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Symbols, not timelines; no symbol is special

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Everything that holds nodes is a symbol (domain/timeline -> domain/symbol,
:timelines -> :symbols) and a node that places one is :kind :instance. The
reserved :main root is gone: which symbol is on screen is editor state
([:ui :open]), every domain function that needs a symbol is told which, and
a document opens on the longest symbol nothing else places.

Saved projects move to schema 2 through migration 0007, which rewrites leaf
paths, instance kinds and the feature :symbol key; the client refuses a
schema it does not read.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Olive Vaughn 2026-09-29 12:46:42 -04:00
parent 179770d7d4
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15
docs/animation-model.md
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@ -415,9 +415,11 @@ different rules:
*not* to the plate, which is the whole point of it — so the offset genuinely
belongs at the node, not the clip.
## Timelines, and why a scene is one
## Symbols, and why a scene is one
A **timeline** is an ordered bag of nodes in its own frame space:
A **symbol** is an ordered bag of nodes in its own frame space. (Earlier drafts
and code called this a *timeline*; that word now means only the UI pane that
shows one.)
```clojure
{:frames 91
@ -427,9 +429,10 @@ A **timeline** is an ordered bag of nodes in its own frame space:
That is the whole type, and **everything that holds nodes is one of these**:
- a clip's **scene** is its root timeline,
- a **symbol** in the library is a timeline,
- a node with `:kind :symbol` is an **instance** of one.
- what a document opens on is a symbol, and **no symbol is reserved** — a new
document's is called `main` only because it has to be called something,
- anything placed inside another symbol is a symbol,
- a node with `:kind :instance` is an **instance** of one.
An earlier draft of this document had a scene and a `:kind :timeline` symbol as
two structures with the same fields and never said they were the same thing.
@ -474,7 +477,7 @@ for all three is the same — **their own**:
### Instances
A node with `:kind :symbol` and `:of :sym/blink` places one. Its own channels
A node with `:kind :instance` and `:of :sym/blink` places one. Its own channels
compose *over* the symbol's, so one definition is placed many times and tinted,
offset or retimed at each placement — that is how a three-frame blink is reused
at frames 40, 88 and 200 without copying it.