Outline, Relations and Timeline

Use these views to ask different questions about the same project knowledge. They link to subjects rather than duplicating their articles.

Outline: what belongs together?

An Outline is an ordered hierarchy of references, groups and short summaries. Use it for an expedition, chapter sequence, quest breakdown or design document structure.

Add an existing subject or create a new one. Select an entry to inspect it; open the linked page for the full text. Move entries with their nested children. Nest and Outdent explicitly change parentage.

Removing an outline entry removes that reference and its children from the outline, not the linked page files. An outline’s source is an ordinary .outline.md file. If an unusual authored list cannot be rearranged safely through the view, use Source rather than flattening it.

Relations: what connects to what?

Relations reads links already present in page content and authored relation properties. Switch between List, Matrix, Reverse list and Graph to inspect them. Filter page types, link categories or a particular field when the project becomes dense.

Use authored relation fields for meaningful connections such as a creature’s region or a quest’s participants. A backlink tells you that a page refers to another; it does not, by itself, describe a gameplay relationship.

The graph is a way to browse those links. Moving the view or inspecting a node does not change the source relationships. Open the selected subject to edit its meaning.

Timeline: in what order?

A Timeline is an authored chronology with events and links to relevant subjects. Use it for world history, narrative order or a sequence you need to compare. Keep the detailed account on the linked page.

Choose the event, inspect its context and open its subject when needed. The chronology lives in a .timeline.json file; it is separate from Git history and Run activity.

Events can keep authored date labels, ranges, eras, approximate dates or before/after relationships. Undated events remain valid. Switch between authored order and calculated placement when those answer different questions; moving an event in the list changes its authored order, not a fictional date.

An unresolved relationship, cycle or incompatible era stays visible for attention instead of being assigned an invented date. Removing an event removes its timeline entry, not its linked subject.

Keep the views purposeful

A collection compares subjects. An outline arranges them. Relations exposes their links. A timeline orders events. You do not need all four for every idea.

For geographic or level-layout questions, use Maps and canvas. For branching-script handoff, see Experiments and narrative.