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Molkit

Animation Toolbar

Animation mode adds an overlay toolbar at the top of the canvas, a thumbnail strip of states, and a preview window with playback and timing controls. Enter animation mode with the Animate button in the main toolbar or press Shift+A; press Escape or click Exit to leave.

State buttons

  • + New State puts the canvas in frame-draw mode. Click and drag to draw a rectangle; every atom, bond, and annotation inside it joins the new state.
  • Duplicate copies the active state, including its frame and object references. Disabled until a state is active.
  • Delete removes the active state record. Objects stay on the canvas; only the state’s frame and membership are removed. Delete or Backspace does the same thing, and deletes all selected frames at once if you have a multi-frame selection.

The thumbnail strip along the bottom shows each state; click a thumbnail to make that state active, and double-click its title to rename it. To insert a step between two others, activate the earlier state and use Duplicate, which places the copy directly after it.

Preview and export

  • Preview opens the preview window (see below). It needs at least two states.
  • Export opens a dropdown with two targets: Animated SVG and Video. Both are covered on the export page.
  • Match opens the match editor for pairing objects between states. The match control bar includes the Pin button for marking annotations as static. See the matching page.
  • Center sets the rotation pivot: Auto (centroid of persistent atoms), Frame, or a custom set of atoms you pick by clicking. Clear custom pivot returns to Auto. While picking a custom pivot, a control bar offers a Use Selection button that adopts the current canvas selection as the pivot, plus Back, All, and Fwd buttons that copy the custom pivot to earlier states, every state, or later states.
  • The toolbar also shows a read-only total duration readout that updates as you change timing.

Preview playback

The preview window has a play/pause button, Stop (rewind to the start), Replay, Fit (reset zoom to show everything), a Loop checkbox (on by default; the end crossfades back to the start), a preview-only rate button that cycles 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x, and a light/dark theme toggle. Neither the rate button nor the theme toggle affects export.

A scrubber below the viewport shows current and total time; drag it to seek. While the preview is open:

  • Space toggles play/pause
  • ArrowLeft / ArrowRight seek back or forward one second
  • Escape closes the preview

Timing and easing

The timing row in the preview window has two global controls:

  • Duration sets a total runtime in seconds (0.5 to 120). Leave it empty for auto, which adapts hold times to text content.
  • Speed is a global multiplier from 0.25x to 32x. Setting a Duration overrides Speed.

Expand the Pair Timing section to override one state pair at a time: Hold A (time on the first state), Trans (transition length), Hold B (time on the second state), and Easing. Empty fields fall back to auto values, shown as placeholders. Each field has a reset button, and Reset All clears every pair override.

Easing options per pair: Auto, Ease In-Out, Ease In, Ease Out, Linear, Bounce, and Snap. Hover the Easing label to see a curve preview.

You can also right-click the duration label between two thumbnails in the state strip to apply a Quick, Normal, or Slow preset to that pair.

See also