Is there a way to automatically make the timeline scroll with the current frame?

Is there a way to automatically make the timeline (on both the timeline and dope sheet windows) scroll once the cursor goes out of range?

For example, if the timeline cursor is on frame 51 and the timeline views happen to be within range, it looks like this:


But when I hit play and the timeline cursor is on, say, frame 55, I can no longer see the timeline cursor:


I’d like to know if there’s a way where Blender will automatically scroll to keep the timeline cursor within range:


Any ideas?

I take it it’s not possible? :frowning:

OK, just thought I’d post a follow-up. I’ve had enough of Blender’s usability issues, so I’ve made my own personal fork of the code. I just finished implementing the ability for the dope sheet/timeline/graph/video editor to automatically scroll on playback. The window will scroll to the proper spot when the user skips through the keyframes or markers. Likewise, the window will scroll to the proper spot after entering a frame number in the timeline window. Here’s a video of this behavior in action:

When I’ve made a change to the Blender source code, normally I’ve pasted the changed code here in the forum. This feature is a bit more involved than the other changes I’ve written about. So if you really want to implement this in your own build, download my fork and pull out the sections that you need.

Here’s where you can get the current state of my forked source code: https://github.com/simplecarnival/BetterBlender

Look through the code for this comment:

////////// BETTER BLENDER BEGIN: GRAPH AUTOSCROLL //////////

If you implement all the parts that are bracketed with this (and “////////// BETTER BLENDER END //////////”), you’ll have autoscrolling in the dope sheet/timeline/graph/video editor working.

Hope someone finds this useful!

it is possible in newer version of blender,in the timeline header under playback just make a tick in the follow box.

If one of the devs wants to take my code, put in the checkbox, and use it in the main branch, they’re welcome to do so. I know I will always want it on in my own branch of the code, so I don’t plan to put in a checkbox.

No, Love 3D was telling you that it already exists in version 2.74. Click Playback in the timeline header and then select the Follow checkbox.

Ah – I didn’t realize that was there (hence, the reason why I started this thread in the first place). I just tried it, and it has most of the functionality of my code, but it doesn’t take into consideration if you enter a frame number, skip through markers, or skip through keyframes – the cursor can fly out of the range of the grid, and the view is not adjusted.