Your canvas
Glob Time
See a node's history on a time axis, add nodes and dated milestones to it, and keep its canvas exactly as it was.
Glob Time shows a node's history along a time axis. A timeline holds the same nodes you know from canvases and lists, placed by their dates, and adding one changes nothing where it already lives.
For example, open a musician's node in Glob Time, add the album you already have on your canvas, and create a milestone for the first concert. The album stays on your canvas, and if its owner corrects its release date, it moves on every timeline using it.
Open a timeline
Right-click a node and choose Open in Glob Time. A pin opens the timeline of the node it points to. For the node you are inside, choose the Glob Time icon (a row of bars) at the top right, beside the search bar; a visitor finds the switch under the search bar. In Glob Time the switch is at the top of the timeline, and the Canvas icon (linked dots) shows the canvas of the node you are looking at.
Opening a timeline writes nothing. An empty one says Nothing is on this timeline yet, and a timeline only exists once someone adds to it.
Inside a timeline, right-click an entry and choose Open this node's timeline to go on to that node's own timeline. The trail at the top and your browser's Back button bring you back to the same place on the axis.
Move along the axis
Scroll to zoom toward the pointer, scroll sideways or hold Shift to pan, or use the buttons at the top:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| + and − | Zoom in and out. |
| Fit | Fit the view to this timeline's entries. |
| To the Big Bang | Zoom out to the origin of the universe, about 13.8 billion years ago. |
Entries too close together to draw separately become one chip with a count. Select it to list them; Show more continues a long list. An entry with no date on record has no place on the axis, so it waits under Undated.
On a phone or in a narrow window, a timeline is a list of its entries, in time order, without +, − or Fit.
Add to a timeline
You can add to a timeline if you can post inside its node. Each of these places the same node, not a copy:
- Add, then Add existing node: search for a node and add it.
- Add, then Create node: give a title and, if you like, a date under When (optional). You can write
29 Aug 1958,Nov 1982,c. 9500 BCEor66 Ma. - Drag a node's row from Listr onto the timeline.
- Paste a link to a node, or a node you copied with Copy node.
A node you create here is on this timeline and on no canvas. Save it to Listr and you can drag it onto a canvas, where it is called by its subject and title, such as Michael Jackson — Bad. In Listr and search results a line under the title says whose it is.
A branch copy makes new nodes, so it cannot go on a timeline. Use Copy node for that.
Change an entry
Select an entry to open its details. Right-click it, or press Shift+F10 on it, for Edit when…, Note on this timeline…, Move up a lane, Move down a lane and Remove from this timeline.
Remove from this timeline takes away this appearance only. The node, its canvas and its other timelines stay as they are.
Dragging an entry up or down changes its lane, and a lane belongs to this timeline only. Dragging along the axis never changes a date. It opens the date at that year for you to confirm, and you can save it only if you own the node.
Note on this timeline… is shown only on this timeline, never on the node or its other places.
Dates belong to the node
A date is part of the node, so it is the same everywhere. Only the node's owner can change it, in the When section of an entry's details or of Node options. Saving tells you Date saved. Every timeline using it follows.
Each date says what happened (such as Born, Released or Founded, or Other with your own label) and how precise it is, from Billion years down to Day. A date written as a year stays a year: Glob does not invent a month or a day. Dates that came from a source show Source, Licence and Retrieved; a date someone changed here shows Edited here.
A node can have more than one date. When it does, the entry's menu offers Place by each one, and that choice belongs to this timeline.
Who sees what
A timeline follows its node: whoever can read the node can read its timeline. An entry for a node you cannot read shows no title and says You cannot read this node. Other people's changes to a title or a date reach an open timeline without a reload.
Signed out, you can read a public node's timeline but not add to it.
Dates and notes you added on a timeline go with the node they are on when you leave. Keep and export covers leaving, and the privacy policy is the full statement.
Keyboard
Focus the timeline first. Arrow keys pan, and plus and minus zoom. Home and End go to the entries; there, arrows move between them, Enter opens one and Shift+F10 opens its menu.