rotation) would be un-applied in isolation mode. For animations nested in other animations, the animated effects applied by the one higher up (e.g. Selecting any keytime block would put it in 'isolation mode,' similar to what's available in Flash™ and Illustrator™.There is a drop-down menu used for selecting the viewable frames per second, used as a grid.An interpolation curve editor is also readily available, similar to the note editor in GarageBand™.However, the two are similar enough to allow an easy move from Flash™ to Inkscape.

This is necessary as SVG animations are based on keytimes instead of frames and keyframes.

Instead of being based on the Flash™ timeline, which is frame-based, this one is based more on GarageBand™, which as a music editor is time-based.

Each layer and group can 'open' to display the individual objects contained in it.

In this concept, the Timeline is an extension of the Layers dialogue.

This will make it a lot easier for current Flash artists to move to SVG.Īn example of the third interface would be:

Finally, the most professional interface would abstract away as much of the SVG specific parts of the problem as possible and provide an interface that conforms to the more popular Flash animation packages.

At the same time, someone needs to develop some visual cues that will appear in the editor window that will indicate that animations are present. This will take some time, but it isn't a particularly difficult task, since much of the code can be modeled on existing interface panels.

At the next layer, we'll have to provide graphical widgets in the form of a side panel/tool bar for all of the animation options.

Some scripting interface support is required, though, because one of the most important ways to control animations is via ECMA script embedded in the SVG file.

At the lowest level, animation elements can already be added using the XML editor, but the process is awkward, and there is no visible indication of the animation elements.

It would be best if all three were developed to some extent. There are three possible approaches to crafting an interface for animation. Summary Rationale Design Document Handling User Interface

Inkscape svg animation