Abstract: A system and method for creating and displaying a timeline presentation. A timeline presentation enables a presenter to provide a dynamic and animated display of a timeline and associated information. Events may be added to a timeline by providing information about an event (e.g., date, time, and description) and associating the event with the timeline. Events may be associated with a multimedia file and visually represented using a variety of treatments. Events may be associated with an absolute point in time, a period of time, or a time relative to another event. A timeline may also include annotations, which provide information that may not necessarily be associated with a particular event. A timeline presentation dynamically displays events, annotations, and nested timelines in a pre-determined sequence. The disclosed system also allows a presenter to markup a timeline presentation to draw a viewer's attention to certain features of the timeline.

Abstract: A system and method for creating, editing, and displaying nested timelines. Using the disclosed system, a user can create linked timelines within a timeline and represent the linked (or “nested”) timelines as single elements in the timeline. Nested timelines allow a user to remove elements from a timeline to avoid cluttering the timeline or to group certain events together. Nested timelines also allow a user to alter the timescale for displaying events. The system allows the viewer to easily switch between the parent timeline and the nested timeline as necessary to view the events associated with each timeline. In some embodiments, the system allows various graphical elements representing a span of time, events, nested timelines, and annotations to be added to a timeline.