TimeStory was designed to make edits simple and direct; for example, you change an event’s dates or placement just by dragging it. But when you’re presenting a timeline, you don’t want to accidentally make edits. And even when editing a timeline, you’ll often have parts of the timeline which are “done”, where you don’t want a mistaken click or drag to change anything, even while you’re changing other parts.
Locking Events
A locked event can’t be moved by dragging or by pressing the arrow keys. You can still edit its dates in the Inspector, it can still be moved by Arrange Events, and it’s still subject to things like updating from a CSV import, but these actions require a lot more intent and can’t happen accidentally.
You can lock one or more events by selecting them and choosing “Lock” from the context menu or the main Events menu. When you try to drag a locked event, the word “Locked” appears in the same tooltip where the event’s date would normally appear, and the event doesn’t move. The Lock item will be checked in the menu. Event locks are saved in your document, so the same events will remain locked next time you open it.
Unlock an event by choosing Lock again; the checkmark will disappear, and the event will be freely movable again.
Viewing Mode
To completely prevent edits anywhere in a timeline, switch that timeline’s window to Viewing Mode, via . In Viewing Mode, that menu item will have a checkmark, and “Viewing Mode” will appear below your document’s title. Turn Viewing Mode back off by selecting the same menu item to un-check it.
In Viewing Mode, clicks and drags in the timeline never move or edit anything, and all Inspector fields are read-only. You can’t use CSV Import, Arrange Events, or anything else which might modify the timeline’s content or layout. But you can still adjust the time scale or document zoom, switch timeline configurations, apply filters, perform PDF, PNG, or CSV exports, or do anything else which doesn’t modify the timeline content.
Viewing Mode is a per-window setting. When you close and later re-open the document, it always comes up in editing mode.