Animation Toolbar
To start building an animation, click the Animation Mode button in the tool toolbar or press Shift+A. Four things appear: an overlay toolbar at the top of the canvas, a thumbnail strip of states along the bottom, the docked Animation panel on the right, and, once you ask for it, a preview window with playback controls. Press Escape or click Exit to leave animation mode.
What a state is, and how states become an animation, is explained on Animation States. This page is the reference for the controls.
State buttons
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| + New State | Puts the canvas in frame-draw mode. Drag a rectangle; every atom, bond and annotation inside it joins the new state. |
| Duplicate | Copies the active state, including its frame and object references, and places the copy directly after it. Disabled until a state is active. |
| Next Step | Like Duplicate, but carries out the active state’s curved arrows on the copy: bonds, lone pairs and charges change and the arrows are removed. Nothing is created if an arrow cannot be read. See Next Step from arrows. Disabled until a state is active. |
| Delete | Removes the active state record. The objects stay on the canvas; only the frame and its membership go. Delete or Backspace does the same, and removes every selected frame if you have selected several. |
The state strip
The strip along the bottom shows a thumbnail for each state and, between each pair of neighbours, a chip with the length of that step. It appears whenever the animation has at least one state, even outside animation mode.
- Click a thumbnail to make that state active and pan to it.
- Double-click a thumbnail’s title, or click the pencil that appears on hover, to rename the state.
- Right-click a thumbnail for Rename, Duplicate state and Delete state.
- Click a duration chip to select that transition and edit it in the Animation panel.
- Right-click a duration chip to apply a Quick, Normal or Slow speed preset to that one transition.
Each chip is tinted green, amber or red by how well the objects in its two states match; hover it for the rating. The ratings are explained on Object Matching. A chip that carries a timing override is marked.
Preview, export, match and pivot
Preview opens the preview window described below. It needs at least two states.
Export opens a menu with Animated SVG and Video…; both are covered on Animation Export. While a LaTeX solution animation is active, Animated SVG opens the Export LaTeX Animation dialog instead.
Match opens the Match Editor for pairing objects between states. See Object Matching.
Pivot sets the point each state’s motion rotates around: Auto (shared atoms) (the center of the atoms present in both states), Frame, or Select pivot atoms… to pick a custom set by clicking. Clear custom pivot returns to Auto.
While you pick pivot atoms, a control bar offers Use Selection (adopt the current canvas selection as the pivot), ← Back, All and Fwd → (copy this state’s pivot to earlier states, every state, or later states), Reset and Reset All (return this state, or all states, to Auto), and Done.
The toolbar also shows the total duration of the animation, which updates as you change timing.
The alignment toolbar
The alignment toolbar works in animation mode too, so you can align, distribute and rotate text boxes and other objects while you build states. It stays in its usual place at the top left. When the window is narrow enough for it to overlap the animation toolbar, it moves just below the animation toolbar.
The Animation panel
The docked Animation panel shows the settings for whatever you picked in the state strip. It hides while an object on the canvas is selected (that object’s properties panel takes its place), and while the Match Editor or pivot picking is open.
With a state selected (click its thumbnail), the panel shows its Name, an In preview checkbox that includes or excludes the state, its Time on screen, and a summary of its Pivot with an Edit pivot… button.
With a transition selected (click the duration chip between two thumbnails), the panel shows the Quick, Normal and Slow presets, the Duration and Motion fields, the match rating for the pair (Smooth morph, Partial morph or Mostly cross-fade), Edit matches… to open the Match Editor on that pair, and Reset to clear the pair’s timing overrides. Animation Timing explains what the fields do.
Preview playback
The preview window has a play/pause button, Previous state and Next state, Stop (rewind to the start), Replay, Fit (reset zoom to show everything), a Loop checkbox (off each time the preview opens; when on, the end fades back to the start), a preview speed button that cycles 0.5×, 1×, 1.5× and 2×, and a light/dark theme toggle. The preview speed button and the theme toggle affect only the preview, never the export; the Speed setting below the timeline is the one that is exported.
The timeline below the viewport shows each state and each change as a block, with the current and total time at its ends; click or drag along it to seek. With the timeline focused, ArrowLeft and ArrowRight move from block to block and Home and End jump to the first and last. Elsewhere in the preview, Space toggles play and pause, ArrowLeft and ArrowRight seek back or forward one second, and Escape closes the window; while you type in a field, those keys stay in the field.
Below the playback buttons, the preview edits the timing of the block you clicked, and holds the Speed and Fit to settings for the whole animation. They are documented with the rest of the timing options on Animation Timing.