Personally, I find the triangles in the time bars in v5 easier to move around than the dots in v6b. They are also more logical: for instance, you don’t see the third and forth dots in v6b until you have moved the first two. So a request for the triangles to be re-instated please.
Also, how about the ability to double click on the time bar to call up an enlargement? This wold make it easier to do any fine tuning, especially when there are more than just a few seconds’ worth of dividers.
FM 5 only allowed one set of ramp-in and ramp-out points, so the little triangle controls were easier to manipulate and they didn’t take up that much room over the entire control box duration. As a PLUS, FM 6 allows for multiple in and out points over the length of the duration – keeping the little triangles would make it very cluttered. I, too, am having a bit of trouble moving the point dots around (as of b16 they aren’t as responsive as they were in b14, although that might just be me) – and I use a Magic Mouse, not a trackpad. Your suggestion about double-clicking on the time bar to call up an enlargement might be a way around that (it’s not like making changes to those points affect the stage in real-time, so an enlarged window would not have any deleterious effect when making those types of changes).
That’s a good point. I was working with a 16 second map slide and the second markers are barely distinguishable. So will definitely suggest an enlargement option on the Beta Feedback page. Hope others will too!
As for the enlargement suggestion - you can simply make the sidebar wider (by dragging the edge between the Stage and the sidebar) - that will give you the additional precision).
As for dots vs triangles: The triangles might have been a little easier to use due to the larger hit targets, but they were also quite limited. For one, they only provided horizontal movement, and second they were hardcoded for 4 points per curve.
FM6 now lets you use curves with an unlimited number of points, and also lets you move the points vertically to achieve certain effects. For this reason, the triangles are simply not an option anymore.
Here’s an example of an animation speed curve for a travel route with several pauses along the way:
As for less responsiveness of moving points in b16 - that is a bug that was introduced when I added snapping to the seconds grid. I will fix this soon.
Glad to hear that the sidebar can be made wider: I didn’t realise that. Any way it could be able to bedragged vertically as well?
Look forward to b17 with more responsive dots.
By the way in an earlier post (probably in the Maps thread) I mentioned that the outer corners cannot be dragged in Maps Assistant. I don’t know if it was the case then, but it is now: but it’s only the top left corner that cannot be dragged!
Yes I noticed the problem with the top-left corner as well - but I do not know the cause for that yet - so a fix will have to wait until I find out…
I very much like the point approach and additional animation effects - very cool, thanks. 
Vertical adjustment of height is a general suggestion though. I would for example also like to be able to adjust the height of the picture and audio bars (e.g. to better see the beat of the music) in the timeline. Zooming just stretches the bars out and adjusting the panel height doesn’t change the doesn’t change the height of the individual tracks (as one might expect).
btw - FM is fantastic. Keep up the great work, Peter!
I see the point of the dots now (pun intended). And it seems to me that in v17 they are easier to move around.
I still like the idea of a vertical enlargement of the animation box. When I want to slow down the speed of the route rendering, it’s pure guesswork as to where to place the dot since there is so little height to the box. In this particular box it would also be nice to be able to link the dot to a specific waypoint on the map. At the moment, again,I have to do it by guesswork.
More on this in my forthcoming post on the Maps Assistant thread.
And it will remain pure guesswork/experimentation - even if I would vertically enlarge the box. The problem is not the height of the box, but the complex math that is involved:
The waypoints on the route have a particular distance (from the start) - the animation uses the speed curve. Speed is the first derivative of distance. Or the other way round, distance is the integral of speed over time. Unfortunately, the integral of the speed curve (normalized to 100%) depends not only on the point you are currently modifying, but on all other points of the curve. So if you get the first part of the curve right, then adjust a point in the second part of the curve, that will mess up the first part again 
Sorry about the mathematical excursion - so long story short, this is a feature that will unfortunately always require some guesswork and experimentation until you get it right. But it’s probably not a feature that novice users will stumble across anyway, so this is a compromise I was willing to make…
A very good explanation, Peter. Unfortunately, intermediate maths is the only exam I ever failed!
Actually, I am quite happy with the result I have already. The map slide is currently only 10" in duration so the approximations are perfectly acceptable.
I’ll post something on the Maps Assistant thread when I have finished tinkering (and maybe add the final result to my Dropbox)