User Guide

A short guide to the SCC Timeline Explorer.

Getting started

The screen has two parts: the controllers on the left decide what appears, the timeline on the right shows it. Selecting anything on the timeline opens a details panel underneath.

Pontificates and sessions are shown by default.

Choosing what to show

Each coloured button in the sidebar adds or removes one row: prefects, secretaries, sessions, pontificates, world, legal and church history.

Cardinals, offices, tribunals and congregations sit inside collapsible sections — click the heading to open it, then tick the entries you want. (Un)select All toggles a whole section at once.

Rows always appear in the same order regardless of the order you switch them on, so the timeline reads the same way every time.

Moving around

• Scroll on the timeline to move backwards and forwards in time.

• Zoom slider below the timeline: − shows everything, + narrows down to a single year

• Year slider above the timeline restricts the period

• Fit all items returns to the full view

Finding an entity

Two ways, depending on what you know:

• Search by name at the top of the sidebar, which includes all entities

• The dropdown lists below it, one per active row to browse avalible choises

Either way the timeline centres on the entity, selects it and opens its details. Only entities from rows you have switched on can be found.

Reading the details

Click any bar or dot to open its panel. What appears depends on the kind of entity. Hovering over a bar shows its name without opening anything.

Calendar options

Three switches under Time reckoning. They change how dates are written, never where things sit on the timeline — positions are always true physical time.

• Show Julian / Gregorian Calendar — dates before the reform of 1582 appear as the sources record them, in Julian reckoning; later dates stay Gregorian. A marker shows where the reform falls. With the switch off, everything is shown in Gregorian

• Show the papal calendar — adds the year of the pontificate to the axis and the details panel, counted from the pope's election (1650 · Innocentius X · an. VI)

• Show Easter dates — adds a row with the Easter for every year

Citing and sharing

Selecting an entity updates the address bar. Copy that link and it will reopen the timeline on exactly that entity.

These links are stable and can be used in footnotes.