2.8 Timeline Proposal

I think that during one of the latest Blender dev's stream they talked about making keyframes manageable from the timeline, I guess this is just about making the already displayed keyframes moveable, deletable and duplicatable.

This is something that some animators really miss, especially in blocking phase where you just need to move key poses around. Yes, this is something that can be done in the dopesheet, but that editor is heavier and for now, most animators just put the dopesheet over the timeline and close the keyframes dropdowns to the highest level. But having the ability to do that from the timeline would make it easier, those keyframes are already there after all.

Aside from that, I'm not a fan of having button names in small text under icons (expecially those which are widely known), it just doesn't make sense and is less readable. Those icons are made to be understood without explanation, and if needed it's just a good old "put the cursor over and the tooltip will tell you what it is".

IMO The Dopesheet is more like the Timeline's big daddy. The Timeline Just needs basic keyframe editing. For Multi Objects the Dopesheet is your friend !

I agree completely. Timeline should have much of the capability of the dopesheet and vice versa. I don't see why this can't become a full dopesheet when you drag panel border up. There is just so much overlap between these two windows. For instance, your idea of having the keyframes editable on the timeline is basically the dope sheet with Summary disabled and show_only_selected enabled. The dope sheet doesn't have transport controls and the timeline doesn't have frame editing.

I don't mean to derail the main point, though. At the very least, keyframe editing is a huge time saver if added to the timeline. I've seen it work well in most other 3d packages. Sometimes you don't want to have 3 panels open just to edit a keyframe's timing.

Concept of the mockup is ok. But yes, timeline and dopesheet should be close in feature - ability to move frames summeries on timeline and ability to control timeline from dopesheet view.

I do like the extended keyframe control, but I definitely prefer the existing look of the navigation controls over this. There's no need to cram the names in each control; tooltips serve this purpose well enough without cluttering the interface.

Don´t forget to REMOVE THE "AUDIO" button (which is near RENDER / ANIMATION and it´s doing nothing sitting there) and add it here to the timeline where is really useful.