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Analysis

Overview

This group of tasks covers the basics of Timelines. It describes the model (internal structure) and the user interactions (external structure) related to timelines. After this iteration we should have a prototypical timeline model with a simple user interface to demonstrate it.

Task requirements

In this revision, this task should create:

• an "Show Timeline" toggle at the top of the timeline palette in the timeline tab that opens the bottom flap and shows the currently selected object's timeline.

The timeline flap shows timeline properties for a selected object (which can be a frame or a group of frames) or a page.

The timeline flap for an object should consist of:

• the title bar of the timeline flap should display the name of the selected object.
• a channel for the frame's visibility property; more channels will appear in later revisions of this task.
• (If more than one frame is in the group, each frame in the group should have its own set of channels.)
• a playhead that can be moved across the timeline from 0:00 to 1:00.
• a control bar for the selected channel with two fields and four buttons:
  • a field where the user can enter a start point (by default 0:00)
  • a field where the user can enter a stop point (by default 0:00)
  • a "toggle visibility" button: if clicked this will change the state of the frame's visibility from the start point to the end point.
  • a "show all" button: if clicked this will make the frame visible for the complete duration of the timeline.
  • a "hide all" button: if clicked this will make the frame invisible for the complete duration of the timeline.

By default, all frames on the page are shown all the time. If the user changes a frame's visibility, this will be reflected in the frame's channel. If the user moves the playhead, the page should reflect the visibility of the text frames at that particular point in the timeline.

In future revisions of this task, other kinds of frames will appear on the timeline. Other frame properties (example: margin types) will appear as channels for each frame; each of these properties should probably have its own dedicated control bar (e.g., color & width settings for margins).

Future revisions of this task will allow starting a timeline from a link; this task only includes manipulating the timeline via the timeline interface in Author to show and hide text frames.

A wireframe:

Tthe properties of the selected frame or object appear as channels. For this revision, it's just visibility. The channels can be selected; in this wireframe, Frame A's visibility is selected. (In the future, we'll want multiple selection.)

The control bar of the timeline interface has fields for start point, end point, and four buttons. If the user clicks the "Hide All" button, the frame will be hidden from 0:00-1:00. If the user thn enters 0:10-0:20 and clicks the "Toggle Visiblity" button, the frame will be shown from 0:10-0:20.

Below the control bar is the slider (the orange arrow); this can be dragged back and forth by the user.

The timeline for a page shows channels for all the objects on the page; they can be activated or deactivated:

An activated frame will play its timeline when the page timeline plays.

Task result

Source code

Implementation idea

Related

TIMELINES
TIMELINES/OldVersion (previous version of this task)

How to demo

• Create a book
• Add 2 text frames to the page
• Open the page's timeline.
• Set one of the frames to show at a certain time; set the other to hide at the same time.
• Drag the slider back and forth to show that the timeline works.

Design

Implementation

Testing

^{Place the testing results here.}

Comments

I've moved the old version of this page here: TIMELINES/OldVersion. --danvisel, 17-06-09.