Timelines

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Compiled and Written by DreamMaker and Heath O'Donnell. Edited by Ademal
This page is outdated! Click to read the updated guide to Timelines.
 
Timelines are useful item to add to one's repertoire of tricks inside World Anvil. They can highlight important bits of a characters story, track the rise and falls of nations, even hide valuable information about your world. How, then, does one competently use this amazing tool?

How to Visualize Time

 
There tend to be 3 definitive ways of viewing time in most works of fiction. There are others, but these three are the most common and simplistic to start from, and form the basis of all the others.
 
Ray
Time and events progress in a linear fashion from a set event point which starts the story. Many movies and stand alone novels have this type of timeline. This works well for any work where events prior to the beginning of the story are unimportant to the story being told.
 
Line
Time appears to progress in opposite directions from a set point or event, known as a Demarcation. Both ends go out to infinite time in either direction. This is the case for our real worlds Gregorian Calendar, which used the Birth of Christ as the Demarcation between two Eras. Is also useful with stories in which the events of the past effect the events of the future and should be knowable or at least re-searchable.
 
Segments
Time is broken into defined parts with important starts and ends. A good example of this is TV or book series where the events between the start and end of a book or season do affect the outcome of later additions, but are fairly contained within their covers.
 

Parts of the Timeline Feature

There are several tools within the World Anvils Timeline feature that are useful to have an understanding of before tackling your worlds Time Continuum.
   
Universal Time Date(UTD) IMPORTANT CONCEPT
UTD is the basis for understanding time within your world, setting a zero point that all your important events continue after. This zero point can be the creation of your world, the birth of a major character, or the end of a Galactic War.

The UTD is the way that you, as the creator measures time regardless of how or when the sentient species of your world started or pace their time. For example in your world you can define a UTD "year" as the time it takes for Planet X to go around the Star Y, and your UTD year 0, to be the equivalent of what the Elves of your world refer to as 15000 BU (Before Uluru).
   
Master Timeline
The Master Timeline is the log of all events within your world. It provides the whole of time for yourself and your readers to view.All events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
   
Parallel Timeline
A parallel timeline exists as a subsidiary to your Master, providing either a smaller snippet, such as the recorded history of a people, or as a true to the sense Parallel Timeline, allowing for events to run alongside each other. Great for stories with two Major Characters whose paths may only temporarily or rarely cross.Orry Main and George Hazard of North and South or Harry Potter's Point of View of events
 
Article Timeline
A smaller snippet of time, focusing only on the events connected to the Articles subject, such as a city, nation, character, or mystical artifact.Anakin Skywalker's Lightsaber
 
Eras
A Segment of a Timeline. Most Timelines can be split into at least two Eras, what came before a major event, and what came after. From there, further segments can be made, such as the reigns of kings, cultural movements, or technological eras.The Reign of King Henry, the Civil Rights Era, the Medieval Ages, or the Cold War
timeline-era2.JPG
 
Calanders
As of this writing, calenders serve the function of allowing the creation and use of Named Months in place of numbers. Your setting can have as many or as few months as you would like, and can be named in whichever manner pleases you.
timeline-calendar.JPG
 
Historical Entries
Here, we get into the true meat of the Timeline Feature, the ability to create an event, and place it on a timeline to see its relation to other events. The very basic information needed is the Title and UTD Start Date. Filling in the short description will create a small excerpt when the event is seen on a timeline, while the longer description will show when the whole event is viewed.

Historical events are not tied to a specific timeline. They can be added to as many timelines as necessary. The timelines can be selected in the editor of the historical event.

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Building a Timeline

The first important step in design of your world's Timeline is deciding how many Eras you will need. For a Master Timeline, a before 0 UTD and after 0 UTD can be the easiest to start with. Further Eras can be put in other Parallel Timelines. These two give your world a basis, a simple idea of how to talk about time. Simply going to your World Configuration Dashboard and setting your two Eras will get you started.

What if you want 3 or more Eras, like a combination of Segmented and Ray Timelines? Also easy! Without touching you Worlds Configuration at all, simply go to Timelines, and begin creating your Eras.

As an example set of timelines, lets take the Real World. For this, we will be focusing on a single Master Timeline, and 3 Parallel Timelines.

Master Timeline

Here, we will set up our timeline to match the Modern Solar Calendar, in which the current year is 2018 CE. The Common Era (CE) will begin on 1 UTD, with our counting beginning at 1 and with the Era being the Current Era. Before the Common Era (BCE) will end at -1 UTD and will be the First Era, with Inverted Dates, also Counting from 1. This sets up our dates easily, and will put things in the proper order as they would be seen in any listing of world events.

Hebrew Calendar

This Timeline will be our first Parallel. This timeline is a ray type, as we will not be concerned with anything prior to Hebrew year 0. The Timeline Begins with what we will for now call the Genesis Era (GE) which begins in -3761 UTD. This will cause any event placed in 2018 on our Master to show as 5778 in the Hebrew Calendar.

Hijri Calendar

Unlike the Hebrew Calendar the Hijri or Muslim Calendar is line type, having two important Eras. The latter, calculated as After Hijri, starts in the year when Muhammad and his followers mgirated from Mecca to Medina, which is predominantly believed to equate to 622 UTD. This causes the current year to be shown as 1443 in our Master Timeline. It will still have a Count from 0, as will the prior Era ending in 569 UTD.

Long Count Calendar

Used by the Mayans, this calendar is also a ray type, like the Hebrew calendar. It's beginning date would be marked as -3114 UTD and would cause the current year to show as 5132 UTD.

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Timeline Editor

timeline-editor1.JPG

This is where you can find the timeline editor.
timeline-editor2.JPG
And this is the timeline editor main page. To the right, you can add a new timeline and above the list of your timelines, you can find the tabs for the Historical entries and your world's calendars. Let's click the wrench button next to the only timeline we have on this list.
timeline-editor3.JPG
This is what you'll see after you've clicked the wrench button. A list of your entries to the left and on on the right a set of collapsible boxes with different utilities. They are all collapsed by default, but in the above screenshot you can see the contents of the "Actions" box. View Timeline will open the timeline in your world's interface, while create historical entry will take you to that page, more about that further down.   You can use the tags in the Links box to link to the timeline from any text fields that allows BBCode. Of course, you can always use the mention system to link to it.   The Edit timeline box allows you to edit the timeline in general (not its eras or historical entries). Click Show advanced options to see all editing fields.
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Historical Entry Editor

timeline-HE-editor1.JPG
This is the Historical Entry main page, here you will see all your historical entries. Click on the Create new Historical Entry to create a new one! Of course, you can also quickly access the historical entry creation page from the green power hammer button.
timeline-HE-editor2.JPG
This is the top of the "Create new historical entry" page, fill out all the information that you want to. There are more options than the ones in the screenshot, and some of them are hidden under the Show Advanced Options button.
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How to delete a timeline

To delete a timeline, go to the edit screen of your timeline and open the ACTIONS menu on the righthand side. The delete button is under this enveloping menu.

†This Era Name is implied due to a lack of straightforward answers being found by the author
 

Navigation



Comments

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Sep 6, 2019 07:25 by Jonathan Albin

How do I delete a timeline? I didn't understand the structure and created parallels, instead of linear timelines...

The Games Master Guru - Jonathan
Sep 7, 2019 12:08 by Heath O'Donnell

Go to Timelines>Edit Timeline (wrench Icon)>Action Tab on right. Delete Timeline should be in red.   I suggest editing evemts first to make them appear in proper Timelines first, to save you time rewriting.

Sep 8, 2019 07:32 by Jonathan Albin

I got it. Thanks. Yeah, I had a better time, actually AFTER reading the instructions. SIlly me. Thanks for the answer, Heath.

The Games Master Guru - Jonathan
Feb 29, 2020 03:43

I know it's a while since this comment but... I cannot find how to delete a timeline using these instructions. When I go to timelines>Edit timeline (wrench Icon), I see an "Action Tab" on the right but it will not expand when I try to click on it. So I have 2 timelines I want to get rid of (I was doing some testing) and I can't delete either of them. Is there some reason why the action tab won't work for me?

Feb 29, 2020 11:12 by Heath O'Donnell

I just did it myself Timelines>Wrench Icon>Actions Tab>Delete Timeline>Confirmation Box. If the Action Tab is not expanding, what Browser are you on? I think Edge and sometimes certain Add-ons can cause those to not work. Mobile Safari was also notoriously bad about this.

Feb 29, 2020 14:35

It's Chrome, and I have figured it out. For some reason the Actions tab is very picky about exactly where on it I click. If I am too far over to the left or right edge, nothing happens (this is not true of some of the other bars). I was trying to click on the little "^" symbol, which seems to work for other tabs, but not that one. I have managed to get it to work by remembering to always click in the center of the word "Action".

Oct 9, 2019 20:19

I need help..... my event won't go to the right year I'm so confused. I'm planning a dystopia future story so I need 2 eras; before and after. The before is like right now until the war that creates the society my story takes place in. My even I'm trying to put is the war and I want it to be 1 BR to year 0 because it starts the new era but I need help.... please?

Oct 10, 2019 01:19 by Heath O'Donnell

Hi! Sorry I'm just now responding, was on a media fast.   So, the current issue you are running into is that an event technically can not happen between eras. Eras bump up next to each other in the current system.   What I would do is choose to either have this event be the end event of the first era, or starting event of the second. It's honestly very likely that the war has a lot of post-time before your society actually changes, so you could actually fit more events in before the era does indeed change.

Oct 10, 2019 19:38

Ok thanks so much!

Oct 30, 2019 17:45

Is there a way to make parallel timelines next to an all encompassing Master timeline (which has the UTD) display their own years through different ages? IE; I have the master timeline start at 0, a parallel timeline start at 271000 UTD (set to year 0 in advanced options), next Era at 273046 UTD. In both eras I have an event, the first era event displays to correct year, the second reverts to UTD. Having a world with multiple groups of people who will have their own timelines, the master timeline with parallels for each made the most sense.

Oct 30, 2019 21:27

The timeline feature is telling my histories are "orphan histories" and I'm not a hundred percent sure how to fix that!

Nov 3, 2019 15:15 by Heath O'Donnell

As long as your Events are not below the Orphaned Histories title, you are good.

Nov 11, 2019 04:52

Oh okay, that makes more sense! Thanks!

Apr 25, 2021 04:21

What if I don't want to see the title "Orphaned Histories"?

Nov 11, 2019 16:21 by Christian Farfan

Hi! I created quite a few eras in my master timeline that go from -2000 - 1222 but when I set my current era which begins at 1221 it appears in the middle of my timeline instead of after/on top of the previous era. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Is it that I have too many eras? There are 6 in total.

Jan 21, 2020 20:09 by Felipe Tiago Campos

if i got your question right, at some points you have to set you year at Utd (universal time date), so if your first era end at 2000 and the second have 1222 years you must put the year 3222 at UTD then it'll go to the second era. I think at least, still learning

Feb 13, 2020 14:45 by Christian Farfan

Yeah! I think I figured it out to work that way.

Nov 12, 2019 02:56

So my world has a timeline starting at UTD 0 and has 8 eras that are a few hundred years long each. I have every era set to "Begin counting at 1" because whenever I put in the UTD for an event (like the birth of a character), I want it to display the birth year in the year of the particular era, however in articles, it ONLY displays the UTD. How do I get it to display the year of a specific era, using a UTD input?   For example: I have an Emperor that was born in the 267th year of the 8th era. In UTD this is year 1,817. How do I get it to display his birth year as "267" using a UTD input of "1817" in the "Year of Birth" section of the article?

Nov 21, 2019 14:36

I'm wondering about this too! It seems very odd to label something using the UTD year but using the era abbreviation.

Nov 21, 2019 14:41

I figured it out! Edit the era and check the "Begin counting at 1" option in advanced options.

Dec 3, 2019 17:15 by Heath O'Donnell

Riggletoes,   Sorry, I accidently tapped delete instead of reply, and so have completly lost your question. Feel free to swing by the Discord and hit me up (@PatheticBarrel) or just ask again.

Dec 17, 2019 21:46

I think I might be misunderstanding something with timelines. I created 2 eras, one that is current (AW) and starts at UTD 1 and is the current era and one that ends at UTD 0 (BW), is the first era and uses inverted dates and counts from 0. I then created 2 historical events each of which have strange issues. The first even takes place on UTD 0 and is the event that transforms the world and splits the two eras except on the timeline it shows as -1 BW when I would expect 0 BW. The second even takes place 150 years before the event and is listed as UTD -150 but shows on the timeline as -150 BW when I would expect 150 BW. Any advice would be great, I like the tool a lot but this is a bit frustrating.

Dec 18, 2019 09:13 by Heath O'Donnell

Both of these issues are known oddities of the system,bspecofically the Start Count from 1/0nactually does 0/-1. Innyour case, though, you may only need tonuse your world's Global Timeline for these eras, and not really need any other timeline unless you want morebtham two eras.   The negative showing can be fixes, but I'll have to dig around and double check how. Been a hotnminute and things have changed.

Dec 23, 2019 21:30

ok as long as they are known issues I can handle it on my end for now.

Mar 9, 2020 16:47

Any update on how to get the negative to stop showing? As in, 210 BC is not written, in the real world, as -210 BC... but that is what the timeline does to me with my AD/BC formatted dates.

Mar 9, 2020 19:25 by Heath O'Donnell

Honestly, completly forgot.   I'm gonna poke around and get you an answer other than just using the Alternative Display Date.

Dec 20, 2019 04:55 by Lady Saga

So I might have missed something with how this works, but I'm currently filling in some stuff on the timeline based very much on the Forgotten Realms one, and, there seems to be a problem with starts, ends and minuses. I have 2 situations.   1: Everything before 0 is shown correctly, except without a minus. It works, but it looks strange when an era is for instance Age of Humanity which is shown as 3000 to 1358 (instead of -3000 to 1358 that it should be). But other than the lack of - it works.   2: This however is more of an actual issue. I added the Crown Wars era which spans -12000 DR to -9000 DR (set as inverted dates), and then added the 5 crown wars as historical events. But the First Crown Wars is messed up.   Lore wise the First Crown War takes place between -12000 DR and -11300 DR which I added. When I click "View Event" it does show the accurate time (well, except for the minus). But.. in the Timeline it splits into two clones of the same event, but with different years (both wrong) and on each side of the era. It looks like this:   |--- First Crown War: 0 > 700 DR Crown Wars : 12000 > 9000 (This is the era) |--- First Crown War: -3000 > -2300 DR   Both of the "First Crown War" is the same event, and if I click to open them (both in View, and in Edit) they show 12000 > 11300 DR. Also note that the "second" First Crown War has minuses, but not the other. My guess was that it had to do with both the era and the event starting at the same year.. so I tried adding a couple of months to the event, but that didn't change anything really. Still split up in two.

Dec 20, 2019 05:01 by Lady Saga

Quick update to myself. I did find out why the years are wrong at least. That's because every era restarts the year as 0 or 1 depending on settings. Okay so that's understandable. Then my question is altered.   1: Still the same questions as in the main post. 2: Still the split event thou even if it's the same event. (New) 3: How to I stop it from counting from 0 (or 1) in every era/age. I want it to use just 1 year-counting (Dalereckoning) for all of the eras, so I have for instance -11700, or 1234, or 1449 (which the group plays in currently).

Dec 20, 2019 05:32 by Lady Saga

Okay I can't delete my above two comments for some reason (I get sent to the 404 page), but... a new update.. Sorry 'bout that!   The missing minuses is still a question. I did fix the split event thing by simply splitting the timeline into a separate timeline for every era, and then having a master timeline for all the eras but without the events. So that fixed it.   I still want to find out how to have it use the same year-count for all the ages (DR, Dalereckoning, or well, the UTD, I want it to use the UTD on all eras, because my UTD is following the Dalereckoning! :)

Jan 22, 2021 23:32 by Pexuson

I'm interested in the display issue, as well -- although I did find a workaround: for each event, under Advanced Options, scroll down to "Alternative Display Name", and I type in the UTD date so that it appears the way I want it to. It's a little bit of a pain, so if there were some toggle allowing us to flip between events displaying the UTD number and the "era-relative" number that would be better. However..... the text override works.

Jun 14, 2022 21:44

I too am interested in this. For the same Day Reckoning timeline. I created eras for each of the eras but it doesn't show up as negative and the Age of Humanity that spans year 0 doesn't work. The recorded history of the known world is split into ages, each a distinct and fascinating period of its own.   Being as this is the current timeline for D&D I'm surprised this isn't a documented example to teach how to create a calendar.   Days of Thunder Timeline : −35,000 DR to −30,000 DR Dawn Age Timeline : −30,000 DR to −24,000 DR First Flowering Timeline : −24,000 DR to −12,000 DR Crown Wars Timeline : −12,000 DR to −9000 DR The Founding Time Timeline : −9000 DR to −3000 DR Age of Humanity Timeline : −3000 DR to 1358 DR Era of Upheaval Timeline : 1358 DR to present

Dec 26, 2019 20:54

Why does the UTD display for my Eras always default to E1, this doesn't matter which timeline I'm editing, in my Master Timeline there is First Era with the abbreviation E1, but it's not literally the first. It has been quite a while since I made the timeline, so maybe there's a setting I made that causes this to happen, but if so I can't find a way to fix it.   The actual events of the Eras display the correct date and era abbreviation, but it's really bugging the than the first event in the Second Era has the date: "4 E2", but right above it the era states that it lasts from "24012 E1 > 26062 E1".   Is there any way to fix this or should I just write the correct era times with the "Alternative Display Range" or completely turn off eras showing the time they last?

Dec 27, 2019 05:05 by Heath O'Donnell

So, the global dates should be used as a base line date system (ie. BC/AD), while the Timeline Eras should be used to differentiate various Eras within those dating systems, such as the Classical Age, the Victorian Age, amd the Modern Age. For instance, we as humans tend to forget that the Gregorian was not created until 1582 AD, and as such could actually be it's own Era setup on a Timeline as opposed to the actual Global Timeline.

Jan 10, 2020 15:09 by The Lorkeeper

I have multiple era's in my timeline and each of them should have a different abbreviation but instead they all have the same as my current era

Jan 10, 2020 15:22 by Heath O'Donnell

Is your Current Era the one that you set in the Global Timeline of your World Configuration? Is this Abbreviation only showing up on the Era Dates and not the Event Dates?

Mar 5, 2020 22:46

I’m having the same issue. The abbreviation isn’t showing up anywhere in the master timeline, era’s or events.

Jan 14, 2020 22:20

Is there a way to set the timeline so the newest events are at the top and the oldest events are at the bottom?

Jan 16, 2020 13:59 by Heath O'Donnell

Currently no. It is designed so that you read it in the order of things happening, but I believe that Dimitris said that may happen in the next timeline update.

Jan 18, 2020 07:35

The title of the Calendar section is misspelled as "Calandars".

Jan 19, 2020 15:02 by Marine Hermitant

Is it possible to put names for days in a calendar and not only months' (and if yes, then how ?) like our monday, tuesday, etc. ? I made an entire day system and even if I can always explain it on a prose article, I'd like to be able to have my days as I want them on my timelines.

Jan 20, 2020 04:10 by Heath O'Donnell

Yes! This is done via the new calander system, but I haven't messed with it enough yet to know exactly how to do it.

Jan 24, 2020 04:18

I'm having trouble having the months be named correctly in my world. It only displays them as day/month/year in terms of numbers, and since this scheme is different from what I am used to, as in month/day/year. I've already inputted the different names for the months (January,February etc.) in the calendar area and it still is not updating.

Jan 30, 2020 16:48

My histories are below the 'Orphaned Histories' banner. Not sure how to fix that. The first events in world are undated, as they fall into myth. I want those undated events be in one era. The next era starts at 360 BD and goes to 0 BD. After that I want a third era that starts at 1 AD. How can I correct this?   Thanks!   - Paul

Jan 31, 2020 13:42 by Heath O'Donnell

Hi! Create era 1, with "First Era" selected and ending at -359. Give the Era an Alternative Display Date like "before known Time". Give those events dates within that range.   Create second era with -360 start and 0 end. Make events fall i. Those UTD dates.   Third Era, start Date 1, select "Is Current Era". Any event with a positive UTD year will fall in that.

Feb 11, 2020 23:28

Is it possible to have secret/hidden events on the timeline?

Feb 12, 2020 00:00 by Heath O'Donnell

It Is! This may be a Guild Member only feature, but Events can be made secret using Secrets or by making them Private. Great for when you have events that only a certain subsection of your player group may in game know about!

Mar 7, 2020 16:44

It is possible to suppress the "Alternative Timeline" section of an event in the timeline? I have a global timeline that is known only to me, and then a local history timeline for the players. I have placed some historical events into both timelines, and some only into the global one (i.e., the one only I can see). When the events common to both display for a player, they see that this event is found in an alternative timeline ("History of the World") with a link, but when they click it they get an error message saying they don't have permission. Although this achieves the desired effect (not allowing them to see into the global timeline), it seems sloppy to me. I'd rather they didn't see it at all. Is there some way to just tell the timeline not to show them the alternative ones?

Mar 7, 2020 23:49 by Heath O'Donnell

Honestly, there isn't, but that would make a great little suggestion. Down below, hit the Need Help? Button, and then follow the links for putting a suggestion in on the Jira board. This is a seperate website the dev uses for tracking suggestions and bugs, and does not use your WA account info.

Mar 8, 2020 00:52

Well, it's not really a bug. I was just hoping there might be a feature to turn it on or off somewhere.

Mar 8, 2020 02:11 by Heath O'Donnell

Not yet, but you can be the one to suggest it!

Mar 12, 2020 15:07 by Dreik Stormtracker

Hello, I was wondering if there is a way to "Duplicate" of something the timelines. I would like to have multiple timelines asides from the main one. For each kingdom and a personal one for each Major character. Problem is that I have 3 eras and it's rather annoying having to re-add those 3 eras manually each time I make a timeline. Is there a solution to facilitate this? Thanks in advance for your aid.

May 4, 2020 12:50 by Heath O'Donnell

Hey! Don't know how I missed this. Currently, there is not a way to duplicate eras across timelines beyond copy paste. The idea is that each timeline would cover different eras (like how Aztec Culture was still blossoming while the Age of Sail was beginning and Genghis Khan was uniting the Mongol nation.)

Mar 17, 2020 01:45

I'm having a heck of a time working with my master timeline. The first problem was having the years line up because there is a year zero in the software but there was never a year zero. I've clicked the start at 1 buttons but it just doesn't line up right. The second issue is I get negative numbers in my "pre-event" era. The count is indeed inverted, but 3000 BCE shouldn't be -3000 BCE. And it looks like I can't even go back into edit the UTD because I simply can't find it. Do I need to delete everything and start over? Or can I edit my way out of this?

Mar 25, 2020 05:02

I've created a Master Timeline, the 8 eras (time periods) of the world, and all the major historical events. I want to create a separate timeline for each era that contain the major historical events for that era, but without having to recreate the events. I know how to create a parallel timeline, but I'm not having success at connecting the events.   Can I connect events in my Master Timeline to another timeline? If so, how can I connect events in my Master Timeline to another timeline?

Mar 25, 2020 05:20

My apologies, Historical Events are different from Eras. Can I connect an Era in my Master timeline to another timeline? If so, how can I connect Eras in my Master Timeline to another timeline.

Mar 25, 2020 05:34

So I figured out the answer to my question. Create your Master Timeline first. Then, create each Era. Then create the Historical Events.   Next, create a Parallel Timeline named for each Era. You can get the link for this timeline in the Links section when editing the timeline. You can put the link in the Master Timeline's description.   Next, In you Master Timeline, edit a historical event by adding the parallel timeline. Now my events show up on both timelines and both timelines have links to one another.

Mar 29, 2020 23:13

(First of all, I hope I'm right here with this question and should not post it at the Calendar page. It's somewhat about both Timelines and Calendars.) Is it a possibility or could it maybe become a possibility to align calendars or add several calendar options for historic events? Sounds probably unclear, so I'll try to explain: let's say, the dwarves in my world organise their calendar in a different way than humans do. So I make one calendar for each civilization. I also make different timelines for each, but some historical events appear on both parallel timelines. Because one calendar has fewer months than the other, the UTD time cannot be converted correctly in both timelines because of that difference. So...should I currently create that same event multiple times for each calendar? Or can I somehow work around that or could maybe even something be implemented in the future for this problem, maybe just a 'day of the year' UTD counter or something alike that picks the correct month and date for each different calendar?

Mar 30, 2020 08:56 by Heath O'Donnell

All Timelines should have UTD match (this universal time date would allow the 7th of Hammerfall and 15th of December to be the same "happening", for instance) while the calendars only use their information for "dressing up" the timeline events.

Apr 19, 2020 16:28

Thanks for the reply and sorry for responding so late - that part, I absolutely get. But I have calendars that differ in the length of their months. But for historic events I have to enter a UDT month. That can only line up with one of the calendar months correctly because while in one calendar it's still the third month, in another it's already the fifth, for example, but the timeline will still pick that calendar's third month because I can't differentiate it in the UTD. *That* is what I'm trying to work around, so the date doesn't get displayed wrongly in different calendars. I hope that's making my problem a bit more clear.

Apr 19, 2020 11:50

Hi there, I'm having a very small but still bewildering issue. I created a "before" era (like BCE) and at one point was considering its abreviation to be BB, but changed my mind and would like it to be AW and I have deleted the entire era and all the other eras and made it again several times but no matter what I do my pre-year-zero era shows as BB and my post year zero era shows as AB which is also not what I have set that abbreviation to be in both the re-doings. The correct abbreviation seems to show up on Historical events but it's a bit weird that it's doing that. I do want my current era's abreviation to be AB, but there are a couple other eras between it and year 0, i'd like the whole post year 0 to have a different abbreviation or be able to use their own abbreviations, and mostly I just want BB to stop being there as it's not the name of ANY era anymore and at this point i'm wondering if i should just delete the whole timeline instead of just re-doing the eras?

Apr 19, 2020 12:57 by Heath O'Donnell

Historical events get their designation from the Era Settings, Eras get theirs from the Global settings. This allows us to have a BC/AD global designation and individual events to use localized era abbreviations.

Apr 19, 2020 15:17

Thanks! I get that part, but maybe I have not explained the issue clearly. My BC equivalent is showing up as BB despite having completely deleted and re-made all of the eras on the timeline. I made it as BB initially, decided I didn't like that, tried to change it, saved, that didn't change it, so I deleted it and re-made the era from scratch. I was working within the Edit Timeline and Add Era areas, so if there is a setting somewhere else that got set with what I first set it as that I can go change that would be good to know.

Apr 20, 2020 02:14 by Heath O'Donnell

Check World Configuration>Time amd Date. Your Before 0 Era may still have the old Era Abbreviation

Apr 24, 2020 09:35

Perfect, excactly what I was looking for, thanks!

Apr 19, 2020 11:59

Maybe i am missing it, but figured it cant help to ask. I tried searching UMT and Era's Im working on updating a timeline and cant seem to do a fractional Era. We are running Giantslayer AP for Pathfinder. We started Book 1 on UTD 4715.9.21 (Year.Month.Day) Id like era 1 to be Siege of Trunau 4715.9.21 UTD - 4715.9.26 UTD. Era 2 to be Expedition to 4715.9.26 - 4715.10.21 UTD   I try to set the ALTERNATIVE DISPLAY RANGE It works, however it posts all events twice, once for each Era in the same year.   If we could add era's to historic events that would i think solve the issue.   Thank You in advance, Love this place!

Apr 19, 2020 12:55 by Heath O'Donnell

Currently, Eras work off of the real world design that an Era or Age can begin in a year, but encompasses the whole year, with the Era Changing event being the mark,not the specific date.

Apr 29, 2020 23:21 by Daniel Gárgula

How do I put my plots automatically in a timeline?

Apr 30, 2020 08:50 by Heath O'Donnell

Articles are not able to be added to a Timeline, but you can add a Historical Event, fill out a short summary or as much as you want there (I suggest shorter for clarity and size) and then select the Related Article dropdown and select the Plot.

Apr 30, 2020 08:50 by Heath O'Donnell

Articles are not able to be added to a Timeline, but you can add a Historical Event, fill out a short summary or as much as you want there (I suggest shorter for clarity and size) and then select the Related Article dropdown and select the Plot.

May 1, 2020 01:21

I literally just typed in "otters" and it brought me here...?

May 1, 2020 08:34 by Heath O'Donnell

Question is: Where did you type otters at?

May 6, 2020 17:51

Hi guys, i was able to create several historical events on my timelines, However, I don't seem to place in under the correct era. They appear in the Orphan timeline. each one of those has a date dont seem to work.

May 6, 2020 19:36 by Heath O'Donnell

Double check a few things.

  1. Are the Events above or Below the Orphaned Histories section? Above is good, below is things are broken.
  2. Are your Eras sharing dates? All Dates should be in UTD and each era should have its own dates i.e. one era should be from 1-100, the next from 101-200 etc. (Use larger dates if needed).

May 6, 2020 22:15

I did have sharing dates. orphan histories when from the section below to the top, However, to the wrong era. i have 5 eras: 1-100 (current era or my world, where my entries are going) 0-999 1000-1999 2000-4999 5000-9999 (where suppose to go) 10000-14000 i tried to to put a (-) on those era ( -9999 instead of 9999) prior to the year 0 and changed the dates of every events to (-), it works but somehow it shows wrong year. EX: before adding the minus symbol:6590 after adding it: 1990

May 10, 2020 17:52

In the Guide to Timelines page, the first screenshot's link (https://www.worldanvil.com/i/32722) seems to be broken: it's giving a 404 error. Thanks!

May 10, 2020 18:04 by Heath O'Donnell

I'll have to take a look at that! Thanks for the notification.

May 17, 2020 05:00

Is there a way to display most recent events on the top, and older events at the bottom (i.e. descending order)?

May 17, 2020 11:12 by Heath O'Donnell

Currently no, though it has been discussed. The current design is based on events being read from first to last as most users are using timelines to out line things in a chronological order and wish to avoid people from seeing things in the wrong order or have spoilers.

May 18, 2020 05:48

Thank you for your answer. Is that something I could add as a "requested feature" somewhere? If yes, how could I do it (I've heard/read you guys use Jira)?   Is there a better way to log day-to-day campaign/story events chronologically than the Timeline? I love the feature, and want to make sure I'm not using it wrong. :)

May 18, 2020 09:12 by Heath O'Donnell

Personally? I'd use a combination of a Parallel timeline coveri g the campaign. Each session or minor arc is an event that links to the relevant Session Report from the campaign. More major events within that get their own Historocal entry.   Timelines are a way to encourage further reading.

May 18, 2020 12:15 by Arklaw

How do you connect a timeline to an article from the article edit page?

May 18, 2020 20:42 by Heath O'Donnell

Type the left bracketb then timeline and a dropdown of saved Timelines should be availble. If not, you may have to go to the timeline editor itself and grab the link.

May 18, 2020 23:39 by Arklaw

That's just the link. I meant to put it next to the metadata of the article, at the bottom, like I saw some people do. Also the dropdown doesn't happen. "[timeline:" nothing happens.

May 19, 2020 11:33 by Heath O'Donnell

That is done by selecting the article as related from the timeline editor end. You can only select one this way.   The [timeline] bit is aparrently a Guild festure

May 29, 2020 09:02

Is there a way to display the negative years with a -? Whatever I do the timeline shows the era from-to without the minus sign.

May 30, 2020 13:05 by Heath O'Donnell

There is not. This is because most timelines (including real-world BC/AD, BCE/CE) use abbreviations to show a difference. As well, you may have an era in the negative years that doesn't actually count inverted, but rather normally (depending on culture and concept of time)

Jun 7, 2020 23:25

How do I define a UTD? I

Jun 9, 2020 10:48 by Heath O'Donnell

Universal Time Dating simple means that these numbers always mark the same progression, as opposed to any two timelines using internal numbering.   The best way I've found to define your UTD is to just choose a well known (or theoretical) event to mark the beginning of tracked time. That happens on 0 UTD, and everything after happens from 1 UTD on, and before is -1 UTD back.

Jun 9, 2020 14:38

I’ve also been having the same issue as a lot of other commenters where the eras mark themselves strangely. For example, my “The Infinite Past” Era is supposed to be the first one and start at infinite BE (before empire) and end at 30,000 BE. However, it always shows up marked as RY, and sometimes even in the wrong spot.

Jun 9, 2020 17:31 by Heath O'Donnell

I may need more info and screenshots. Best way would be to PM or ping me on the Discord Server. (PatheticBarrel)

Jun 16, 2020 12:02 by Crow

How do you put in days for your calendar? Still getting use to how to use this

Jun 16, 2020 13:40 by Heath O'Donnell

Calendar days are handled a bit seperatly from timelines currently! Check this article out for more on that.

Jul 5, 2020 02:53

Still encountering the issue with Eras starting at -1/0 rather than 0/1 (even the "starts at 1" example shows this behavior unless I'm misreading it). Any idea when a fix for this might find its way into the system?

Jul 5, 2020 12:19 by Heath O'Donnell

Hopefully later this year, but I've been doing some work in better understanding what is happening and am slowly thinking it isn't an actual bug. Will get back to you on that.

Jul 12, 2020 18:00 by Ivin Huffman

I am currently working on my timeline. When I save it, it takes me to a page with a dragon that says 404 something or another. There is a link on this page to return to my homepage which I do. But when I return to the historical timeline, my changes are not saved. I could serious use some help with this!

Jul 12, 2020 18:21 by Heath O'Donnell

Hey! I think this may need more in depth help than O can provide here! Swing by our Discord Server (look for the alien looking face atthe top of the dashboard) and go to our #help channel. Ask for @PatheticBarrel or @Anvil Assistants

Jul 20, 2020 15:10

Newbie here, I may have totally run up the wrong tree when I saw the timeline feature but I was basically wanting to use it for plotting events in my novel. I don't want to put in years, I just wanted to put events into a timeline and be able to click and drag them around/add and remove like a digital version of sticky notes on the wall. Is this possible, or does everything need to be done by date? Thanks!

Jul 20, 2020 23:27 by Heath O'Donnell

The current design of the timelines feature is all sorted by numerical dates.   I would suggest using Plot Articles and moving those around in your Articles & Categories dashboard.

Jul 25, 2020 09:01

I was making timelines for my different groups in my games, but i kinda wanted to separate them with arcs and sagas. Is there a way to be like here's chapter ones events without having separate timelines. Like i have the different events as different historical events but want to separate the groups of events with titles of the specific arc or saga it is. Do i have to make multiple times lines instead or can it just be one. I've been using historical events and just naming them Chapter 1 and the time frame, but sometimes other events that happen in it will say be on the first day and thus its above the chapter 1 event. Chapter 1: Year 1 jan 1st-Jan 5th but event that happens on Jan 1st will be above it instead of below.

Jul 25, 2020 10:38 by Heath O'Donnell

For your case, each Chapter or Arc (chose one) would be best defined within an Era. Then each event would fit onside of the proper era as long as the start and end dates of the era encompass the start/end dates of the event.

Jul 30, 2020 14:20

I'm trying to figure out how to add my calendar and timeline to my campaign page (preferably in the timelines and maps section) but I'm not seeing how to do this?

Jul 30, 2020 14:25

edit: I found how to add the timeline, but I haven't found how to add the calendar.

Jul 31, 2020 12:48 by Heath O'Donnell

You'll need to embed the calendar code from the calendar editor dashboard

Aug 1, 2020 16:12

Let me start with some quick definitions, to make this slightly easier to understand:   NT: Normal Time. This is the calander as we know it. Today = 2020. RT: Realm Time. This is the same calander as NT, except that the year 0 is in 700 NT. Today = 1320.   I'm confused as to how to make this work using the UTD.   I have an event which takes place in the year 107 RT. It also shows as happening in 107 NT (it should be 807). If I change NT to start at -700, it says it starts at 700 BC, but I want it to start at 0. I also tried the other way around, having RT start at 700 UTD, but then the timeline starts in the year 700, which, again, I want to be 0.   How exactly can I achieve this?

Aug 22, 2020 21:07

Hello,   My timeline is not displaying the correct year or era abbreviation for any new historical events I create. It was working so I'm not sure if I changed something. Example: An event is assigned a year of -50,000. I have BC and AD eras (DeS and DS) assigned in the Date & Time Settings. This should display on my timeline as 50,000 DeS. It displays -4999 KeS. I would like to resolve this and any help is appreciated.   It is displaying correctly when I view the event, just not when it's on the timeline.   Ryan

Aug 30, 2020 17:14

Is there a way to get it to show which events on a timeline are public and which are private, or to change that status, without going in to Edit for each entry? I'd like to make parts of my world's timeline available to players, but going through and editing each entry appropriately is a rather daunting task with a timeline as large as mine. I'd very much like to be able to bulk-edit from the full Timeline view, and furthermore, to be able to see (maybe via an icon or a colour bar?) which events are visible to my players and which ones aren't. Right now, there's no way to visually distinguish Public from Private, except by looking at the whole timeline in Incognito and seeing which entries don't appear. A bulk edit/icon would also be useful for making historical entries visible once players have learned about them.

Sep 2, 2020 17:44

I have a problem. Te timeline shouldn´t have a "year 0" same as the real world´s, but an event set to be in the -25 UTD shows as -24, and another set to be -8 shows as -7. Any help?

Sep 7, 2020 22:22

I can't get my era info to show on the public timeline, it's only viewable by me logged in. Is there any way to make it visable publicly?

Oct 5, 2020 11:19 by Heath O'Donnell

Eras need Events in order to populate. Put some in (as public, not private) and they should show.

Sep 9, 2020 17:18

I can't create Historical Events. I did it once, but now every time I try it, the save changes button just doesn't work. I need help.

Oct 2, 2020 13:22 by Bryson Shirley

Hello! Is there a way to link a character article to a historical entry that he/she would have participated in? It's a bit of a pain to copy+paste the whole historical entry into their personal history box for every character that took part.

Oct 5, 2020 11:18 by Heath O'Donnell

When editing the Event or Timeline, you should see a [timeline/event:code] that you can copy paste into articles for quicker entry.

Oct 3, 2020 20:46 by Rhun Tolihzeh

I am working on a timeline but the link on the website doesn't show the contents when clicked. How can I publish it?

Oct 5, 2020 11:17 by Heath O'Donnell

As long as there are events in your eras, you should have no problem seeing anything. Eras only populate on the view end if there are events in them.

Nov 17, 2020 16:00 by Rhun Tolihzeh

It worked in the end! (And then RL came in between and interrupted everything. If only we could pause that! )

Oct 30, 2020 22:21

Is it possible to embed a timeline on an article page? Like, having a timeline of a characters life and having it displayed on their page similar to how the family trees show up?

Oct 31, 2020 01:22 by Heath O'Donnell

If you create a seperate timeline, you can duplicate events on it that only pertain to the character, and then set the timeline as the related Article. Only one article can be related to a timeline currently.

Oct 31, 2020 05:59

I have it linked to the characters article, and down at the bottom is a button to show the timeline, but can it be embedded within a specific section of the article? Like, can I have it automatically shown under the characters history instead of only via the button? Since, like me, I'm sure most people won't see the timeline button way down there.

Oct 31, 2020 06:00

Let me rephrase that. I know my players don't pay attention and aren't going to see the timeline button. lol

Oct 31, 2020 12:37 by Heath O'Donnell

Players, amirite?   So, on Your character article Edit screen, choose where you would like to embed the timeline, then type [*NAME OF TIMELINE. This should pop up with a little embed option much like the "at mention" system does. Badabing, badaboom, your timeline can now be viewed.

Dec 26, 2020 05:11

I am having a problem adding an event to my timeline. It's listed as having been created, but it doesn't appear when I view the timeline as it would appear to readers. Is there a limit to the number of events? I created nine but it only displays eight.

Dec 26, 2020 13:04 by Heath O'Donnell

There shouldn't be a limit. Is It possibly a private event? Or one that is in a different era than the others are?

Dec 26, 2020 16:03

I will recheck again but I don't think so

Dec 26, 2020 16:07

Ugh, I failed to assign it to a timeline! Thanks for your help. I wouldn't have thought of that.

Jan 9, 2021 23:35

Hello! I have a question. I have several related articles and characters to some of my historical events. Is there a way to change the picture icon that pops up from the default picture?

Jan 16, 2021 16:20

Can a timeline's events be reversed when viewing? Such as... Instead of starting from the beginning, show the last event first?

Jan 17, 2021 15:02 by Heath O'Donnell

Currently no. I don't believe there is a plan to implement timelines as such, as the normal way to read a timeline is in order of happening, not most recent thing first.

Jan 23, 2021 22:43

Thanks. I made one as a recap for the players to review the sequence of events that lead them to where they are today.

Jan 22, 2021 00:18

This is really just a shot in the dark. I have two world's that have separate timelines. Time is in flux so dates are not necessarily attributable to the same period of time i.e. a year may have passed in one but only a month in the other. Is there a way that you can connect timelines to show at which point an event may have happened simultaneously in the other world i.e. travel from one to the other or events that happen simultaneously.   I know it's a complex idea but wondering if there is any way it can be done. Thanks!

Jan 23, 2021 23:06 by Heath O'Donnell

If the change in time is variable enough, like sometimes one day = a year, but sometimes a year = 3 minutes, then your only real option is to use a liberal amount of Alternate Display Dates.   Actually, thinking about it, that may be the better way to go anyway.

Feb 8, 2021 19:11 by Rose Dawning

Does anyone know how to link Historical Events and Timelines into articles? I tried the @ method and it just wasn't working.

Feb 11, 2021 12:02 by Heath O'Donnell

From the timeline editor, there is a [historicalevent] or similar code for each timeline and entry on the right sidebar. Just copy paste that. If you know the exact name, you can also uae [timeline: and a pop up will appear similar to the @ method.

Feb 24, 2021 20:32 by Rose Dawning

Thank you!

Feb 16, 2021 19:45

I can't seem to get my timeline to list things with oldest entries at the top and newest at the bottom. They always go Newest at the top and oldest at the bottom. How do I fix this? Also, I can't figure out how to incorporate my calendar into my timeline.

Feb 27, 2021 11:35

Is there a way to get the Timeline to use the names of the months I made in my Calendar?   right now, it only shows as numbers for the year and the month   Alternatively, is there a 'default' Gregorian calendar I can turn on for the timeline?

Mar 28, 2021 07:50

Is there a way to import all birthdays (and deathdays) into a timeline?

Mar 28, 2021 07:54

Like, automatically import all of them. Ive got a whole bunch of NPCs that it would be great to bulk-create a birthday timeline/bulk import a birthday. The birthdays are already in the character articles.

Mar 28, 2021 18:39 by Heath O'Donnell

Currently, no. BUT there is a massive timeline update in the works thst may bring something similar.   I can't say if it will mass update timelines, or if it will make a note on the timelinen like x characters born at this time, but it could be a nice addition.   My only concern would be how messy it could make a very populated, loving worlds timeline look...

Mar 29, 2021 21:55

Okay awesome! And yeah i agree it would look awful on some timelines, i was thinking something that would let me bulk-create a parallel timeline, or pick certain ones to appear on certain timelines. (Im still learning how everything works though, so not sure how it would work) Thanks for the info! :)

Jun 1, 2021 19:02

Hello, I created a timeline with family Events in it. I have 2 events within the same year, and yet visually on the timeline, one is below the other, rather than being equal two (but on different sides). Is there anyway to fix this?   Thanks!

Jun 1, 2021 20:06 by Heath O'Donnell

Currently there is not, though this may change with the next Timeline Update.

Jun 24, 2021 17:50

How do I get an event to show the dates from the relevant era, instead of the whole timeline?   Eg, How do I get The Battle of Hastings to say it happened in 1066 instead of 8066? (assuming 7000 years in BC)

Jul 9, 2021 09:35

¿cómo guardo mi entrada histórica? mi línea de tiempo esta vacía, no encuentro un botón para guardar las entradas, supuse que seria la opción azul de ''crear entrada histórica'', pero cuando lo pulso no sucede nada y si vuelvo a la linea temporal sigue sin tener una sola entrada.

Jul 9, 2021 14:33 by Heath O'Donnell

Cuando crees una entrada nueva, hay que usar el botón azul de "Crear nueva entrada". Si rellenas el título y la fecha de inicio, la entrada debería guardarse automáticamente. Si no lo hace, necesitaremos más información y podremos ayudarte mejor en el canal de ayuda (#help) de nuestro servidor de Discord

Jul 13, 2021 23:26 by Flausche Mondwolf

Hi There. I have a strage probleme with my timeline.   You can divide it into 3 major parts each with a different way of counting the years.   The first part consists of one era, is 10.000 (0 - 10.000 UTD) years long and counts like bc . Only that bc is called VD meaning befor dragons (in german: vor den Drachen)   The second Part also consists of one era, is 5.000 (10.001- 15.001) years long and counts like ac starting with 1. Only that ac is called DD meaning Years of the dragons (in german: Jahr der Drachen)   Up to this point everything is fine. I even maneged to creat an event for the year 15.000 UTD that is shown as 4.999DD   The third and last part consists of three eras.

  • The first era is 500 years long (15.002 - 15.503 UTD) the counting is like ac but restarts with 1. Only that ac is now called ND meaning after dragon (in german: nach den Drachen). Meaning that after the year 5000 DD (15.001 UTD) follows the year 1 ND (15.002 UTD)
  • Up to this point all is still well. When i creat an event for 15.202 UTD it is displayed as 200 ND   But within the second era everything kind'a mess up. The second era of this part is round about 700 years long (15.503 - ca 16.200) and it is supposed to continue counting ND (so i left all the boes for restarting counting clear) . Meaning that after the last year of the first era 500 ND (15.503 UTD) it should follow 501 ND (15.504 UTD) as the first year of the second era.   And at exact this point there is my problem. When i try to create an event, let's say for the year 700 ND ( 15.703 UTD) it is not displayed as 700 ND, it is displayd as 15.703 ND.   Can someoner help me?   I know that the event is placed at the right year, cause it is placed in the second era of the third part and not within the third era that would beginn with the year 1.200 ND (ca. 16.200 UTD)

    Aug 7, 2021 02:15 by Luke

    I'm fairly new to this, so perhaps I've missed it, but is there a way to view nested timelines? For example, I have a Master Timeline with "universal eras" and UTD years designating those eras. As a parallel timeline I have the timeline specific to one culture. Is there a way to see the parallel timeline nested within the Master Timeline? Eventually there will be more than one parallel timeline for various other cultures. It would be great to be able to see how these cultural eras and events fit into the larger flow of time and compare to each other as opposed to only being able to see them one at a time.

    Aug 7, 2021 15:49 by Heath O'Donnell

    If you add the events to both the Master Timeline and the Cultural, yes. You'll be able to see everything on the Master and can use timeline links to the various smaller ones to see them individually.

    Oct 3, 2021 19:25

    I have a question on era creation in my timelines. One of my worlds contains 3 planets and each of these planets have a human population. Each of these planets also has different eras. All are similar to the eras on our world, so a BC-like era and an AD-like era, but the moments each of these eras changed from the first to the second is different, so if I fill in a global BC/AD-like era in my world configuration, this will only be able to reflect the era for one world.   However, if I attach manual eras to each of my timelines, these will be displayed differently. For example, one of my worlds has two eras named BTU and ATU (BC-like and AD-like respectively). If I say BTU is the first era and it ends at 5000 UTD, then my next era, ATU, starts at 5001 UTD. If something then happens in 700 ATU, I have to keep remembering to fill in 5700 as the UTD date for it to be shown accurately, which can be quite annoying.   Basically, what I'm asking is if there is a way to manually re-create the BC/AD system that you get when you fill in the global eras in the world configuration where you can fill in 700 for 700 ATU (in my case) and -700 for 700 BTU.

    Oct 3, 2021 20:31 by Heath O'Donnell

    For your situation, I would pick a setting wide bc-ad shift for all three planets, and then each one gets it's own Timeline with it's own BC-AD shift with the Global as the base. The global will show as the dates for the Era, but won't appear on the actual Events.

    Oct 19, 2021 16:33

    Just a type to point out in the Hijri section: ...Muhammad and his followers "mgirated" from Mecca...

    Oct 19, 2021 16:59 by Heath O'Donnell

    Hah. Yup. I originally wrote much of this on my phone, so it was not (and still isn't) uncommon for me to miss the i, o, or delete L's and M's.

    Oct 24, 2021 06:47

    I was wondering if there is a feature to 'quick add' articles that you have written that have dates in the designated sections into a timeline??

    Oct 24, 2021 06:47

    I was wondering if there is a feature to 'quick add' articles that you have written that have dates in the designated sections into a timeline??

    Oct 24, 2021 11:21 by Heath O'Donnell

    Currently no. I believe that the Chronicles are better for that, but Timelines are more designed for piecing broader pieces together

    Oct 25, 2021 03:27

    How do I add an event to a timeline? I’m truly and genuinely struggling with it

    Oct 25, 2021 12:08 by Heath O'Donnell

    First, you need to ensure you have a timeline built via World Menu (Left Hand Sidebar)>Timelines. Once made, select the wrench icon to edit the Timeline and you should see a "View Timeline" and "Create New Historical Entry" buttons on the right. Click create new, or go to this here.   Fill out the information, ensuring you slept the timeline(s) you want it to appear in, and making sure the start and end dates are older-newest order.   You can then view the Event in the Timeline. If the event is above the "orphaned histories" section, then anyone who can view the timeline can see the event and you've got it put in right.   If it's below the orphaned histories section, that means you have eras that don't encompass the dates of your event and the system doesn't know where to put it.

    Oct 25, 2021 15:45

    What I meant was that I, for some reason, am not able to add a historical event to an era. Each time I change something to the event, era, or both, the event is still perpetually stuck in the Orphaned Histories section

    Oct 25, 2021 15:47

    Nevermind, it fixed itself. all I needed to do was add an end date to the era

    Oct 29, 2021 17:28

    is there a way to import a pre existing calendar into world anvil? i.e. the standard dnd calendar

    Oct 29, 2021 17:33 by Heath O'Donnell

    A calendar? I do not believe there is. However, you would want to seek the Calendar guide for more of how to set that up, as it is seperated from Timelines themselves (but they do crosstalk)

    Nov 12, 2021 01:18

    Is there a way to make it so that the UTD does not show for every era of my timeline? I'm making a master timeline and on my second era (abbreviated WA), it says "4013 WA" instead of "1 WA" like I thought it would. I understand that I'm entering time in the UTD, but I kind of figured as a new era was entered it would display as year 1 of that era.

    Nov 12, 2021 02:06 by Heath O'Donnell

    Hey, I hit you up on the Discord. I think for this one that you are describing, I may need some screenshots.   As I see it on my end, Era's show as happening within either of my two Global Eras, while events show the year they happen within the era they should be in.

    Nov 18, 2021 16:23 by Nicholas Hartwell Barnes II

    I’m a little confused, I’m working on a timeline with 3 eras, it didn’t give me any problems but it reversed the timeline making the one I set as current to the top where the first era should be. When I started setting my first event it then set it to the current era instead of the first era. I can’t find anything saying that it doesn’t work with 3 eras and it let me make 3 eras. Did I do something wrong?


    —— Master CrocOsnake (Nicholas H. Barnes II)
    Professional nerd & furry; amateur worldbuilder, conlanger, linguist, archaeologist, psychologist. & historiographist.
    Nov 18, 2021 17:10 by Heath O'Donnell

    3 eras should not be a problem for a single timeline. I personally have multiple timelines that share at least 7 eras each.   What are the start and end dates for each era, as you put them in the Editor?

    Nov 18, 2021 17:50 by Nicholas Hartwell Barnes II

    My first era is 130000000000 to 750000000, the second is 750000000 to 0, and the current era is just 0 and beyond since that one I actually set as current era with the settings. I had set the two before 0 as inverted aswell.


    —— Master CrocOsnake (Nicholas H. Barnes II)
    Professional nerd & furry; amateur worldbuilder, conlanger, linguist, archaeologist, psychologist. & historiographist.
    Nov 18, 2021 19:10 by Heath O'Donnell

    Alright. For the two before 0, make sure they have a - in front (ex. -130000000000 - -750000000) and lose the invert (negatives are already inverted). I would not set the start date of any era as the end date of the previous, causedls issues with duplication of events that happen in the shared year.

    Nov 18, 2021 19:28 by Nicholas Hartwell Barnes II

    Alright, I’ll try that, thanks!


    —— Master CrocOsnake (Nicholas H. Barnes II)
    Professional nerd & furry; amateur worldbuilder, conlanger, linguist, archaeologist, psychologist. & historiographist.
    Nov 18, 2021 19:40 by Nicholas Hartwell Barnes II

    It’s working but when I change my first event to negative it changes itself to 129249999999 instead of 130000000000, is that supposed to happen?


    —— Master CrocOsnake (Nicholas H. Barnes II)
    Professional nerd & furry; amateur worldbuilder, conlanger, linguist, archaeologist, psychologist. & historiographist.
    Nov 19, 2021 10:24 by Heath O'Donnell

    Hmmm no it should not... This might be better handled on the Discord at this point, as I may need some screenshots and can get extra eyes on the problem.

    Nov 19, 2021 13:23 by Nicholas Hartwell Barnes II

    Alright I’ll get onto the discord when I have a chance, I’ve been meaning to join the discord for a while now anyways.


    —— Master CrocOsnake (Nicholas H. Barnes II)
    Professional nerd & furry; amateur worldbuilder, conlanger, linguist, archaeologist, psychologist. & historiographist.
    Dec 20, 2021 04:09

    My biggest problem with the tool for building timelines is that I've been running games in my world for over 20 years. I have thousands of dates and descriptions in Word files and have to enter them, manually, one-at-a-time. It's really awful!   What we definitely need is some sort of batch-uploader so I can format my entries into something like an Excel spreadsheet and then just upload that.   Please tell me that something like this is possible, somewhere, with some app! I've been at the pro level for 2 years, now, but this has been my biggest impediment to using WorldAnvil in my games: I don't have the time to actually upload all the stuff I would need to upload.   Ideas?

    Dec 20, 2021 12:35 by Heath O'Donnell

    Currently, WA is actually still in Beta. While it's mostly feature complete, I don't believe the ability to batch upload is available in any way.   I would take a look at the Roadmap and see if that helps.

    Dec 21, 2021 05:18

    Where could I see the roadmap? (I must confess, I'm a bit daunted in all the stuff that's here and there's a lot!) :)

    Dec 21, 2021 11:25 by Heath O'Donnell

    Currently the 2021 Roadmap is here. The 2022 roadmap should be up within the next couple months. We also have the feature requests page. Go to your notifications and you should see a little blurb about coins and feature requests.

    Dec 21, 2021 18:47

    Ah, THAT I've done!   I put in a request that, I believe, was denied. Essentially, when entering names that have a single apostrophe in them, your system doesn't parse the entered text to convert it from a standard character into HTML-code, (') so when keyword names of specific races or characters in histories are hot-linked, they end up as broken links (since the single-apostrophe breaks the surrounding link).   Have you noticed this, by any chance?

    Dec 22, 2021 15:16 by Heath O'Donnell

    I've personally not in recent times. I've got plenty of single apostrophe articles that link ok, but it may be an issue with histories (which are getting a major overhaul to work better with Chronicles). Have you tried copying the at-mention code from the article's metadata section into the history?

    Jan 15, 2022 04:26

    Yeah: I've tried but it doesn't render.

    Feb 9, 2022 04:29 by Lilith Liddell

    I was in the middle of adding Historical Events to my Master Timeline when the Timeline stopped updating and I’m now “missing” seven Historical Events. Is there a limit if you’re working on a free account?

    Feb 16, 2022 01:43 by Lilith Liddell

    How do I enter Hours for historical entries? I have a set of twins and one is born at 22:00 and so I type 2200 for it to display correctly, but when I type 2203 for the second sibling it displays as 2206:00; is there a different way to add hours?

    Feb 20, 2022 13:52 by Heath O'Donnell

    Hey Lilith, sorry I'm just now responding.   On hours, Ill have to check. It should use a 24 hour format. Your method should be correct.   As for your missing Historical Events, I don't believe there is a limit on those, but it would not surprise me if there was, as that would be an easy way to get around a lot of the sites controls to keep free accounts from using up all the bandwidth.

    Feb 21, 2022 04:44 by Lilith Liddell

    It’s alright, I understand being busy and having other things to focus on. Thanks for replying at all.   Well, hours are still showing weirdly, but I’ve stopped trying to fight with it. And apparently the consensus theory is there is an unofficial limit to Historical Events, which is sad but in a way I get it.   I’ve decided to make my own website for my series anyways, since I’ve counted all my characters and I have 244, which isn’t viable on a free account. Thank you again for replying.

    Feb 25, 2022 15:05

    How do I unlock an event? the events with red locks are not being displayed on my timeline.

    Feb 26, 2022 02:48 by Heath O'Donnell

    The "locked" events are set to private. If you go to the edit historical event and then click show advanced settings, towards the bottom will be the access state. Switch to public and you should be good to go.

    Feb 26, 2022 06:05

    Is there any way to alter the date ordering? Most of my players are in the US and I would prefer to format the dates as Month Date, Year.

    Feb 27, 2022 01:58 by Heath O'Donnell

    I will have to double check, but I don't believe there is, outside of perhaps CSS?

    Mar 7, 2022 11:03

    Hello. First of all I must apologies in advance for my bad English (It's not my primary language). And now my question - Is there a way to make timeline focused on short-term events, wich takes hours and minutes, not years and months? I need a timeline that represent 2 hours densely filled with events. It's meant to represent a events of crime scene for my detective game.

    Mar 8, 2022 10:54 by Heath O'Donnell

    Provided they are the only 2 hours you need, yes, yes you can.   For compact timelines, refer to years as hours, months as minutes (you can have as many months in a year as you want) and days as seconds (you can have as many days per month as you want).   Then you just set up the display elements to read as hours instead years. May take some CSS wizardry.

    Sep 19, 2022 19:16

    Why does the Timeline show a different Date than the one I put in? I wrote in the Event that the Year it happend in was -5000 BEW and this also shows in the Event itself, but when I view the Timeline itself the Year is shown as -3000. Could somebody tell me why that is so I can fix it, because it's really messing up my plans.

    Sep 19, 2022 19:20

    Nevermind i fixed it. I just had to diable inversed Dates. Sorry for the inconvinience.

    Oct 4, 2022 23:00

    How do I put a historical entry in a specific era on my timeline? I'm trying to make one for my current era, but it's showing up on both eras, which makes no sense

    Oct 5, 2022 00:30 by Heath O'Donnell

    Sounds like one of two things. Either:  

    1. You have the two eras having the same start/end dates
    2. The event itself is overlapping the demarcation date between both eras .
      Eras should end the UTD year before the next one begins (eg. WW2 era doesn't end until December 31st, 1945, despite the war itself ending in September. 1946 would begin the Post-War era.)

    Oct 5, 2022 12:13

    I see, thank you.

    Oct 5, 2022 14:52

    So what would you recommend if I was trying to catalog a BCE/CE type of history in my timeline (for example pre and post the extinction of humanity)?

    Oct 6, 2022 00:59 by Heath O'Donnell

    You can use negatives for the BCE eras (remember larger negative numbers happen before smaller ones) and positive for the CE eras. The extinction event(s) should either happen at the end of the last BCE eras or at the beginning of the first CE era. They could happen on a year 0 era, but that can be messy and gives you only one year to work with. Events that cross the demarcation between BCE/CE will duplicate on either side, because the system just can't handle it otherwise.

    Oct 16, 2022 20:27

    How should I use timelines and chronicles? They seem like the same thing to me except chronicles being a bit more advanced. Should I be using them separately, together, or should I pick one or the other?

    Oct 17, 2022 00:37 by Heath O'Donnell

    Timelines are the original version and are best for showing large expanses of time across a world. They are not great at showing events that happen concurrent with each other, which is where the newer Chronicles come in.

    Nov 16, 2022 06:00 by Car

    Hi, I'm having a weird issue with one of my timelines. One of my events is duplicated, and editing or deleting one also edits/deletes the other. One appears before and after the era marker it is supposed to be under, despite the date being set to within that era. Can anyone make sense of this?

    Nov 19, 2022 15:47 by Heath O'Donnell

    Hey, sorry I'm just getting around to seeing this.   What are the eras start and end dates as you have them in the editor side?

    Feb 24, 2023 02:25

    I am also having this issue. Was there any resolution to this one? It is very odd, and I have looked at all the articles, videos, and help, and couldn't find anything on it.

    Feb 24, 2023 02:25

    I am also having this issue. Was there any resolution to this one? It is very odd, and I have looked at all the articles, videos, and help, and couldn't find anything on it.

    Feb 25, 2023 00:05 by Heath O'Donnell

    Evening! If your having the same issue, it's most likely that the event has a Era that starts/ends during the duration of the event, or on the same date as the event.

    Feb 26, 2023 18:38

    Thanks so much for the reply. I thought that too, but whenever I try to change the dates, it reorders my ages, and still doubles up the entries. Perhaps I am just having a fundamental issue understanding the UTD. For my first era (I have a total of 4), they should be numbered backwards to -5000 up to 0, when the next era starts. I have entered an end date of 5000, selected the invert dates checkbox, but I have to put the historical events as a negative number to make them invert. When I add my next era in, it duplicates them into both the new era and the old era. When I add a start date to my first era it puts the new era at the top, instead of flowing onward from that point. It might be that my UTD is screwing things up if I haven't entered the right numbers there. Thanks again for your assistance.

    Feb 26, 2023 18:38

    Thanks so much for the reply. I thought that too, but whenever I try to change the dates, it reorders my ages, and still doubles up the entries. Perhaps I am just having a fundamental issue understanding the UTD. For my first era (I have a total of 4), they should be numbered backwards to -5000 up to 0, when the next era starts. I have entered an end date of 5000, selected the invert dates checkbox, but I have to put the historical events as a negative number to make them invert. When I add my next era in, it duplicates them into both the new era and the old era. When I add a start date to my first era it puts the new era at the top, instead of flowing onward from that point. It might be that my UTD is screwing things up if I haven't entered the right numbers there. Thanks again for your assistance.

    Mar 1, 2023 19:15 by Heath O'Donnell

    So, you have Era 1 -5000 – 0 Era 2 0 – 5000 (dates are inverted so the events should appear as 5000 first, 4999 second and so on) ?   If your able to, this might be easier to discuss on the Discord chat. You can find me there as @PatheticBarrel

    Mar 1, 2023 19:15 by Heath O'Donnell

    So, you have Era 1 -5000 – 0 Era 2 0 – 5000 (dates are inverted so the events should appear as 5000 first, 4999 second and so on) ?   If your able to, this might be easier to discuss on the Discord chat. You can find me there as @PatheticBarrel

    Mar 22, 2023 21:30

    Thanks so much for the reply. Sorry for the delay. I figured it out and it was (of course) user error. I now 'fully' understand the UTD.

    Jan 4, 2023 20:35 by Mahlioz Evethisawe

    I see that when you make calendars, it's possible to make multiple months and name them. In my world, though, they also name their seasons, weeks, and days. These also have different names than they do on earth - for example, months are called arilesks. Is it possible to edit the calendars to make this possible? Thank you!

    Mahlioz Evethisawe - Author and graphic novelist in training and extreme worldbuilder :P
    Jan 5, 2023 11:54 by Heath O'Donnell

    High! Icd have to double check, but I don't think that is doable in calenders currently. It is possible to do in a Chronicle, which is a bit more like a set of timelines and does let you rename everything except for a second.

    Jan 15, 2023 21:41 by Mahlioz Evethisawe

    Thank you very much! Super helpful. :)

    Mahlioz Evethisawe - Author and graphic novelist in training and extreme worldbuilder :P
    Jan 18, 2023 12:29

    Is there mechanism to reflect different passage of time in different areas (a la Chronicles of Narnia) ? I'm building a world with two planets linked by a portal, where thousands of years pass on planet A while 1-2 years pass on planet B. I'd like to be able reflect this without either a) declaring planet A's time to be the universal time, and separating consecutive events on planet B by thousand of years or b) declaring planet B's time to be the universal time, and cramming thousands of years of events into 2 years.   Is there an alternative way to use more than one "Universal" time? Perhaps it's just a matter of reskinning the existing system, but if so, are there tips for how to do this?   Thanks!

    Jan 18, 2023 14:57 by Heath O'Donnell

    UTD is more for your organizing of your timelines. What you would want to do is figure out a system in which both time systems can numerically fit together, and use that as UTD. Then, each realm would have their own timeline that uses it's own era dating. Then just select the "show date as..." Option.   As an example, the UTD system may be a 10,000 years on the UTD and planet A uses every 100 years as 1 year, while Planet B uses every 1 year as 1 year. This would keep planet B's dates together on its timeline and would be displayed as next to each other, and the same with Planet A. Then, on a shared timeline, you would display the dates as the proper dates , but they would be separated by UTD in the 1000s. But none of your readers would know the difference.

    Jan 19, 2023 07:07

    Can I send a timeline to a player in my campaign? I made timelines for all the players but I also have the events their involved in linked to different timelines that I don't want them to have access to. I'm considering "printing" the page and saving it out as a pdf but it's a bit unwieldy. I've done it in the past where I printed them out on actual paper but I have to wait to see them in person first.

    Jan 19, 2023 12:26 by Heath O'Donnell

    As a Guild Member, you should be able to make subscriber groups for your players and assign those groups to the necessary timelines. I would have 1 group for the players as a whole so that you can drop everything everyone would know into that, one for each player for character specific information, and one for each species/ethnicity. You can have infinite subscriber groups, so you should be ok as long as you don't have more players than a Journeyman has Subscriber slots.

    Feb 8, 2023 22:18

    Thank you, you kick ass :)

    Jan 20, 2023 07:06

    Can we export our timelines and put them on our website?

    Jan 20, 2023 15:34 by Heath O'Donnell

    I'd have to look to verify how that works, but I do believe that you can export them, and I can't think of any reason to not be able to put them on your website.   I do know they export as HTML

    Jan 21, 2023 21:38

    Thank you for your reply. Looking forward to the steps of how it works.

    Jan 21, 2023 21:55 by Heath O'Donnell

    Hey, just a heads up that I did forget to start looking at this process. I started it a few minutes ago, so it seems pretty simple. Will report back when accomplished

    Jan 23, 2023 17:51 by Heath O'Donnell

    Ok, so I just got finished talking with the person that made the exporter. It currently does not Export Timelines, but will in their next big update of that tool.   For now, the best way is to download an HTML copy of the Timeline Page.

    Jan 29, 2023 23:34

    Thank you!

    Apr 11, 2023 13:06

    Is it possible to modify or create significance ?

    Apr 11, 2023 13:16

    To give in some context, I'm a French user on WA. When I use the timeline feature it shows the "significance" in English in the middle of my text written in French... and I'd like to either have them translated to my language or write custom ones. Is it possible ?

    Apr 15, 2023 13:15 by Heath O'Donnell

    It may be doable via the CSS, but stuff dealing with language issues is usually handled via the Translation Team... I'll see what I can find out.

    Apr 17, 2023 17:01 by Heath O'Donnell

    Got word back from the Translation team. This is not currently fixable due to translations being on hold.

    Apr 21, 2023 08:53

    Thanks to you for the feedback

    May 20, 2023 08:46

    My timeline is in the wrong order even though I've put in all the right dates. Anyone know how to fix this?

    May 20, 2023 11:01 by Heath O'Donnell

    Timelines display events in order of oldest on top, most recent on bottom. Negative dates will appear above year zero, positive dates below.   Anything else wrong with the display of the events, your best option would be to swing by the Discord Help channel and ping me (@PatheticBarrel) with a screenshot of the issue

    Jun 29, 2023 21:07

    Is there a way to link Events in the Timeline (simple) to Events in the Chronicle (complex)?

    Jul 4, 2023 12:33 by Heath O'Donnell

    I'll be honest, I haven't messed with Chronicles enough to know if this is possible. I'll try to find out out, but my gut instinct is no

    Aug 21, 2023 14:09

    Is there any way of making "Inverted dates" counting from 1? I thought that incompatibility of inverted dates and offset is a bug, but it turns out that it isn't.   I kind of not get why dates aren't calculated this way:   for normal dates: date = universal date - start date of era + (1 or 0 or -1) [depending on offset]   for inverted dates: date = end date of era - universal date + (1 or 0 or -1) [depending on offset]   And option of making it absolute value would be nice because seeing year -200 BCE is kind of weird.

    Sep 2, 2023 02:50

    Hello, new to this. 2 questions: 1) can I link 2 calendars to a timeline? The current month names of my calendar are not the same as 300 years ago and I'd like to reflect that. 2) Is there a way to prioritize the order in which multiple historical entries for the same year will appear without having to specify a month and a date? Thanks !

    Sep 6, 2023 22:12 by E.L. Swift

    So, when I'm making timelines, the options for setting dates are hour, day, month, and year. I was wondering if there's any way to add an Age or Era to that . . . Lînderr is a really old world, currently in it's Fifth Age, and I've been finding it hard to keep track of everything when a year is my largest unit of time. I'm just a Freeman currently, so maybe there are more options available to paying members, or maybe there's just something I'm not seeing?

    Sep 6, 2023 22:16 by E.L. Swift

    I've seen that you can use negative dates, but since I'm not counting around a center point, but simply restarting at important events, that doesn't exactly work . . .

    Sep 7, 2023 11:08

    If it's enought for You for every Era to start from 1 and For Every date being show with Year of na Era and abbreviation of it You can start whole timeline from Universal time = 1. And using restart at 1 in offset options for each Era. (These options are hidden in advanced)

    Jan 12, 2024 00:33

    Hello, I need help. I dont see more than 3 historical entery on my timelines (even if I create more of them) What am I doing wrong? Thank you for your answer.

    May 21, 2024 16:32

    So for the timelines, you can choose a calendar to reference and it automatically inputs the month and day. However, on pages associated with characters references, it will only mention the year. Is there somewhere on world anvil for the character page to reference the same calendar?