Timeline

Every layer can animate. The timeline at the bottom of the editor is where you drive that animation: one track per layer, keyframes on each track, playhead to scrub time, plus band operations and markers for finer control.

Anatomy

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [▶ Play] [‖] [■]  Duration: 5000ms  [Loop]  [+ Keyframe]    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Ruler  0 ─────── 1000 ─────── 2000 ─────── 3000 ─── ▼ ─ 4000│ ← playhead
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Layer A    ●─────────●──────────●                            │
│ Layer B          ●──────────●────────●                       │
│ Group C    ▸ ●──────────●                                    │
│   ├─ Scene1 (own timeline, loops independently)              │
│   └─ Slider timeline (auto-aligned to slides)                │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Layer rows mirror the panel. Group rows can’t carry keyframes (animate the contents instead, or convert the group to a scene).

Playback controls

In the editor toolbar (visible when the timeline is open):

• Play — start playback from the playhead.
• Pause — freeze on the current frame.
• Stop — return to 0 and freeze.

Duration (ms) — set the total duration of the stage timeline. Cannot go below the position of the last keyframe (the editor will tell you “Cannot go below Nms — last keyframe sits there”). On slider stages the duration is auto-computed from slides and locked from manual editing.

Loop — when on, playback returns to the start instead of stopping. Optional Loop marker (see below) lets you loop only a sub-range.

Adding and editing keyframes

• Click on a track — adds a keyframe at the click time, with the current layer state.
• Drag a keyframe — moves it in time.
• Double-click a keyframe — edits its values.
• Right-click a keyframe — keyframe menu:
  • Edit keyframe
  • Edit scramble settings… (text scramble keyframes)
  • Copy keyframe / Paste keyframe at playhead
  • Easing → Linear / Ease in / Ease out / Ease in-out / Custom (bezier — opens the Bezier modal)
  • Duplicate (+100 ms)
  • Snap playhead here
  • Delete keyframe

The right shortcut strip’s Effects popout has an “Effect ease” picker that applies easing to all selected keyframes at once.

Selecting a band

Drag on an empty area of a track to draw a selection range (a colored band). With a band selected, right-clicking gives band operations:

• Add keyframe at cursor
• Copy fragment — copy every keyframe inside the band to clipboard.
• Paste fragment here — paste a previously copied fragment at the cursor.
• Reverse keyframes — mirror keyframes in time within the band.
• Time stretch… — opens a modal where you set a percentage to scale the band’s duration.
• Delete fragment — remove every keyframe inside the band.

Markers

Three timeline markers, each placed by right-clicking on the ruler:

• Loop marker — sets a custom loop restart point. When Loop is on, playback returns here instead of to time 0. Useful when an intro should play once and the loop should cycle after it.
• Intro-end marker — the end of the intro section. Wrap clones (see below) and animation engines treat keyframes before this marker as one-shot intro keyframes.
• Outro-start marker — the start of the outro section. Helps the engine know which keyframes are outro vs middle (loop) content.

Click and drag a marker to move it; right-click on the ruler to add/remove.

Animation presets

The Apply animation preset button (next to the playhead controls) opens a categorized picker:

Entrance

• Fade in
• Slide in (left / right / top / bottom)
• Slide in (top-left, 45°)
• Flip 3D (left / right)
• Scramble in — text-specific; opens a modal for scramble settings.

Emphasis

• Pulse
• Shake
• Rotate Y 360°

Exit

• Fade out
• Slide out (bottom-right, 45°)
• Scramble out — text-specific.

Picking a preset auto-generates the keyframes for the selected layer starting at the playhead. The Scramble modal requires extra params (order: left-to-right / right-to-left / etc.).

For the full list with default durations and easings see Reference → Animation presets.

Clipboard at the top right of the timeline

• Copy animation — copies all keyframes of the selected layer.
• Paste animation… — opens a modal showing what will be applied + lets you confirm.
• Clear animation — removes every keyframe from the selected layer.

Scenes and their own clocks

A scene is a container layer with its own timeline that runs on its own clock. In the timeline view, the scene’s row carries a Scene plays once / Scene loops independently toggle. Loop-independent scenes run forever regardless of the root stage timeline — useful for a logo animation that keeps cycling while the rest of the stage holds still.

A slider-timeline root scene is special: its duration is auto-computed from slides and segments correspond to slide boundaries. The engine pauses at each segment; the slider plugin resumes on slide change.

Snap

The Snap to keyframes / markers / ticks toggle in the timeline header makes drag operations snap to nearby keyframes, markers, or ruler tick marks. Hold Alt while dragging to bypass snap.

Zoom

• Zoom in / out — buttons in the timeline header.
• Double-click the zoom button — reset to 100%.

Zoom only changes the visual density of the timeline; it doesn’t change durations.

Easing

Per-keyframe easing controls how the value interpolates from this keyframe to the next:

• Linear — constant rate.
• Ease in — slow start.
• Ease out — slow end.
• Ease in-out — slow at both ends.
• Custom (bezier) — opens the Bezier editor modal where you draw a cubic-bezier curve.

The ease applies to the segment after the keyframe (i.e. the keyframe’s outgoing curve).

Where to go next

• Layer Style — what you’re animating (effects + transforms).
• Reference → Animation presets — full preset list.
• Storefront → How stages render — what the timeline outputs on the client.