Timelines come in all shapes and sizes and deciding which is the correct format for your timeline can be a task in itself.

At the Timeline Studio we specialise in the more complex timeline topic and address the problem of ‘too much information to display at once’.

A common problem faced when creating a timeline is that of ‘packaging the events’ on the limited space available, and due to the natural of timelines, events seem to all happen together. This of course can lead to events over-laying each other.
The whole thing is made worst when the events are named, the limited space available can be easily used by long elaborate event names.

Our timeline software has a unique layering display feature, which allows the timeline to be sub-divided into a number of different layers or ‘Views’, creating a hierarchical structure that is both detailed and informative and yet still easy to comprehend and navigate.

Your timeline topic may look a bit like these:

A large expanse of time with ‘hot-spots’ of activity.

Or shorter time periods with large amounts of activity taking place throughout the entire period.
You may even have a combination of both.

Timeline Studio’s timeline software allows the topic to be divided into a number of layers which we call ‘Views’. We have called them 'Views', as you are viewing a section of the data.
This layering process creates a hierarchical structure, which creates ‘space’ within the timeline, allowing complex topics to be broken into sections.
The result is a timeline that gently introduces the viewer to the topic without over-powered them.
Let's look at the above example structured using this ‘Views’ layering technique: use the Views drop down list to toggle the 5 Views below.

The Home View is a summary of the entire topic; the topic has been simplified into an over-view.
Red_Events – An isolation View of just the Red events.
Green & Blue Events – Again isolation Views of the Green and Blue events.
Combination – A View containing selected events from Red, Blue and Green events. In this case the row indicated by the arrows on the original example.

Notable points look at the time axis on the Blue_Event View.
The timeline axis is automatically set by the events displayed, as Blue events don’t start until April the timeline axis doesn’t start at Jan but April.
If you wanted all Views to be on the same time-scale, simply add an event such as ‘Activities Start’ with a date of Jan 2011 and ‘call’ this into the Blue_Events View.