What about in SL3? Is it going to appear there too?
OMG, this is amazing!
So much better for animation. A weird issue with scrolling on the timeline header zooming in and out.
Hello Al, while timeline scrubbing is exclusive to Storyline 360 update 66 and later, it is compatible to SL3, which means any course authored with this update will have no problems opening up in SL3.
I appreciate the enthusiasm Josh! About the weird issue you mentioned, are you able to provide more context with us? I've been unsuccessful in getting something to happen by zooming in and out of the timeline using my mouse's scroll wheel.
The scrub is OK but if you have an animated object with anything other than fade, it does not display correctly.
I have a callout that I have animated to wipe from the right. When I use the scrub feature it only shows the animation as a fade.
Sort of OK feature but let down if all you can view is a fade.
Hi Glenn! Thank you for your feedback. That is correct, timeline scrubbing will show basic fade-in/fade-out animations where objects are applied any kind of animation to give a quick sense of the timing. To see the full animation along with slide interactions, previewing the slide is the best way to experience the content's intended behavior.
It's unfortunate that my triggered state changes do not show up either. I have to Publish the slide to Review360 in order to preview.
Thank you Maura. I appreciate you chiming in! The timeline scrubbing feature was built with the goal of increasing productivity by allowing authors to see where objects appear on the timeline, eliminating the need to manually toggle visibility on/off as folks here have noted in the past. The intent was not to replicate preview or publishing to Review, as those modes are the best environments suited for testing the complex workings of triggers/interactions.
A comprehensive description of what this feature does can be found here.
Thanks so much for sharing this information with our community, Michael! ✨
Hi Al! I apologize as I may not have come across as clear as I imagined. When I said that SL3 users won't have problems opening courses authored in SL360 Update 66. What I meant was that this feature doesn't prevent SL3 users from opening the courses created in SL360 Update 66, not that the feature itself is supported in SL3. Timeline scrubbing, as with the other timeline improvements are all SL360-specific.
You can refer to this support article for a comprehensive list of feature compatibility between SL3 and SL360.
I'm just so happy scrubbing in the timeline is there now! I'm sure more will be added to this feature in the future, hopefully sooner than it took to get it! ;) But, this is sooo very helpful! Thank you!
So happy to hear you're happy about this latest addition, Fred!
Hope you enjoy developing future projects! 🎉
Thank you for the additional context Josh!
So, will there be another version of SL3 with this feature in it? SL4 maybe?
Just seems pointless if updates arnt decanted across. Not everyone uses rise
etc?I feel your pain, Alastair, as my team was opposed to moving from SL3 to SL360 for a long time. We finally upgraded to SL360, and we're glad we did. We figured the future is inevitable, and anticipating updates to SL3 was like taking a 1974 Chrysler New Yorker to a dealership today for a tune up, or asking Adobe to update Photoshop CS6. For us, the change has been well worth it. For example, Review 360 is a fantastic tool we never knew would be so useful (especially while working from home). And I'm betting SL360 will get updated with great new features often. This is simply my opinion and my experience, but I hope it helps.
