Radial timeline

Radial Timeline™

by Eric Rhys Taylor

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What It Does

Radial Timeline™ arranges your scenes by act, subplot, narrative or chronological order in a striking radial layout—revealing the structure, rhythm, and scope of your story. Each ring represents a subplot; hover interactions surface important details like scene synopsis and AI story pulses. Scenes highlight across subplots to show interrelationships. Multiple view modes present your novel like an X-ray.

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Before: Scrolling through line after line of spreadsheet tables and files, losing sight of how your B-plot interweaves with the main storyline.

After: One visual map showing every scene, every subplot, color coded and ordered in context and connected to the big picture.

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Radial Timeline™ captures and visualizes all 4 critical timelines, revealing your manuscript's evolution from the nucleus of an idea to the final polished novel.

1. Narrative time: the sequence you reveal events to readers.
2. Chronological time: when events happen in your story's world. (Includes Planetary Time calculator for sci-fi/fantasy calendars).
3. Author time: your scene writing progress with target completion dates from Todo to Complete.
4. Publishing time: manuscript revision stages from Zero draft through Press-ready.

Narrative and Chronologue modes keep subplot colors front-and-center so you can compare structure without workflow noise. When you need to see Todo/Working/Overdue status or publish stage colors, jump into Publication Mode (formerly Subplot Mode), where the All Scenes outer ring is replaced by Main Plot and scenes inherit the author-status and publish-stage palette.

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Docs (How-to & setup)

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

• Wiki Home
• How-to
• Settings
• Commands
• YAML Frontmatter

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).

Plan your novel with radial timeline in obsidian
Complete author walkthrough & setup guide

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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)

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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.

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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.

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Acknowledgments

• d3.js — powerful data-driven, SVG-based visualization patterns that present complex statistical data in a visually appealing and approachable format.
• Save the Cat! Writes a Novel (2018), Jessica Brody — a practical articulation of the Save the Cat beats.
• The Story Grid, Shawn Coyne — a rigorous methodology for analyzing scenes and beat flow.
• Obsidian — for a thriving plugin ecosystem and thoughtful feature development.
• W3C SVG specification — for making vector graphics on the web dependable.
• 04 Font by Yuji Oshimoto — a beautiful Japanese freeware font. © 1998–2003 Yuji Oshimoto. 04.jp.org このフォントはフリーウェアです。非営利目的での配布、譲渡、転載は自由ですが、作者の許可なく販売したり、営利目的の製品に添付する事は固く禁じさせて頂きます。なお、このフォントを使用していかなる損害についても作者は責任を負わないものとします。御意見、御感想などよろしければメールください。

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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.

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Author

Created by Eric Rhys Taylor

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

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License & Intellectual Property

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

• You may view, install, and use this plugin for personal or educational purposes.
• Commercial use, redistribution, or creation of derivative works using this source code is prohibited without written permission.
• The "Radial Timeline" name is a trademark of Eric Rhys Taylor.

See the License and Notice pages for full details.

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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.