From Waterfall and Collapsed to Drag and Drop

In December 2018 we changed the way Preceden positions events on timelines.

The Old Way: Waterfall vs Collapsed

Preceden used to give you two layout options: Waterfall or Collapsed.

In a Waterfall layout, every event is placed on its own row:

A Waterfall layout, where Kickoff Meeting, Development Phase 1 and Development Phase 2 each sit on their own row

In a Collapsed layout, every event is placed as high in the layer as possible:

A Collapsed layout, where Kickoff Meeting and both development phases are packed onto a single row

We had a lot of requests for more flexibility than either option allowed. For example, imagine the events positioned like this:

A layout that is neither Waterfall nor Collapsed: Kickoff Meeting sits alone on the first row while both development phases share the row below it

This timeline is neither Waterfall (two events share a line) nor Collapsed (the two development events have empty space above them).

The Current Way: Drag and Drop

To give you more control over where events sit, we replaced those layout options with drag and drop positioning. Here's how it works:

Events are positioned in a waterfall layout by default.
You can drag and drop events within a layer to reposition them.
To pack as many events per row as possible instead, check Appearance > Layers > Automatically compress layers. You can still drag compressed events into a different order.
For step by step instructions, see Reposition Events with Drag and Drop.

An animation of Development Phase 2 being dragged up onto the same row as Development Phase 1, with Kickoff Meeting left alone on the row above

This lets you recreate the old Collapsed layout, and it lets you put events in positions that were never possible before.

The change also let us simplify the interface: there is no longer a Reorder Events link above the timeline, and the layout settings no longer include the Waterfall and Collapsed options.

The one downside is that the current system is not backwards compatible with the old one. If you had layers using a Collapsed layout, or you used the old Reorder Events feature to change the order of events, those timelines no longer reflect those settings. You can drag and drop the events into whatever arrangement makes the most sense instead.

If you run into any issues or have any feedback on this, we'd love to hear from you: [email protected].