Time Line panel showing music data and cue placement over time.

As seen in the screen shot above, the time line has a button bar across the top, below which is the actual graph.  The yellow line marker at the center of the graph represents the current show position, which will always be fixed at the center point.  Data to the left of this line represents data that has already been played, while the area to the right of the yellow line indicates upcoming data that has not been played yet.  When the show is reset to the beginning, there will be no data to the left of the play marker.  The white time line is marked off at one second intervals, unless the view is zoomed out all the way, in which case the time markers will be every two seconds.

Navigation Window:
Clicking the full-view button will bring up a sub-time line below the working time line that shows the entire show and every cue on it. Clicking anywhere on the full view graph will take you to that point in the show, updating the cue editor and main time line to the time position you clicked on. This is a very fast way to get to any point in your show, and you will likely want to keep the navigation window open all the time. However, if screen space is limited or you are working on a dense cluster of cues, you can toggle the navigation window off to free up some space.

In addition to allowing you to quickly move around in your show, the navigation window also allows you to click and drag the mouse to define a selected range of cues to zoom in on. The red shaded area shown below is an example of an area selected with the mouse. Upon releasing the mouse button, the main time line will adjust its zoom level so that the selected area fills the screen.

Zooming in on a selected range of cues.

The navigation window also contains its own yellow play position indicator that moves across the screen from left to right as the show is playing. Clicking on the navigation time line during a simulation will cause the simulation to jump to the point you clicked on, making it easy to skip around in your show during playback or repeatedly play a section over and over without stopping and restarting your show.

   Cue Markers:
Cue markers are colored vertical lines that can represent one of two event types, depending on the view mode.  When the button with the red line is pressed, red markers indicating the fire time of each effect will display on the graph.  When the button with the blue line on it is depressed, blue cue markers indicating when the effect actually bursts will be displayed.

More specifically, the blue line will fall on the time value equal to the fire time of the cue plus the shortest prefire time of all effects assigned to that cue.  If an effect has no prefire time, such as a gerb or strobe pot, then the blue marker for that cue will appear in the same place as the red marker will.  Since most shells have prefire times, then the blue marker will fall ahead of the red marker for those effects.

A blue cue marker with the dotted line markers of a timer chain.

When viewing blue markers, you will sometimes see dotted blue lines as shown in the image above.  These un-named markers represent the burst times of additional shells assigned to the same cue, only they are located on separate buckets with delays between them.  In other words, the dotted lines show you where the effects in a timer chain will break.

Mouse Actions:
Both left and right mouse buttons are used to perform special operations when working with the time line.

Left Mouse Click- if you click on a cue marker with the left mouse button, the cue will become the selected cue in the Cue Editor.

Left Mouse Double Click- double clicking anywhere on the time line graph will add a new cue containing whatever effect is selected in the Effect Browser.

Left Mouse Drag- when held down over a cue marker, the left mouse button can be used to drag cue markers around on the graph.

Right Mouse Drag- when held down anywhere on the graph, the right mouse button can be used to scroll the graph left or right as the mouse moves.

Moving Cue Markers:
When the mouse cursor is placed over a cue marker, the cursor will change from the arrow icon to a relocate icon.  At this point you can click and hold the left mouse button down, which will enable you to relocate the cue by dragging the marker as you hold the button down.  When dragging a cue, a white line is used to display the new location.  A time value is also printed next to the cue marker and updated as you drag it, thus letting you know what the new time value will be when you release the mouse button.  If you drag the cue to the left or right edges of the graph window, the graph will automatically scroll left or right so that you can access off-screen areas.

If you are in break time mode (blue lines), then a grey line may appear to the left of the marker you are dragging.  This shows the actual fire time of the cue.  If you are in fire time mode (red lines), then the grey line will be to the right of the cue and represents the break time of the first effect assigned to that cue.

Using the mouse to reposition a cue marker on the Time Line.

When dragging cues, a dotted white line will be placed at the original cue position to let you know where it was originally.  Dotted white lines may also appear in front of the cue being dragged if it is a timer chain.  In this case each dotted line would represent the break time of additional shells spaced out on the same cue.

Sometimes it can be difficult to adjust a cue marker to the exact time you want using the mouse.  By using the “<” and “>” keys on the keyboard, you can fine tune a cue position left or right by .01 seconds per key hit.

Note: when placing or adjusting cues in blue line mode, you can not place the marker such that the fire time would occur before the zero time mark.  If you are working near the beginning of your show and can’t seem to get a cue marker to move left of it’s current position, you are probably at the prefire boundary.

   Scrolling Left or Right:
There are several ways to relocate the time line to a new position.  If you only need to adjust the graph a slight amount left or right, then the right mouse dragging method is a good choice.  This is a quick way to reposition the graph in order to access off-screen cues or to set the current play position.

If you need to move the graph more than just a little, then the left and right arrow keys can be used.  These buttons will cause the graph to scroll left or right for the duration that the button is held down.  Releasing the button will stop the scrolling.

The time line can also be repositioned by clicking on a specific cue in the Cue Editor.  The cue time will become the new show position, which will update the Time Line graph such that the cue selected is located right on the yellow center marker.

The slider bar at the bottom of the main window can also be used to change the current show position to any point within the show.