Hmm, how did i miss that one. I searched every Javascript help file…lol
Anyway, i tried the following;
var symbolDoc = doc.getElement(‘gaugeNeedle’).getSymbolDoc();
// start a timeline in the symbol
var ts = symbolDoc.getTimeline(‘needleTL’);
ts.getTimestamp();
this one gave me [object Object]
i also tried the last two lines above the way it was in the example you sent
var ts = symbolDoc.getTimeline(‘needleTL’).getTimestamp();
// this one gave me no alert
Getting closer… 
Edit: I missed this
“Although powerful, I would suggest that use of a symbol should be considered last after timelines and CSS options have been explored and really only if you need to re-use an animated element.”
Good point. I have no idea how to include css in Saola Animate nor am i that familiar with it other than styling etc. At this point, i am just trying to learn all areas of the program. I could have made what i wanted in Flash so much easier b/c i had put a lot of time in learning as3 and the interface etc (btw, not talking about Adobe Animate…forget that junk…no matter how great i make it in flash, when i covert it for html5 it SUCKS and requires way more work to get the javascript to work. Spent hours just on buttons…lol). I’ve tried so many other programs/ways to do some thing like flash…all sucked. I may suck using Saola for now, but i feel this is the BEST program BY FAR for me to make great interactive things for my students. Not too mention how small the sl player and other files it makes the HTML 5 EXPORT FOLDER. Once i understand the JS API here and improve my javascript…i see great potential . I hope to see better documentation for the JS API…I know they plan to do that down the road.