Doodly Intermediate Tutorial

Enhancement with Sidebars

Intermediate Tutorial #26

Enhancement with Sidebars

Showing examples of sidebar use for a video.

Explains and demonstrates how sidebars can enhance our doodle and when to and not to use them.

What is a sidebar?

This is a stationary group of images or full image added to the left or right side of the canvas. This can provide functionality or be there strictly for design aspects.

Sidebar Use

Note: We can get creative with our sidebar by creating the imagery in our photo editor and simply change out the images the way we want them to show and then fade them into the canvas or use the none transition to bring them to life.

When not to use a sidebar

When you need space. Sidebars take up precious real estate on the canvas. This leaves less room for text. When creating a conversation between two assets, it might not be a good idea to have a sidebar.

Locating Sidebars

This is not an easy task. I had to create the ones you see in the image. I don’t find a lot of places to even view sidebars when researching unless it was for a website.

Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to the most common questions regarding this topic.

A sidebar is a fixed picture or a collection of graphics placed on the left or right edge of your workspace. It can be used to add useful features or simply to make your project look more visually appealing.

These graphics can guide your audience by previewing upcoming content similar to a presentation slide. You can also design custom visuals in an external image editor and bring them onto your screen to keep viewers engaged.

You should avoid these graphics when your scene requires a lot of open space. They consume valuable room on your screen, which limits the area available for written words or when you are setting up a dialogue between multiple characters.

After designing your custom graphics, you can smoothly introduce them into your scene by applying a fade effect. Alternatively, you can choose to use no transition at all so they appear instantly on your workspace.

Finding ready made options for videos is quite difficult because most available designs are meant for websites. You will likely need to build your own custom graphics from scratch using an external photo editor.

About the author

Wayne Leiser
Wayne Leiser
Editor & Contributor
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