Canvas Timeline

Feature requests
1

I’d love to see a simple timeline feature available in the Canvas that would allow the following:

  1. Create an “endless” horizontal bar that stretches from end to end of the canvas you can pin notes to by date to create a visual timeline. Dates should be able to be modified manually to allow creating any timeline you like. Notes and cards should be able to be added above or below the timeline. The spacing between connection points on the timeline should be capable of being both automatic based on proper ratios of time between cards / notes and also be able to manually drag where desired to alter the points of connection to suit one’s personal aesthetic.

  2. Using the above feature, create an automatic view similar to the graph plugin where you can visualize your entire vault on the canvas timeline with notes placed in order. Having the ability to re-sort based on note creation datetime OR last modification datetime would be ideal. Additionally the filter features of the graph view carried over would be nice.

What do you y’all think? Good idea? Bad idea? Too similar to other suggestions? I think now that Canvas is here this is worth considering!

Thanks!

22 Likes
2

Maybe rather than endless horizontal bar it could just be an object that’s resizable… I don’t know…

2 Likes
3

I’m sad no one replied to this because I want this too.

6 Likes
4

This is exactly what I would like to see in obsidian. I had the same impression that it is possible when Canva arrived

I also suggested it but there doesn’t seem to be a big craze around a timeline function, it seems to me yet so powerful as a visualization and representation tool

2 Likes
5

I want this, too! I was just thinking it’d be great for me to conceptualize what I’m learning in my history classes - and, now that I think about it, great for building fictional timelines if you’re a writer!

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6

I found this thread because I need this feature too and was looking it up. This would be really powerful and awesome to have!

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7

Any solutions have come forward for this?
This suggestion is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

8

I have a bit of a different idea for a timeline feature that may not warrant a separate discussion and seems to fit in this discussion, since it could maybe be endless.

It’s that the time (or maybe the date) is represented on a spiral. A central 360-degree segment representing a specific year would be highlighted when you hover over the widget (or whatever it’s called), with every part of the spiral inside it being in the past and everything outside it being in the future (from the perspective of that year). When you click on a segment of the spiral (representing a different year), that segment becomes the central, highlighted one and the spiral adjusts accordingly. I think it would be a better way of modelling a chronology both because it would be quite compact and because I think it matches people’s intuitive sense of time. It wouldn’t have to be based on years. Each segment could be a single day or a month. You could still attach notes and whatnot to different locations on the spiral. I just don’t know if it’s realistic to implement it on Obsidian.