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It's a problem with the way Pencil draws its timeline. It's really annoying, actually, and there's a bug filed on it from way back. Basically, Pencil does a bunch of custom drawing for the horizontal timeline area, and it doesn't expand beyond a certain length, which is actually a function of the size of your Pencil window - and thus a function of the size of your monitor.

I'm not promising a fix any time soon, since I don't yet have a good handle on why, exactly, this happens. In the meantime, you'll have to work around it by splitting your sequence into multiple Pencil projects. It sucks, I know, but it's the best I can do for now. Sorry.

Why can't you edit the pencil options? not sure what menu it's in, but it should be called Preferences. when you get to that window, click time line and you can select how many frames you want displayed. that works for me. no bugs found here (for me, at least).

ayetach wrote:

Interesting issue, is this an issue that occurs with low resolution monitors or screens? I don't think I've ever seen that with my use. I mean I've seen the timeline mess up graphically from a sound file import but not like this. Does the timeline scrollbar come into view? There could be minimum size requirement for the window itself in order to see everything properly.

As you can see above, my build at the office gave me a false impression. There are still issues pertaining to timeline length (I think the length should automatically grow to at least position_of_last_key + (2 * framerate)), but those are for another time.

Hi everyone
Many thanks.  This is all useful.  I haven't tried Oluseyi's tip yet, but fingers crossed! 
I like the tip on creating several projects.  It sounds quicker and less frustrating than my method (see below).  Any advice on how/if it is possible to cobble them together to create one continuous project?

In the meantime, prior to a bug fix, someone may find this useful -
It is possible, at least on the Mac, to expand the timeline, but it involves the following (rather convoluted and time-consuming but 'do-able') solution:
Drag the window to the left so that much of it is off-screen
Extend the width of the Pencil window
Drag the window back so the scrollbar and keys at the start can be accessed
Drag the scrollbar/move the key as far as possible to the right
Repeat as necessary until the relevant place in the timeline is reached
As you can imagine if you haven't done this, moving the keys for a longer project takes a while.

Again, thanks everyone
Anette

I still find it really odd that you're having so many issues with the timeline on an intel-mac. Whats your screen resolution? Are you having issues seeing the timeline's scroll bar along the bottom at startup?

That's your problem. The screen resolution is too small, this particular post mentions the issue very clearly and it is a known issue. It has really nothing to do with Pencil in the manner of a broken interface but the fact that it requires a screen resolution that is larger than the standard 1024x768 and it isn't documented as a required hardware configuration. Maybe this will be addressed for low-resolution monitors in the future but for now you'll need to find alternative monitors that offer higher resolution workspace. I'll probably log this in as a valid bug on the bug-tracker.

But then again after re-reading your post it seems your issue is not necessarily related to what I'm saying either.

Last edited by ayetach (2010-12-03 12:38:41)

@rylleman: Good tip.  Thanks!

"Linux Mint 11, 64-bit Gnome. (23" screen in 1920x1080)"  We have the same set-up!  We're practically twins. 

Matt