Once you’ve installed Timeline Express you’ll want to head to the settings page to adjust the plugin settings to your liking. You can access the settings page from the WordPress dashboard, by hovering over the newly created ‘Timeline Express‘ menu item on the left-hand side, and clicking ‘Settings‘.
Once on the settings page, you’ll be presented with a number of options. Below, we’ll go through each possible setting and what it controls.
Time Frame
The time frame setting allows you to set which announcements to display on your timeline. By default, the time frame setting is set to Future Events which means that only announcements with dates set in the future will appear on your timeline. Once the announcement date has passed, all announcements with dates past the current day will not display on the timeline.
You can set the time frame of your announcements to Future Events, Past Events or All Events (past+future).
Future Events (default)
Setting your timeline to ‘Future Events’ will only display announcements with announcement dates set to the future. Once the current date passes the announcement date, the announcement will not display on your timeline. If you want to announce upcoming events, feature releases or milestones on your timeline and have them disappear once the date has passed – this is the setting you want to use.
Past events
Setting the timeline to ‘Past Events’ will limit the timeline to display announcements whose announcement date is passed the current date. This setting is used for displaying important milestones that your company achieves or important announcements but only allowing them to be visible once the date has passed.
All Events (past+future)
Setting your timeline to ‘All Events (past+future)’ does exactly what it says. All published announcements that you have ever created will be displayed on your timeline and ordered into chronological order by the announcement date. This is the most versatile timeline and allows you to display a wide range of dates from past to future without excluding any from your timeline.
Display Order
You can set the order of how the announcements are going to display on the Timeline. Timeline Express will always sort your announcements in chronological order, but you can choose to display them in Ascending or Descending order.
Ascending order, is when your announcements go up, or ascend, in date (eg: start: 1980 end: 2020).
Descending order will cause your announcements to display the oldest dated announcement at the top of your timeline, and the most recent dated announcement at the bottom (eg: start: 2020 end: 1980).
Announcement Excerpt Length
The announcement excerpt length setting allows you adjust how long the excerpts on the front end of your site will be (character count). The minimum length is 25 characters. Additionally, you can check the box for ‘Random Length’, which randomizes the length of the excerpts on each page load.
Date Visibility
The date visibility setting allows you to toggle the visibility of the date for each announcement on the timeline. By default all dates are visible on the timeline, but you can also set this to ‘Hidden‘ to hide the dates of the announcements on your timeline.
Read More Visibility
The read more visibility setting allows you adjust the visibility of the ‘Read More’ link inside of the announcement container. By default the ‘Read More’ links are visible inside of the announcement containers, but you have the option to set this option to ‘Hidden‘ to hide the ‘Read More’ links on your timeline.
Default Announcement Icon
The default announcement icon setting allows you to pick the default icon that will be chosen when you go to create a new announcement. Timeline Express comes bundled with the latest version of the Font Awesome Icon Set. That means you have the option of choosing between over 300 icons to assign to your announcements! If you find that you are often picking the same icon, you may want to set that icon in this option – so every time you create a new announcement you don’t have to scroll through all of the icons to get to your icon of choice.
Example:
Default Announcement Color
The default announcement color is the initial color loaded when you create a new announcement. If your a lot of your announcements are going to be the same color, you can set the default color here to avoid having to re-select the color for each announcement. The announcement color alters the color of the announcement icon container.
Example:
Announcement Container Background
The announcement container background is the color of each of the announcement containers on the front end of your site. If the default color blends in too much with your theme, your text blends in with the announcement container background or you just prefer a different color – you can adjust the setting here.
Announcement Shadow Color
The announcement shadow color is the color that displays at the bottom of each announcement container, to simulate a shadow. If you don’t want a shadow below each container, you can set this to the same color as the ‘Announcement Container Background’ color, or delete the value in this field and leave it blank.
Example:
Background Line Color
The background line color setting allows you to adjust the line color of your timeline. By default the color is set to a light blue, but chances are that won’t fit in with your theme. You can use the color picker provided to set the color of the line running down your timeline, connecting each announcement.
Example:
Pagination Style Settings
There are four options to style your pagination links from within the settings page.
Pagination Background Color – Set the background color of the pagination links, and the associated text above the pagination links.
Pagination Text Color – Set the text color of the pagination links and the associated text above the pagination links.
Pagination Hover Background Color – Set the background color of the pagination links when a user hovers over them and the background color of the current page the user is on.
Pagination Hover Text Color – Set the text color of the pagination links when a user hovers over them and the text color of the current page the user is on.
No Announcements Message
The no announcements message setting allows you to setup a message that will display when there are no announcements created, or set to display. This is a great setting to use in combination with the ‘Time Frame‘ setting, discussed above. Used in conjunction with the ‘Future‘ time frame setting, once all of your future announcements have passed the current date, your message will display back to the user – possibly letting them know to check back for upcoming announcements.
Exclude Announcements from Site Searches
Adjusting this setting will either exclude or include your announcements from being searchable on your site. Some users prefer their announcements to be searchable, while others may use Timeline Express internally on a private page, and may want to prevent users from finding their announcements. The choice is yours!
Disable Timeline Animations
You can disable the animations on the timeline, globally (all timelines on your site), by checking this option. This means that on page load the timeline items will be visible, and there will be no animations occurring as the user scrolls down the timeline. This disables animations on both the icons and the containers.
Enable Legacy Support
Enabling legacy support falls back to the same layout that Timeline Express Free uses. If you were enjoying the free layout, and don’t want your announcements to fall close together, you can enable legacy support to disable the javascript layout methods we have in place.
Some users prefer the layout of the free version over the pro version, so this option allows users to use the same layout method and styles as Timeline Express free.
Enable Announcement Comments
By default, all announcements have comments disabled. This means that on the announcement edit/creation screen, the “Discussion” screen option is not enabled. To enable the “Discussion” screen options, you will want to check this box. Once checked, on the announcement creation/edit screen you should now be able to enable the “Discussion” screen options checkbox.
Delete Announcements on Uninstall?
You have the choice to delete all of your announcements or preserve them when you uninstall Timeline Express. By default, the option is not checked which means your announcements will not be deleted when you uninstall the plugin. This is extremely helpful if you want to reinstall the plugin, or plan on re-using the announcements at some point in the future.
Additionally, if you check the option off – you’ll see the message then states “Yes, delete all of the announcement posts. They are dead to me!”. As it states, when Timeline Express is uninstalled, all of your announcements will be cleaned up and deleted from the database.
Hello there,
First of all congratulations for having coded such an intuitive and coding-free plugin, well done!
I only have one problem with changing the text colour within the announcements, although is set to a custom colour (also displayed in custom colour in the text editor), on the actual announcement it keeps displaying in black colour.
Any clues would be hugely appreciated.
Many thanks.
Regards,
Alex
Hi Alex,
The timeline express announcement excerpts do not support HTML out of the box. Using HTML within the announcements will be stripped, which includes custom colors. If you want to use custom colors or any other HTML element/markup within the announcement excerpts, you can install our free add-on which adds a new, ‘Custom Excerpt’, field that allows for HTML to be added. https://wordpress.org/plugins/timeline-express-html-excerpt-add-on
Thanks,
Evan
I am experiencing some troubles with icons: I can’t select them because the drop-down menù in Timeline express plugin is empty..
Can you please help me with this issue?
Hi Giacomo,
It sounds like you are experiencing a JavaScript error. If you would like to email us for support you can do so at https://www.wp-timelineexpress.com/contact/
Thanks!
Hi.
I want buy a licence. I want have in my site 2 or 3 timeline express. ¿ I could?
These timeline will be diferent but in de same site.
I need to display different information on each in the same domain
If you could solve my doubt I would be very grateful.
Thanks!
Hi Quirell,
If you purchase the pro version you can have multiple timelines on a single site. The free version is limited to a single timeline. Additionally, the pro version allows for multiple timelines to be displayed on the same page, if that is what you are looking for.
Thanks,
Evan
Hi,
I’m trying this new plugin but it won’t show past events, only future events.
Also can i change the size of the announcement picture?
Greetings,
Alexander
Hi Alexander,
Have you made sure that your settings page has the settings set to Past + Future? You’ll want to make sure that option is set, or else it will only show past or future events, not both.
To adjust the size of the announcement image, you have two options. You can use a custom snippet, which we have outlined here:
https://www.wp-timelineexpress.com/documentation/how-do-i-use-a-larger-announcement-thumbnail-size/
Alternatively, you can purchase the ‘Toolbox Add-On’ that we have built out that will allow you to control the image size (and a slew of other options) from an admin UI, instead of having to write any code.
https://www.wp-timelineexpress.com/products/timeline-express-toolbox-add/
Thanks,
Evan
Hi Evan,
I think the setting is set to past. I don’t know where to change the settings to past and future.
Greetings,
Alexander
Hi Alexander,
You can go to ‘Timeline Express > Settings’ and tweak the ‘Time Frame’ setting, which is the first option on the settings page. Additionally, you can check out our documentation page on the settings at https://www.wp-timelineexpress.com/documentation/timeline-express-settings/#time-frame-setting
The Time Frame was already set to Past&Future. Only the future posts are visible though.
Hi Alexander,
Feel free to reach out to use for some assistance at https://www.wp-timelineexpress.com/contact/.
Thanks,
Evan
Hi Evan,
It looks like the issue is fixed. Thanks.
Greetings,
Alexander
Great, thank so much for keeping us posted on the issue!
Best,
Evan
Hi,
I have installed the plugin but there are some issues. Firstly, I don’t see the categories Text, Allignment and Font Size in my Settings tab. Secondly the icons show up below the circle instead of in the circles in the timeline.
Is there some reason why this happens?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Katharina,
The categories text is a pro feature. You are most likely using the free version downloaded from WordPress.org which does not include our categories or timeline features, along with a bunch of other features. The screenshots in the documentation are referencing the pro version. The free version has the same features with a few removed.
The Alignment and Font Size settings are deprecated options that were removed a while ago. These were redundant settings, which prevented users from giving multiple timelines different titles.
Titles can be added to your Timelines by just writing some simple markup above the shortcode. For example:
Thanks,
Evan
I love this plugin. How can I centre the Announcement Image on the announcement page?
Hi Heather,
You can center the image on the page using some simple CSS to make the adjustments.
Try entering the following into the ‘Additional CSS’ section of the customizer on your site:
You may need to add !important tags to each line if your theme does not allow you to override our plugin styles. (Add !important; to the end of each line above).
Thanks!
Evan
Would you be able to help me with styling the shadow on the announcements, I was hoping to be able to have the shadow show on both the bottom and left of the boxes.
I’m sure I would be able find the correct css selectors myself and where to write it however I appreciate it may be easier to ask someone who works with the plugin!
Thanks
Ollie
If you are a free user, please use the WordPress.org support forum and we’ll be happy to help out. If you are a pro user, feel free to contact us via the contact form or the support form within the plugin.
How can I move the announcement icon to the middle of the announcement ?
Hi Garret,
You can remove the icon using CSS or by installing our “No Icons Add-On”. The add-on can be downloaded here on the site or from wordpress.org.
Evan
Hi Evan , I have buy the pro version but I don’t like the default template …
Can I customize the style of each template ? And how I can make this? Do you have a different custom CSS ?
I don’t know the CSS language 🙁 , indeed if you can help me you can begin my superhero! Lol
Sorry for my English I’m French and I’m not really good in English…
Thanks for your help.
Hi Adrien,
You can certainly customize the templates using both PHP (to add custom sections) or CSS to get things looking just how you would like them to. With Timeline Express pro we have a section for custom CSS, and a bunch of ways to customize the appearance of the timeline. I would also be willing to help you out with any customizations you have, just submit a ticket via the support forum and I’ll gladly help out in any way I can.
Best,
Evan
Hello,
i bought the premium Timeline express thing but i have mayor chaos with it. All announcements are not placed in order. They all stick together in one big announcements box. Here is a link where you can see the problem http://beta.via-ev.de/service/der-verlauf-ihres-projektes/
I hope you can help me! I tried to fix it for hours but nothing worked!
King regards from Germany
Connor
Hi Connor,
It sounds like there is just a JavaScript error that is occurring, possibly a conflict with a plugin that you have installed.
You may also want to confirm that your shortcode is not being wrapped in `
` tag, as this can sometimes be the issue if you copied a shortcode directly off of our website. You should use the shortcode generator included in the plugin to generate the shortcode on the page of your choosing.If you are still having issues please don't hesitate to shoot us an email using the contact form here on the site, or the support form contained within the plugin after you enter a valid license.
Best,
Evan
Hi,
We purchased the Post Type Add-on but have a problem : every time we create a new post, we need to go to Timeline Express settings page and save it without changing any setting to see the post appear on the timeline.
Is there a cache? Is that normal?
Thanks,
Nicolas
Hi Nicolas,
This is normal behavior as the timeline and queries are cached within the plugin inside of a transient.
It looks like when the announcements, posts and pages are saved the cache is cleared – but any other post type will have to be manually cleared by saving the settings, updating any one of those post types or updating the page where the shortcode lives.
See https://github.com/EvanHerman/timeline-express/blob/82dec532d7535b633b8a3c2e89fb26bce464d9de/lib/classes/class-timeline-express-admin.php#L363-L368
We should be able to add some sort of filter in there so you can filter which post types force a cache to clear.
However, using the following function should give the same effect (you can add this into your themes functions.php file or into a custom plugin)
function te_clear_post_type_cache() { delete_timeline_express_transients(); } add_action( 'save_post', 'te_clear_post_type_cache' );Or to run it only on your post type, you can do:
function te_clear_post_type_cache( $post_id ) { if ( ! in_array( get_post_type( $post_id ), array( 'your_post_type' ) ) ) { return; } delete_timeline_express_transients(); } add_action( 'save_post', 'te_clear_post_type_cache' );You can update your_post_type with the post type you are attempting to clear the cache for.
HI, If i buy the Pro version, can i change the font sizes? If no, how can i do that?
Hi Ishan,
You should be able to do so using some basic CSS. Feel free to shoot us an email using the contact form and we’d be happy to provide you with some helpful code to use.
Evan
Thanks for a great plug in!
How do I center the content in the post? Not, just the image, but the entire content?
Rebecca.
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you for the kind words! You should be able to center the content by using the following bit of CSS:
#cd-timeline .cd-timeline-content { text-align: center; }That should align all the content in the announcement container to the center.
Evan
Hi
Can you please help me.
I am trying to make the icon in the timeline smaller, currently it is 60 by 60 and is way too big.
I am also try to adjust the font size of the heading and paragraph text. I want in the body of the text, i want some text to be italic and some to be bold. I try to adjust it within the plugin and it doesn’t work
Thank you
Hi Emily,
Feel free to use the contact form here on our site and we can help out.
https://www.wp-timelineexpress.com/contact/
Evan
This is a great Plugin! Thank you!
Is there a way to change the font size of the titles and content for Mobile and Tab versions?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Rebecca,
You can use CSS media breakpoints to tweak the font sizes at certain points. If you’d like to send an email over to our support team using the ‘Contact’ form here on the site, feel free to and we can help out.
https://www.wp-timelineexpress.com/contact/
Evan
Is it possible to hide some announcements until the user clicks on the timeline icon to view. Since our timeline displays in years – some have many posts, so we’d like to have some year’s posts hidden until the user clicks the year (circle) in the timeline. Is this possible with a CSS modification or add-om?
The announcement content is cut off. I have changed the settings multiple times to be 500 or 1000 or nothing but with “random” checked and nothing happens.
It sounds like your theme or another plugin may be overriding the excerpt length that is set by Timeline Express. Does your theme have a location to control the excerpt length of posts?
is that possible to set the items in left and right side position alternative,
is that possible?
If you enable the legacy support option on the settings page, the items will alternate down the timeline on the left and right.
Hi there,
I’ve made a timeline with 20 something announcements. I’ve inserted the timeline on a page, made sure that the announcement limit is set to 0, but still I see only 10 announcements on my timeline on the front end (I do see all announcements in editor mode). Do you have any idea what is going wrong here?
Hi Jeffrey,
The announcements should be immediately visible on your site. IF you have any sort of caching plugin enabled on your site you’ll want to flush the site cache or disable it altogether to test things out.