Apparently lots of folks are doing just that:
I’d be interested seeing exactly how you guys are using timelines to aid your work.
Anyone willing to post examples of the timeline charts they are creating?
I’d be interested in seeing examples of any of the various applications and techniques being discussed here…
FYI, MacZot is offering a 40% discount on Bee Docs’ Timeline today. This special is for one day only (February 6, 2007).
I am the developer of Bee Docs’ Timeline and posting this here because the software was discussed in this thread. Hope you don’t mind. 
Hi Adam,
You posted this request ages ago and all you got in return was a tumbleweed.
I can describe what I use timelines for, but my working material is not leaving my hot little hands. I don’t imagine you are wild about letting your code/ideas see the light of day before everything is ready to face the public either. 
Because I write fantasy/sci-fi I use timelines to brainstorm the created history, politics, major events and where the characters fit in and what they do (or what happened to them as a result of the other stuff).
I do not use the timeline as an outline of the plot and at the end of the day it may have no resemblance to the actual plot. But it is a very useful tool to find out more about the world and my characters. It also allows me to experiment in a visual way.
Point zero is the first page in the story.
I then cast back into the past, way before point zero, to work out the political/historical background for the current day.
Casting forward into the future I will set out the events that I know will happen (damn few in the early days of novel creation) I also put in places the characters will visit (helps with distances and what mode of travel will be used). There may only be four or five points in the early days - more detail will surface as I start writing.
Next I go back and using a different colour for each character add them along the timeline. With the older characters, the ones born before point zero, it is important to go back and thread them into the past. I ask myself how events affected them, do they know any of the other characters yet, any conflicts, etc.
I then add all this new information to the character notes.
If the backstory turns out to be really interesting I may have the kernel of another novel on my hands (Yay!) so I open a new Scrivener project and dump these ideas in there to brew while I work on the current novel in progress (don’t forget to transfer across copies of the character and location notes as well).
At various points along the way I will come back to the timeline to refresh my memory or update it because the plot has taken off in a brand new direction.
Adam, as I am sure you can work out (and probably from previous comments on this thread) because I am not plotting known events exactly when they occurred - drag and drop capabilities will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Pipi
Just a note about Bee Docs Timeline. I use it to map timelines for True Crime books that I write and find that it does very admirable job.
About a week after purchasing Timeline, I received a ‘Thank You’ postcard in the mail from Adam. I’ve been purchasing shareware for the past 20 years or so and this is the first time that I’ve ever received something like this in the mail from the developer.
Thank you emails are rather common, but a snail mail thank you is something special, and it appears the developer is as well. Nice job, Adam.
-Barry
Sorry, I’m a bit late to this topic but I’d like to recommend Temporis by Bartas Technologies (bartastechnologies.com/products/temporis/) the same people who do CopyWrite.
Does anyone know any free timeline software? I could use one, but not enough to pay for it…
And one that’s not web-based. I don’t have access to the web on my writing computer.
I think on a PC there are one or two freebies, but they are geared toward the genealogy market. Don’t know of any for the Mac (which is not to say there aren’t any). It would probably be worth a search.
I own all three of the programs mentioned here - BeeDoc’s Timeline, Temporis, and TimeFlyer - and find TimeFlyer to be the easiest to use and the one that fits my needs best. It has notes, so I can explain or comment on the event I’m marking.
Timeline - I haven’t used this lately, so I may be remembering it wrong, but I don’t think it can have notes associated with an event. I do know Adam is working on the next version and plans a lot of improvements, so I will definitely give it a look when it comes out. It is elegantly done, imo.
Temporis - I found this somewhat counter-intuitive and had trouble figuring out how to do some things, which usually doesn’t happen. I actually broke down and wrote support to ask how to do something and the reply was fast and just what I needed. Still seems an awkward way to do things, but that could just be a personal taste thing.
Timeflyer - Easy to pick up and figure out, imo. I did read a bit in the forum and website and discovered the one bit of info I needed that I couldn’t figure out (how to get the second concurrent timeline). So far, this one is the best fit for what I need a timeline for.
YMMV, of course. I need timeline software to track historical and fictional events in my novel. Other needs might require different features.
I’ve been having a look at TimeFlyer, Timeline and Temporis. I bought TimeFlyer when it came up on another thread some time ago, and found that it was on a significant discount through Mac Update or similar that day.
But the big disadvantage of both TimeFlyer and Temporis, and the great advantage of Timeline, is the date formats. Both the first two, only give you the option of full year/month/day or even year/month/day + time as set on your system. With Timeline, you can just have year.
If you’re using the app for writing a novel, then having to specify month and day may be what you need. My current need is I am to teach a crash course on British History in 15 hours and I would like to be able to include a timeline at various points during the presentation; on my scale, what matters is that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, not the precise date, or that King/Queen X reigned from year Y to year Z, not what day s/he ascended the throne or what day s/he died. And when it comes to Stonehenge, 3500 BC or similar is all there is, no precise year, leave alone month and day.
So what I really need is Timeline, though even at under $40 I don’t know that I can justify buying it.
Aaaaarrrggghhh!
Mark
Mark,
like you I bought TimeFlyer with the discount. It has some flaws, but still I thought it was better than TimeLine.
As for years, I cannot check it now, but I made a timeline of 5th century Völkerwanderung with only years, and years coded like 495, not 0495.
It is possible without hour and date, if you need more information, I can check this later. PM?
Best,
Maria
I have had another look at TimeFlyer and found that there are indeed ways of just having years marked. I still think Timeline is more intuitive in this, and helpful in other ways such as being able to run the line over more than one page. But for my immediate needs TimeFlyer is going to suffice, so I thank you for prompting me to investigate further before lashing out more money.
Cheers
Mark
Mark, check with Adam. I think he may offer an educational discount (I don’t remember now for sure; I bought it quite a while ago). I’d say it’s worth checking since it fits your needs so well.
Edited to add: He changed his mind while I was typing! 
Hi,
Thanks for mentioning this … I hadn’t even considered that as most educational discounts are only available if you are working at registered academic institutions in the US or perhaps also Europe. I haven’t yet found one that included teachers at universities in China! On the other hand, the educational discount form is still up on his website and is merely a request for a discount coupon, so I’ll think further … and perhaps better … and will come back to it in due course. But as I said to Maria, having discovered that it is possible to just have years marked in TimeFlyer, that will suffice for my current needs.
Cheers
Mark
I’ve found them all (so far) frustrating with their page-centric layout. Honestly, I’m probably never going to print the things.
I’m so very taken with Simile Timeline’s interface I’m seriously considering writing an interface for it, for myself. It’s web-based, but you can run it locally on your own computer. Only problem with it is that the data is in XML format, which isn’t much fun to write by hand. It’s purely a display program at the moment. But what a timeline display! Linked timelines with different scales, parallel timelines, the ability to stretch event-dense parts of the timeline so it’s still readable even with a hundred things happening in an hour…
Mark,
this is strange. I have bought several applications with educational discount while working in Japan, even sending them the Japanese statements was enough.
I do not buy software (educational or regular) that treats people from different countries differently. Sometimes that made life a bit harder, but it works.
rant over ,
Maria
I do not recall if you are a Tinderbox user or not, but there is a Tb template for generating local Simile timelines. The Tb file could best be seen as a starting point, but it gets the messy XML stuff out of the way.
And yes, out of all the applications I’ve looked at, Simile’s display is by far the best. It’s beautiful, and functional. Too many of the Mac timelines I’ve seen seem to be hardly more functional than something I could throw together in OmniGraffle.
I agree with janra and others - it’s silly to limit it to a page layout. From the marketing blurbs it sounds as if TimeFlyer at least is being targeted toward business folks for presentations and such. Useless to me in that capacity.
What would really be nice is the way Inspiration handles things - a huge “board” that can be expanded as necessary. It can then shrink the output or tile print or print to a wide format printer. I have an Epson 1280 that goes to 13" x 19" and it’s perfect.
To be fair, I can set the page under page setup to Super B (the 13" x 19" size), but it doesn’t scale, which would be the most useful.
Yes, except for Simile, which is too far away from being intuitive for someone like me, the other timeline apps offer too little as far as input and output options are concerned. I only grabbed one for a relatively low price to get quick overviews. Surprising how little is offered, is it so difficult, programmers? 
m
Maria,
I’m guessing, but I’d say that there just isn’t a big enough market to make the work worthwhile.
Though as I said in an earlier post, there may be something more substantial in the genealogy market but I don’t know anything about that area other than it exists.
I’ve continued playing with TimeFlyer and BeeDocs’ Timeline. Actually, although I can do more or less what I want in TimeFlyer, I actually find Timeline more intuitive, and there are somethings it does better.
For instance, starting a timeline with the original building of Stonehenge at 3100 BC running till the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 AD, Timeline automatically adds a margin, because it is page-based, but sets the scale in terms of 3000 BC, 2500 BC … 1 AD, 500 AD. TimeFlyer, on the other hand, doesn’t put in the margin, you have to do it, and then it runs the scale 3100 BC, 2600 BC … 0100 BC, 0401 AD, 0901 AD; I can’t find a way of getting rid of the leading 0s in the scale.
Timeline, also has the advantage that you can run the timeline over a number of pages, which you can’t in TimeFlyer, though that is not the same as being able to size it at will.
As for Simile Timeline, I don’t have Tinderbox, and it seems it is far from given away … so, attractive as it may be, one of these others will have to do for me!
Mark