Basic help with the animation window

Sorry for the really simple question, but I’m having some trouble understanding why this is working the way it is for me.

I have created a small animation for an object by clicking on “To begin animating Object1, create an Animation clip” - Create.

I save an animation file, I can then edit and preview my animation. Then I add an animation and animator to my object. I set the animation in the project/inspector window to “loop”, and this works fine.

But when I return to the animation in the project view so that I can edit it, I find I cannot preview it with the play button (which is greyed out), but I can edit it, when i do make a change all of the existing keyframes turn pink, but the edit seems to work and save fine, the problem is that I must run my project to see the effect of my edits. I also notice that when I select the object which uses the animation, the animation window does not give me a dropdown menu with the animations I have made for it.

Could someone let me know what I am doing wrong and why I can’t preview my animation from the project window? & why it doesn’t appear in a dropdown menu when the object using it is selected?

I know that this is all because of a misunderstanding or error on my part, but I’ve been struggling with it for afew hours now and I have’t been able to find an answer for this, any help would be appreciated.

Sorry to bump, but can anyone explain why this is working the way that it is and what I need to do differently?

Thanks.