Add Seconds Timer to the Timeline Editor
If you press CTRL + T while hovering in the timeline, the timeline will switch to "seconds mode". That's good, but also a bit of a hidden feature. It can activated by selecting "use timecode" checkbox from the view menu.
I am suggesting, that the timecode will be added also next to the "current frame" field and it would operate in a similar way as the "current frame". You should be allowed to drag the field to move to some specific time in a similar way.
This small update would help us from jumping all the time from timecode and frame viewing modes.
This is a part of the series of ideas that I am having about making the workflow with timeline editor little bit easier:
Add doupesheet and graph editor buttons to the timeline to make the workflow of changing the editor type faster: blender.community/c/rightclickselect/vQ5M/
About keyframes and their function when using "time stretching": blender.community/c/rightclickselect/kwN6/
4 Comments
what happens when you click into the field to edit it. can you delete the
+and hit enter? or does it fall back to a frame representationVery good question. I didn't think of the idea that much, I just wrote it up before I forget it. I think the optimal way of editing this field is the dragging method. Maybe the "+" should always be there so that user doesn't have to write it?
I took that +06 from the timeline, because that's how Blender currently shows time.
We need also to observe that the 'Current-Frame-In-1-Second' (e.g., +08), depending on the Zoom, does not always display on the Tool Settings of the Header Region of the Timeline.
This would be also an additional positive aspect of implementing the proposition.
As for the same Slider Button placeholder for typing Editing with different Time types Data to input..... If the placeholder absolutely cannot get any valid solution in terms of Design & Development, then, perhaps what we could do is to just Display the 'Current-Frame-In-1-Second' as an annex (which would not be Editable directly) to the right side if the Slider Button, and, instead of "00:03+06", it would be Displaying a bit more expanded Time in Seconds, that is: "00:03:15" and then the annex +06 (Uneditable), glued next to it at its right side maybe; so we would know is the adjacent, fundamental content.
Naturally, the Time in Seconds, Displaying and Editable in this way "00:00:00", the last couple digits, would have to be calculated, from the currently set Frame Rate (FPS)... but it would be hard to type Manually. We could always Scroll Sideways to verify valid values... but, doesn't sound optimal.
It's actually a very puzzling thing (if Blender UI's Design and Development, cannot figure out how to spontaneously have users type the mixed data, at ease, in the same placeholder! which would be one fundamentally desired facility).
Well thought proposition! I agree the Time, in Seconds, could be shown that way, simultaneously , in the Header Region just as that Current Frame (which is also a Slider Button by the way); and precisely at that position, it would be beneficial to all sorts of Workflows, especially Animation in Blender.
Although it might sound redundant (and it is, in certain conditions), the simultaneous displaying of Time types, can be considered very fundamental in my understanding; and there would be no reason NOT to grant such facility to Blender's UI.
Also, there seem to be enough free space in that Timeline's Header Region for the feature --at least looking from Blender 5.1.1.