The view area of the Dope Sheet displays keys hierarchically along the vertical axis. It displays time along the horizontal axis as cells or blocks.
The time blocks represented in the view area of the Dope Sheet are integer value divisions of time; that is, the block at time 2 includes the range of animation information from 2 to 3, excluding information at time 3.
Animated attributes are bounded by solid lines to indicate their extents. The colors of the blocks define the placement of an attribute or group of attributes within the hierarchy of the Dope Sheet.
All keys of all displayed objects (Summary object).
All of the keyable attributes for the selected object in the Dope Sheet outliner (object groups).
All of the individual attributes of a particular type, such as translation, rotation, and so on (compound attributes).
Keys for unselected individual attributes.
Selected keys.
Keys with a value of 0.
Right-click anywhere in the view area to open the Dope Sheet pop-up menu.
Sounds appear in the Dope Sheet view area according to the settings in the Preferences window.
In addition to the Dope Sheet tools in the toolbar, the Select Tool, Move Tool, and Scale Tool also are used to manipulate keys in the view area of the Dope Sheet. Because of the hierarchical nature of the Dope Sheet outliner, you can edit groups of attributes by type. This lets you perform powerful timing editing on large numbers of objects at once. See Select Tool, Move Keys Tool, and Scale Keys Tool.