Appearance Settings - Events

The Events settings control the default shape and icon Preceden gives new events, how their content is laid out, and how it describes their duration.

To reach these settings, click the Appearance button above your timeline and open the Events section.

Default Shape

This setting applies a default shape for new events that contain both start and end dates. The control is a grid of ten shape swatches rather than a drop down list, so click the shape you want.

Changing the default doesn't reshape the events already on your timeline. To change one of those, open the event and pick a new shape from the Shape control next to its Color and Icon.

Note that if you mark an event's start or end date as approximate, Preceden fades out that end of the event's bar.

Default Icon for New Events

This setting controls how Preceden picks the icon for each new event. Smart icons chooses a meaningful icon based on the event's name, Solid circle always uses a solid circle, and Use last icon reuses the icon from the last event you created or updated. You can change the icon on an individual event regardless of what you choose here, and if the icon you want is not in the picker, you can ask us to add it.

Smart icons only picks an icon when you create an event, so renaming an event later leaves its icon alone. If the timeline has no events yet, Use last icon starts with a solid circle.

Bar Content Layout

Controls how Preceden positions an event's name and details relative to its colored bar, including what happens when the name doesn't fit inside the bar. More info with examples in this support doc: Change the Bar Content Layout.

Largest Duration Unit

Determines the largest unit Preceden uses when it describes events that span a range of time. The options are Years, Months, Weeks, Days, and Hours. An event running April 1 to April 19 reads as "2 weeks and 5 days" if you select Weeks, or "19 days" if you select Days.

Whichever unit you choose, Preceden shows at most two units, so with Years selected an event from May 19, 2019 to January 19, 2022 reads as "2 years and 8 months" rather than also listing the days. Durations only appear on the timeline when Durations is checked under Appearance > Content Visibility.

Content Visibility

Content Visibility is its own section in the appearance settings rather than a part of Events. Click the Appearance button above your timeline and open the Content Visibility section to reach it. It controls which details your events show, in two groups of checkboxes, and it applies to every event on the timeline.

Display on Timeline

These control what appears on the event bars themselves:

Names, on by default.
Dates, on by default.
Durations, off by default. Turn it on to show how long each event ran, described using the Largest Duration Unit setting above.
Notes, off by default. Turn it on to show each event's notes on the timeline itself rather than only on hover.
Percent Complete, on by default.
Images, on by default.

These control the popup you see when you hover over an event and the list of events below the timeline. There are four, and all of them are on by default: Dates, Notes, Percent Complete and Images.

There is no Names checkbox in this group, because the popup and the event list always show the event's name.

Hiding a detail on one event

Content Visibility applies to the whole timeline. To hide a detail on a single event instead, open that event, expand More Options, and use its Hide name, Hide dates and Hide duration checkboxes, which override the timeline's settings for that event alone. Add an Event to Your Timeline covers those checkboxes, and Hide Event Details Within a Specific Layer covers doing it for every event in one layer.