Highlighting a day, or a range of days, applies a background color the entire height of the document, letting you call attention to that region. You might use this to apply a visual shade to a blocked-out holiday on a project plan, to point out a critical point during a presentation, or just to add color and interest to your timeline design.
There are a few ways that time highlights are created in TimeStory.
Highlighting Today’s Date
TimeStory can automatically add a highlight to today, in which case it will automatically move that highlight as days pass. Toggle this special highlight from the toolbar, or with , and adjust its presentation from the Document Inspector, under “Today Highlighter”.
There are two ways to highlight today’s date, chosen by the “Style” field. Choose “Fill” to fill the region from the start of today to the start of tomorrow; that is, to fill the width of today’s date. Choose “Line” to place a single line on today’s date; depending on your current point event placement, this will visually lie either at the center or the start of the day’s width.
You can also configure the highlight’s color and, if Style is Line, the line’s width.
Highlighting Events
Any event can also be made to highlight its underlying date range. For example, you might create an event representing a holiday, and tint the timeline grey to emphasize the fact that nobody will be available.
To highlight the time range of an event, go to “Date Range Highlighting” in the Event Inspector, and choose a color. If the event is a point, the highlight takes the form of a vertical line; if it’s a span, the highlight extends from the beginning of the event to its end.
Using the Manual Highlighter
You can also manually highlight a range of dates, for example while showing your timeline to someone. Just click and drag in the timeline header. The “Range” toolbar item, and menu item, will become active, and your region will be highlighted. Click on that button or menu item to hide this highlight.
In the Document Inspector, the “Manual Highlighter” section lets you choose a color for this highlight.
Highlighting or Shading the Past
To visually separate past dates from upcoming dates, for example on a project-tracking timeline, you can select an alternate background color to use for past dates. Find the Past Dates option in the Document Inspector, under Background Colors.