Timeline Settings

You can customize the look and behavior of your timelines in a variety of ways using the Settings link above your timeline:

Here's an overview of each setting and its impact on your timeline:

Theme

Timeline Theme

Here you can choose the color scheme for your timeline. The default is a white background with light gray lines.

Alternate Layer Colors

By default, the layers on your timeline will alternate colors. For example, with the default white theme, every other layer is light gray. You can use this setting to turn off the alternating layer colors so the background is always white or whatever the primary color is for the theme you've selected.

Event Color Palette

The event color palette determines the color of the events on your timeline.

If you have existing events on your timeline and change the color palette, Preceden will update the existing events to use the new color palette as well. When it does this, Preceden will preserve groups of colors. For example, if you have several blue events currently, then change the palette, all of those blue events will use the the same new color in the new palette. Similarly, Preceden will update your legend as well so that the legend items are correctly updated to use the new colors.

Preceden also lets you specify a custom event color by supplying hex color codes.

For example, to use just green and blue, you could enter:

#1565C0, #66BB6A

The values must be valid 3 or 6 digit hex codes, must include the leading #, and must be separated by commas.

Visibility

These settings allow you to adjust who can see your timeline. Learn more about Visibility.

Event Layout

Event Position

By default Preceden will only place one event per row in a waterfall layout, meaning that if you look at an event, there won't be any other events to the left or right of it. By contrast, collapsed will cause Preceden to position as many events to the left and right of each other as possible, as long as they don't overlap.

Waterfall: One event per row

Collapsed: As many events per row as possible

You can also customize the layout style on a per-layer basis.

Name Position

By default, when you add an event with a start and end date, Preceden will try to place the event's name within the colored bar if the name will fit. If you'd prefer that the event name always be positioned to the right of the bar, this setting lets you achieve that.

Position event names within the colored bars when the name will fit

Always position event names to the right of the colored bars

Bar Color

This setting determines how the color you select for an event with a start and end date is applied to that event.

Solid means the bar will be entirely that color, Vertical Gradient means a subtle vertical fade is applied, and Horizontal Gradient means a subtle horizontal fade is applied:

Corners

This setting affects how the shape of the corners of events that contain a start and end date.

Square means the corners are right angles, Slightly Round means there's a small curve (like the screenshots above - this is the default), Round means they're circular, and S-Curve looks like this:

Note that if you specify either the start or end date is approximate for the event, Preceden will display the corners for that event as slightly round regardless of what setting you choose here.

Past Events

If you're using Preceden to plan a project, you may want to display past events in gray to make it clear that they're complete. Rather than adjust each event color manually as the event finishes, you can use this setting to automatically display those events in gray.

Event Details

Details to Display on the Timeline

This section lets you choose whether you want to display the event dates, durations, and/or images on the timeline.

Date and Duration Position

If you choose to display the event details on the timeline, you can choose where you want those details to be displayed relative to the event names: below, to the right (default), or left.

Date Format

By default, if you display the event dates on the timeline, Preceden will use whatever format you used when you set the dates for the event. However, you may wish to format it differently when displaying it on the timeline. For example, instead of displaying the full date like "May 20, 2018" you may want to display it as "May 20" or "5/20".

Axis

Position

These settings allow you to specify where you want the axis to be displayed: at the top of the timeline (default), at the top of each layer, and/or at the bottom of the timeline. Here's what this timeline looks like with all three options selected:

Being able to display the scale at the top of each layer and at the bottom of the timeline comes in handy with timelines that contain a lot of events by providing a quick reference without forcing you to scroll back to the top of the timeline.

Gridlines

By default Preceden displays vertical gridlines, but you can turn this off by unchecking this Show axis gridlines setting:

Borders

This setting allows you to control where the borders are placed around your timeline.

By default they're placed on all four sides, but you can also change it to be just the top, just the bottom, or no border at all.

Event Lines

This setting lets you display lines from the start of each event to each of the visible axes:

Current Date

Preceden provides you with a way to display a thick vertical line at today's date by checking the Display a vertical line on today's date setting:

Zoom

Date Range

By default Preceden will automatically adjust the dates on the timeline so that all of the timeline's events are visible on the timeline.

If you'd like to zoom in to a portion of the timeline, you can use this setting to specify a start and end date to zoom in on. Learn more about zooming.

Scale

By default Preceden will automatically figure out the best scale to use to display your timeline based on its content. If you'd like to manually set the scale (because, for example, Preceden thinks weeks is best but you want months) then you can set the scale here.

Note that Preceden won't always be able to display your timeline at every scale. For example, a timeline that spans years won't be able to be displayed with the scale set to days because it would result in hundreds of axes. When this happens Preceden will display a notice on your timeline and give you an option to change the scale back to automatic. Learn more about resolving scale issues..

Week Start

This setting determines, when your timeline displays events using a weekly scale, whether the weeks start on Sunday or Monday.

Collaboration

This feature allows you to work with others on your timeline. Learn more about how collaboration works.

CSV Import

This feature allows you to import events onto your timeline from a CSV file. Learn more about the expected file format.

Date Picker

This setting allows you to choose the format of the dates you select when using the date pickers (which can be used when you add or update events). It doesn't have any impact on the appearance of your timeline, but if you use the date pickers it will save you time, if you prefer a format that's different from the default.

If there's a format that you'd like to use that's not on the list, just drop an email to help@preceden.com and we can add it.