Provides a group of controls to let you easily play back an animation or view a specific frame within an animation.
The slider area represents the current animation range. You can specify a start and end frame for the current animation range using the Start/End options, or you can view the current range of all animation on all objects using the Min/Max options.
The individual controls are described below. Note that all frame times must lie in the range -160,000.00 to +160,000.00, inclusive.
The thick vertical bar represents the current time.
You can change the current time by clicking and dragging on this bar. Notice how the views of the model are updated dynamically as you move the bar.
The first number to the right of the time bar indicates the current time. You can change the current frame by clicking on the number and typing a new frame time. The current time bar will be moved automatically to that time.
Current time is also displayed in the current application window, as well as the Action window.
You can specify the range of animation the time slider should display by choosing the Start/End or Min/Max popup menu items to the left of the time slider.
If you choose Start/End, the Start and End values are editable. You can change these values to alter the range of animation that will be viewed in a playback. This is useful if you have a long animation, and only want to view a segment of it.
If you choose Min/Max, the Min and Max values are the minimum and maximum values over which all current animation is defined.
, and restored using Preferences > User Options > Retrieve Options 
.
to move the current time
bar will set the current frame, but it does not update the animation
for that frame. This lets you modify an object, then set the frame,
and then keyframe at the current time.
This field defines the time between frames. When you invoke a playback, or use the next frame or previous frame button, the by value determines how much to increment or decrement the current frame to reach the next or previous frame.
This value specifies how many frames per second (fps or frame rate) should be displayed when playing back an animation. Frames are evenly spaced between the Max and Min values and by the current By value.
For example, if the range is 1 to 200, and the by value is 5, a sync rate of 24 fps attempts to display frames 1, 6, 11 to frame 116 in one second. If it cannot display all 24 of those frames in one second, it may skip some to reach frame 116 by the time one second has elapsed (for instance, if it can only manage to display three views in one second, it may show frames 36 and 71 and 116).
If set to 0, the animation plays back all frames as fast as it can.
