Timeline Editor

Registered by aidave

A timeline feature would be extremely handy. It would basically allow arrangement of nodes based on time, and restrict the order of the nodes to those times. Each node would need a start and end time, a "thread" (probably the parent node), a list of nodes that have to proceed it, and a list of nodes that have to follow it. The timeline could be auto-populated based on these inputs.

The trick is how to add this without cluttering the interface or destroying the original intent of the program. I think if there was a new node type, "Timeline", in addition to Edit/View, it could work. How would it be displayed? Probably in the edit window... the timeline could wrap, or just be scrollable.

This may be an easy feature to implement if there are no interactive GUI elements.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
aidave
Priority:
Medium
Drafter:
aidave
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
Discussion
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Not started
Milestone target:
milestone icon 2.0

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Sprints

Whiteboard

The problem is that a timeline would also be dependent on other timelines.
Therefore you couldnt just have a parent node as a timeline, because then other unrelated nodes would need to be linked to it somehow.

Perhaps a recursive timeline:
Node A (Timeline)
Node A -> Node B (Timeline)
Node A -> Node B (Timeline) -> Node B1 (Edit)
Node A -> Node B (Timeline) -> Node B2 (Edit)
Node A -> Node C (Timeline)
Node A -> Node C (Timeline) -> Node C2 (Edit)
Node A -> Node D (Timeline)
Node A -> Node D (Timeline) -> Node D1 (Edit)
Node A -> Node D (Timeline) -> Node D2 (Edit)
Node A -> Node D (Timeline) -> Node D3 (Edit)
etc
Where A becomes the super-timeline, and any amount of timelines is possible.

Would we also need a feature to link to N nodes, because the user might not want to store plot info only in a timeline structure? Hmm.

Could be put on bottom of screen, like so:
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/8027/mockupn.png

(?)

Work Items

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