How can I get the timeline to start on a Specific date?

The current version of StoryView does not support a calendar based timeline, we will be adding this feature in a future version. However we will shortly have calendar based templates available as downloads. You can also create your own calendar template by following the steps below.

What you will want to do is create a Hierarchy above your "Story" Hierarchy to use as a calendar.

1. Go into Tools > Document Settings > Event Hierarchies.
2. Create a new Hierarchy and move it to the top using the up and down blue arrows.
3. Create the necessary event levels for your calendar.
   
   For example if your story spans several years you may want to create 3 event levels; years, months; days.
   
   
4. Once you have created your event levels, select the top level, in this example years, and click Edit Event level, this will take you to the title area for years.
5. Now set the Start with Number to the first year of your event (make sure you have the Show Numbers as set to (1,2,3..) and the event number autotext appears in the autotext field.
6. Click OK, now when you create a Year Event it will automatically place the correct year.

If you wish you may want to create events for months and days with appropriate numbering, remember to use the "within parent" option in the Tools > Document Settings > Event Hierarchies > Titles area. Once you have your Event Levels configured properly you can easily populate the calendar by doing the following:

1. First creating one event for each level.
2. Then starting with the smallest (lowest) hierarchy use the Edit > Duplicate command (Ctrl+Y) to fill-in the appropriate number of events e.g. you would duplicate the day event 31 times to create a month (you can adjust the days of the month after your completed creating the months for the first year).
3. Select these events and its immediate parent by clicking on the parent (in this example months) while holding the ALT Key.
4. Duplicate these events to fill in the next parent. Repeat the steps until you have completely filled your Calendar Hierarchy with events.
5. Now use the Calendar hierarchy to guide you in the placement of your events in your "Story" hierarchy.

Tag: StoryView, Outine 4D