The interface consists of three main windows, the Animation Window, the Status Window, and the Tools Window.

The Animation Window displays the feed and replay; which one depends on the position of the time slider at the bottom of the window. Frames in the time-line that are after the last captured frame display the feed, otherwise the replay is shown.

For example, if your are currently shooting frame 29, then the feed is displayed when the time-slider is on frame 29 or later; when the time-slider is moved to an earlier position, a replay frame is displayed.

The Status Window displays all of the pertinent information to the current shoot and the system status. Status' that are not within normal ranges are colored according to severity. For example, when running out of disk space, the color of the "Free Disk Space" status will gradually turn from white to red.

The Tools Window has the same function as it did in version 2.0. Displays the available animation tools and their options.

Shows the Animation Window with an audio-sync track loaded.

Hidden Animation Controls

Shows the Animation Window with the bottom controls hidden. This allows you to use more screen real estate to display a feed/replay while relying on customizable hot-keys to duplicate the functionality of the hidden controls.

Animation Export Window

A new feature in FrameThief 2.1 is the ability to export your shoot to a QuickTime movie without going through FrameSplicer.

The Animation FPS field is currently under evaluation and may or may not make it into the final release.

Animation Settings Window and Drag-and-Drop

Dialog that is displayed when starting a new shoot.

A new feature that is illustrated here is a drag-and-drop of a folder onto the Save Frame To field.

Precision Timelapse Window

A more stable version of the dialog that show up when timelapse capture is started in precision mode.

The Tools Window has become larger in version 2.1 to accommodate more spacious arrangement of the tool controls. Because of this, tool controls have become less cluttered and more labels have been added. These changes should make the tools a little easier to use.

The Tools Window with the Lightbox tool selected.

The Tools Window with the Onionskin tool selected.

The Tools Window with the Rotoscope tool selected.

The Tools Window with the Sketch tool selected. Sketch now displays the mouse coordinates. They are displayed in both screen and capture resolution dimensions.

The Tools Window with the Timelapse tool selected. Most of the Timelapse configuration controls have been moved to the Timelapse Preferences.

The Preference system in version 2.1 has been completely revised and is now easier to use and faster to set up. All of the system, tool, feed, and window preferences are handled in the pictured window through a system of tabs similar to the Mac OS X System Preferences.

Preferences are also handled more efficiently, for instance changing Replay Hotkeys does not require the re-compilation of the replay.

The Capture Source panel is reminiscent of the version 2.0 Feeds Window plugin tab selector. This pane allows you to select from which feed plugin FrameThief should obtain imagery. The main difference between this system and version 2.0 system is in being able to specify two separate plugins; one as a video source and one as a frame capture source. This is useful for Digital Still Cameras that require an external video tap as a feed source. In that scenario, the video feed would come from the QuickTime Video plugin while the frame capture would be done through a Digital Still Camera plugin compatible with your camera.

The Frame File panel contains many elements from version 2.0's Project Preferences window. The difference being that settings that are not unique to each project, i.e. the file format, can be set in this panel and will be used by FrameThief for all the animation shoots. This facilitates the quick startup of new projects and lessens the risk of entering erroneous settings for a new shoot.

A new feature that has been added is that FrameThief now can automatically add file extensions to the frame files. This is particularly useful on Mac OS X, where extension help the operating system figure out which program to use to open a file.

Also FrameThief now saves and restores the image format compression settings correctly.

Formerly known as "Standard Feed", the QuickTime Video settings are now located in the preferences window. The settings are saved and restored on each start of the program.

Several new features have been added to this plugin and some of them are illustrated in this screen shot.

Resolution Warning Button (disabled button next to the Video Source) light up when the selected video source does not capture at the current capture resolution.

Feed Transformations allow you to rotate or flip the feed. This is useful for Acme Stands that have the camera mounted away from you, resulting in an upside-down image.

Show Preview Averaging allows you do visually adjust the frame averaging setting. It bring up a window with a side-by-side comparison of the feed with and without averaging where you can adjust the frames to average value.

Previously known as Preview Preferences. Contains most of the options used in version 2.0 and a few extras.

Enabling/Disabling the replay is an extremely useful feature for users that use using FrameThief exclusively for Timelapse capture. Especially when you are looking to start capturing again without waiting for the replay to compile. Note: You can now also disable the replay compilation by canceling the operation.

Load Replay into RAM allows for much faster playback speeds at the expense of memory.

Play Every Frame and Play with High Quality are features under evaluation and may or may not make it into the final release.

Playing more that one frame of sound is a new feature that some animators who do a lot of audio-syncing may find useful. At high frame rates, it helps in accurately gauging the position in the sound track.

Same as in version 2.0, but with one difference that applies to all of the FrameThief hotkeys. Most hotkeys now have default values, this may help some users to start shooting with FrameThief faster.

Contains the resolution settings that are used for all shoots. This is different from version 2.0 where the resolution needs to be specified at the start of a new shoot.

As mentioned, some of the settings from the Timelapse Tools Window panel have been moved here as not to clutter the Tool Window interface.