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Radial timeline

by Eric Rhys Taylor
5
4
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Score: 49/100
Install Code

Description

The Radial Timeline plugin visualises a manuscript as a circular timeline, arranging scenes by act, subplot, and order so you can scan the whole story at once. It supports any plot system via YAML, shows rich details on hover (title, date, synopsis, subplot, character, overdue and revision lines), and opens the scene or plot note on click. Status colours make progress obvious, and a completion date is estimated from remaining work and recent pace. Switch between an all-scenes view and a main-plot mode that emphasises publishing stages. Zero-draft mode helps avoid premature editing by capturing pending edits in a dialog instead of opening the note. A fast search overlays results, subplot rings are labeled, and the layout rotates counter-clockwise to align act 2 beneath act 1 for readability.

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Stats

42
stars
4,720
downloads
2
forks
226
days
0
days
8
days
12
total PRs
0
open PRs
1
closed PRs
11
merged PRs
10
total issues
2
open issues
8
closed issues
9
commits

Latest Version

6.1.0
9 days ago

Changelog

Radial Timeline 6.1.0

This release adds workflow enhancements and improved UI, with session tracking, daily goals, clearer timeline controls, and contextual scene insertion from the timeline.

New Features

  1. Added Goals & Sessions for tracking writing momentum.
    • Settings → Core dashboard for drafting pace, daily targets, weekly goal days, and local writing stats.
    • Title-bar numeric counter for quick session visibility.
    • Timeline popover for starting, pausing, and saving sessions.
    • Multi-mode count ring beside the center progress ring with animated ring feedback while a tracking session is active.
  2. Added right-click Add Scene in Progress, Narrative, and Chronologue modes, using the selected scene as the anchor for placement, act, When, YAML mode, and subplot context.
  3. Restyled the Radial Timeline mode buttons with a smaller, cleaner control treatment and updated the timeline legend.

Visual Highlights

Goals & Sessions

Timeline session controls

Right-click Add Scene

Add Scene confirmation

Radial Timeline mode buttons

Radial Timeline legend

Improvements

  • Improved AI model handling with request profiles for provider-specific capabilities, including models that manage sampling or reasoning settings differently.
  • Added ChatGPT 5.5 to the supported OpenAI models.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed timeline count and mode-control styling regressions.
See all version on GitHub

README file from

Github

What It Does

  1. Narrative time: the sequence you reveal events to readers.
  2. Chronological time: when events happen in your story's world.
  3. Author time: your scene writing progress with target due dates tracking Todo, Working, Complete, and Overdue.
  4. Progress stages: manuscript revision stages from Zero draft through Press-ready.

Docs (How-to & setup)

If you want the “how-to” details (setup, sets, properties, reordering, advanced options), they live in the wiki:

Sets, Properties, and Templates

  • Sets define the structural fields used in your notes.
  • Properties are custom metadata fields added to notes.
  • Presets are starter configurations for campaigns or workflows.
  • Templates are used only for export formatting (e.g., Pandoc).

YouTube Video Suite

Ongoing series on the Radial Timeline YouTube channel:

Installation

From Obsidian

  1. Open settings → community plugins.
  2. Click browse and search for "radial timeline".
  3. Click install and then enable.

Manual installation

  1. Download the latest main.js, styles.css, and manifest.json from the releases page.
  2. Extract the files to your vault's .obsidian/plugins/radial-timeline (may be hidden by file system)

Known Conflicts

  • Plugin Conflicts: If you experience visual glitches or strange behavior (such as the timeline overlapping with other UI elements), it may be due to a conflict with another plugin. Try disabling other plugins to isolate the issue. Please see known plugin conflicts.

Technical Notes

Screen Resolution

The radial timeline is designed for high pixel density displays (around 200 ppi or higher) for optimal visual quality.

  • All Apple Retina displays — 2x pixel density.
  • Recommend Windows systems with 4k displays or higher. (Tested down to 1440p 2560x1440)
  • Tablets.

If you're experiencing visual quality issues on Windows, please check your display scaling settings.

Acknowledgments

Bundled fonts (PDF export)

  • Latin Modern Roman — used for the Signature template.
  • Sorts Mill Goudy by Barry Schwartz — used for the Professional template.
  • Source Serif 4 by Frank Grießhammer — used for the Standard template.
  • Arial — used for the Basic template.

All bundled fonts ship with their original license files in assets/fonts/.

Feedback and support

Check out the Discussions group at Discussions. If you encounter issues or have feature requests, please file an issue on the Github Repository Issues page.

Author

Created by Eric Rhys Taylor

Reviewed and approved for the Obsidian Community Plugins directory. Developed with best practices in mind.

License & Intellectual Property

Radial Timeline™ © 2025 Eric Rhys Taylor
Released under the Radial Timeline Source-Available Non-Commercial License.

  • You may install and use the software for personal, educational, or professional creative work.
  • You may use the software to create commercial creative works such as books, scripts, outlines, and related authored content.
  • Redistribution, public forks, hosted versions, and commercial exploitation of the software itself are prohibited without written permission.
  • The "Radial Timeline" name is a trademark of Eric Rhys Taylor.

See the License and Notice pages for full details.

Disclaimer & Limitation of Liability

This software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The author makes no guarantees regarding performance, reliability, or compatibility with third-party plugins, APIs, or services.

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