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Well, then create a mockup of what you imagine this would look like and post it for us to see.

Joost wrote:
It is great that you try to help to solve the problem. But:
This is exactly NOT what would help me. Why is this better than the way it works now?
My problem now is that I very often can't even see if I have drawn in a layer. Because the thumbnails are too small. a 150 percent zoom-in would help. But a pop up window wouldn't solve this problem. I can't see why this would be better than the way it works now. The thing is that I would like to be able to see in my timeline where something is drawn and where an frame is empty.

I agree with Joost

But can you create a mockup of what this would look like? Because my bet is that you would have to come up with something that looks pretty much like my screen print from the Vegas GUI. Either the frames will be large enough to discern what exactly is depicted in each frame, but not displaying more than a few frames at a time, or you would need more than just 4 monitors to get an overall view of the entire time line's landscape. This is why I believe Soom's idea is better, because you can quickly browse through the entire timeline until you come across whatever it is you are looking for. This also is nothing new and is used very effectively in Vimeo or other such video carriers, to assist in helping viewers locate a certain place in the story.

A good solution for me would be;
(Click the image if you want to see it bigger.)
I agree with Joost's comment that a pop-up is not preferable. I would like the interface as clear as possible, so please no pop-ups on mouse rollovers etc. It's distracting and can be very irritating.

And there is mock-up (of sorts) in Joost's first two posts of this thread.

Ahhh... I get it now! Each frame is its own zoom in so it's not that you see the frame larger but the image within the frame becomes zoomed in. Well, I'll step back for awhile because I can't say I ever felt that I could use something like this.

Sewie wrote:A good solution for me would be;


(Click the image if you want to see it bigger.)
I agree with Joost's comment that a pop-up is not preferable. I would like the interface as clear as possible, so please no pop-ups on mouse rollovers etc. It's distracting and can be very irritating.

I like this a lot!

Lukas wrote:

Sewie wrote:A good solution for me would be;


(Click the image if you want to see it bigger.)
I agree with Joost's comment that a pop-up is not preferable. I would like the interface as clear as possible, so please no pop-ups on mouse rollovers etc. It's distracting and can be very irritating.

I like this a lot!

+1

+1

Sewie wrote:A good solution for me would be;

ThumbZoom_MockUp.jpg

(Click the image if you want to see it bigger.)
I agree with Joost's comment that a pop-up is not preferable. I would like the interface as clear as possible, so please no pop-ups on mouse rollovers etc. It's distracting and can be very irritating.

I meant a pop-up would appear only by pressing a specific hot-key or mouse/pen button, not as default. It was suggested as an option for quick zoom view. What you propose here is a different concept, although might be useful to some. I understand that currently the frame thumbnail is good for nothing as you really don't see anything, so this solution might be good, although I would guess most professional animators will not find any use to it anyway - just like Paul said...

Just to make this clear, I WOULD find very useful your suggestion of a popup combined with the pressing of a certain key.

I don't find the close ups within individual frames useful because I can't see what purpose this would serve, except to find an empty frame -- and i doubt even that would work in all cases because the zoom could show only empty areas as the screen print with the stick man indicates. How would the zoom in know to zoom in to the bottom left corner?

But again, the key controlled popup makes a lot of sense and I beg that it be implemented, since Fabrice indicated that it would not require much time to do it. When animating or coloring, it often happens that one forgets to finish a drawing here and there and it would be nice to find where that frame is and on which layer, without having to advance the project window or touch the scrubbing cursor until one locates the exact frame with the popup. Then it just takes one jump to be there. Search/scrubbing with the project window can be an annoying exercise when the timeline is very long.

If the popup would work by dragging the frame directly over any layer (instead of dragging a cursor only over the ruler at the top as it is now) this would make a big difference in efficiency because the drag and stop would have to be much easier to control.

How would the zoom in know to zoom in to the bottom left corner?

It would just select the pixels that are there. The same way TVP knows how to put a bounding box around a drawing (or a selection of pixels) when it's selected with the transform or the warp tool.

But again, the key controlled popup makes a lot of sense and I beg that it be implemented, since Fabrice indicated that it would not require much time to do it. When animating or coloring, it often happens that one forgets to finish a drawing here and there and it would be nice to find where that frame is and on which layer, without having to advance the project window or touch the scrubbing cursor until one locates the exact frame with the popup. Then it just takes one jump to be there. Search/scrubbing with the project window can be an annoying exercise when the timeline is very long.

I don't see how that's more efficient than my suggestion where you would just be able to see what's in a layer without having to click or drag anything. No click, no drag, you can just see whats there in the thumbnails of the timeline the same way you can now when your drawings are bigger.

If the popup would work by dragging the frame directly over any layer (instead of dragging a cursor only over the ruler at the top as it is now) this would make a big difference in efficiency because the drag and stop would have to be much easier to control.

I have no clue at all what you are talking about here.

I want to clarify; I strongly object to timeline pop ups. I find the timeline a bit of an interface mess as it is now; an accidental leftmouse click too many and you're stuck with frame rename window or the whole layer accidentally gets selected (highlighted yellow). I really don't need an extra convolution in there.

Or perhaps I just don't understand what you are suggesting and how it is an improvement to what we have now.

To be clear again: I am NOT objecting to the frame rename window or the way the frames of a layer are selected (when highlighted yellow)!
But I am very much against anything that will make the timeline harder to use or will cover up any part of the timeline and thus prevent me from seeing my frames (and therefore my timing) at a single glance.

I don't see how that's more efficient than my suggestion where you would just be able to see what's in a layer without having to click or drag anything. No click, no drag, you can just see whats there in the thumbnails of the timeline the same way you can now when your drawings are bigger.

This makes no sense to me: if you can't see the entire content of the picture but just a zoomed into portion of it, how can you see what's there in the thumbnails the same way as when your drawings are bigger? You can't. You can either see everything, but too small, or you can only see it bigger, but only a portion of the picture.

If the popup would work by dragging the frame directly over any layer (instead of dragging a cursor only over the ruler at the top as it is now) this would make a big difference in efficiency because the drag and stop would have to be much easier to control.

I have no clue at all what you are talking about here.

I think you don't understand the concept of this popup. Imagine holding a magnifying glass over your entire timeline panel. Now imagine that you run your magnifying glass over a certain length of a layer where you anticipate you should find the frame you are searching for. Sometimes you can't remember which layer it might be, so you jump to the layer above or below. The popup/magnifying glass would be controlled by your mouse or pen which would be dragged over the timeline panel, not just the ruler. as soon as you spot the frame you want, you touch that frame and it appears in your project window, ready for you to fix.

This makes no sense to me: if you can't see the entire content of the picture but just a zoomed into portion of it, how can you see what's there in the thumbnails the same way as when your drawings are bigger? You can't. You can either see everything, but too small, or you can only see it bigger, but only a portion of the picture.

You see the part where the pixels are. Thats it. (So no, not the entire frame.) Most of the time it will be enough to recognize what part of the animation you are dealing with. (The thumbnail dimensions would have to be the same proportions as that of the project.)

I think you don't understand the concept of this popup. Imagine holding a magnifying glass over your entire timeline panel. Now imagine that you run your magnifying glass over a certain length of a layer where you anticipate you should find the frame you are searching for. Sometimes you can't remember which layer it might be, so you jump to the layer above or below. The popup/magnifying glass would be controlled by your mouse or pen which would be dragged over the timeline panel, not just the ruler. as soon as you spot the frame you want, you touch that frame and it appears in your project window, ready for you to fix.

But that's an entirely different concept than what was suggested. Originally it was just to have a clearer view of what's in the thumbnails, making the timeline and the animation easier to read when working. What you're suggesting is almost like a search function. The same can be achieved if you just zoom into the timeline (alt-drag) and look through the thumbnails using your eyes instead of your mouse and a button and a pop-up window. Provided you see the pixels in the frames and not the entire frame in the thumbnails.