Animation Workspace Storyboard Visiblity

[kevinwatts]

In the Animation Workspace under the Animation Timeline Storyboard (lower menu), a maximum 7 storyboards names can be viewed.

As you add more storyboards the older ones are no longer visible. I can not find a way to navigate or scroll backward or forward through the list. You can not tab or use the keyboard arrows to move to older storyboards.

What is the work around?

Regards,

Kevin

[kevinwatts]

I should clarify... it also depends on the length of your Storyboard name. I like descriptive naming conventions so I can only see 4. I do not want to just number them.

Kevin

[kevinwatts · Accepted solution]

I found the answer. In the bottom menu, there is an icon just to the right of the "+" icon, shortcut to add more storyboards. Click on it and you can then select and display the storyboard that you want to work on, play or render. Please refer to the picture below.

Storyboard Menu

[Phil.E]

@kevinwatts Glad you found it.

Regards,

[carldorsch]

Regretably, I've found that what you're saying isn't fully correct. In my experience, it appears there may be a limit to how many storyboards one can have in a model.

I'm currently working on a model in which I have created over 16 storyboards. For some maddening reason, two of the storyboards (critical ones for me) have apparently vanished, one at a time.  Yes, I know I can click on the one icon, which will show me the names of storyboards that aren't visible (that is, to the left of the icon). But for these two storyboards, they're simply not listed, and can't be accessed. Fortunately, I've already 'published' the animation segments I needed from them, before they vanished. But if I wanted to rework either of those two storyboards to make some changes to the animations, that option is lost to me.

Looks like there's a real issue here.

[carldorsch]

To illustrate the problem of missing, or inaccessible storyboards, note, in the screen-save of the pop-up Side Panel, the Storyboards 1a, 11a, and 14a are missing. If I want to revise them and publish new animation segments - and I do - then I'm out of luck. I'd have to create new ones from scratch (hours of work). And if I did, I'd be scared the creation of new storyboards would cause me to lose ones. 

If there is a limit to how many storyboards can be created, then that should be made known.

[Phil.E]

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

As far as I know there are no limits to the number of storyboards. I have designs with 100+ storyboards.

However, there may be an explanation. Did you press the delete key by chance? The delete key on the keyboard will delete the active storyboard. If you right click on a storyboard title, you'll see the short list of commands available and the hotkey associated with it. 

There is now an improvement request to force a confirmation dialog when deleting storyboards.

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience. You may be able to open an earlier version of the design as read only and re-publish the storyboard provided it shows the right information for your needs of course. There is no way to transfer a storyboard from one design to another.

Regards,

[carldorsch]

Thanks for your reply. I'm particularly glad to hear someone tell me they
have experience having a design with over a hundred storyboards. I can now
stop worrying that there's a limit to the number of storyboards. And I
presume you're telling me that in such a design, all 100+ storyboards will
show up in the Side Panel for accessing. (Because I was thinking, maybe all
my storyboards still existed, but due to some coding flaw, perhaps the Side
Panel couldn't show them all.)

As for the possibility that I somehow deleted three different storyboards,
well... anything's possible. But I had 16 storyboards, and the idea that I
somehow deleted three widely separated storyboards, doesn't seem likely. I
do know what it's like to freshly create a new storyboard, and then to
delete the first thing in it, and thereby, to delete the new storyboard.
But I just can't imagine being 'button-happy' enough to have deleted three
storyboards that I wasn't working on.

As for your suggestion of pulling up an earlier version of the design as a
read-only, and then republishing it, I can give that a try tomorrow. So
thank you much for that idea. It at least gives me a hope of salvaging that
work.

[Phil.E]

I see how it may be hard to delete random storyboards by pressing delete accidentally. 

Please just keep an eye on it and if it happens while "you're watching" you can undo or roll back to the previous version. If you do find it's file specific, it would be helpful if I could get the file. We can work that out if you are okay with it. Hopefully it just doesn't happen. I don't see any bug reports for it at this time.

Thanks,