TimeStory version 2.2.1 was released on October 13, 2020. It follows 2.2, and was followed by 2.3.

Version 2.2.1 was released immediately after version 2.2, after discovering a few bugs. These notes are the same as the 2.2 release notes, with one added section at the end to describe the 2.2.1 fixes.

Version 2.2 introduces a new document layout option: the ability to put section headers in a column on the left of the document.

Left-side section headers

You can now put section headers on the left side of the document view, in a resizeable column. This looks great for a compact, clean presentation of parallel tracks. Switch between this view and the classic “headers on top” view freely, by changing one setting in the Document Inspector.

For more complex timelines, this left-side view also allows subsections:

(Note: These two styles aren’t exactly the same; only above-section headers can be collapsed, and only left-side headers can have subsections.)

Event details popovers

Putting lots of content in your event description fields? Have a busy timeline with lots of events next to each other, making dates or titles hard to pick out? Now you can just select any event, press the ? key (or choose Events > Details from the menu), and get a quick pop-over view of title, dates, and descriptions.

Other fixes and improvements

A release in progress for so long will pick up quite a few small refinements as it goes. Here are the ones worth noting:

General

• Export to PNG now has a keyboard shortcut (⌥⌘P).
• “Pointed”-style span events now have nicer looking, sharper arrowheads.
• The “Today” button in the toolbar now looks better, especially on Big Sur betas.

Section-related

• You can now split and merge sections and subsections with new menu commands.
• A section can now have an empty title; it won’t display as “Unnamed”.
• You can now select multiple section headers in your document, with Shift+click, to edit them together.
• Editing and dragging multiple sections in the Sections dialog now works correctly.
• Enabled multi-line section titles (but this only makes sense when their headers are tall enough, of course).
• When placing a new section header with the keyboard, it can now be placed at the end of the document.
• Images attached to events no longer appear on top of section headers.
• Pasting into a collapsed section will now auto-expand that selection so you can see what you pasted.

Sample Documents

Updated the Exploration of Mars timeline to include the exciting new programs launched in 2020 by the United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States.

Fixes in version 2.2.1

Right after the release of 2.2, a few problems were discovered and fixed immediately in 2.2.1:

• If a section was collapsed or hidden, and you tried to drag an event around below that section, the event would jump away. (The app was including the hidden rows when placing the dragged event.)
• It was often impossible to drag a subsection into the end of another section, because it would snap into the start of the next section instead.
• When using “New Section Below This One”, the newly-created section’s title text font and color may not correctly copy from the source section.
• The new Merge Sections feature allowed you to merge a section containing subsections with one containing events; this would result in those events being lost.