vis-timeline

The Timeline/Graph2D is an interactive visualization chart to visualize data in time. The data items can take place on a single date, or have a start and end date (a range). You can freely move and zoom in the timeline by dragging and scrolling in the Timeline. Items can be created, edited, and deleted in the timeline. The time scale on the axis is adjusted automatically, and supports scales ranging from milliseconds to years.

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Install

Install via npm:

$ npm install vis-timeline

Example

A basic example on loading a Timeline is shown below. More examples can be found in the examples directory of the project.

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Timeline</title>
    <script
      type="text/javascript"
      src="https://unpkg.com/vis-timeline@latest/standalone/umd/vis-timeline-graph2d.min.js"
    ></script>
    <link
      href="https://unpkg.com/vis-timeline@latest/styles/vis-timeline-graph2d.min.css"
      rel="stylesheet"
      type="text/css"
    />
    <style type="text/css">
      #visualization {
        width: 600px;
        height: 400px;
        border: 1px solid lightgray;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="visualization"></div>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      // DOM element where the Timeline will be attached
      var container = document.getElementById("visualization");

      // Create a DataSet (allows two way data-binding)
      var items = new vis.DataSet([
        { id: 1, content: "item 1", start: "2014-04-20" },
        { id: 2, content: "item 2", start: "2014-04-14" },
        { id: 3, content: "item 3", start: "2014-04-18" },
        { id: 4, content: "item 4", start: "2014-04-16", end: "2014-04-19" },
        { id: 5, content: "item 5", start: "2014-04-25" },
        { id: 6, content: "item 6", start: "2014-04-27", type: "point" },
      ]);

      // Configuration for the Timeline
      var options = {};

      // Create a Timeline
      var timeline = new vis.Timeline(container, items, options);
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Builds

There are four builds provided at the moment.

Standalone build

<script
  type="text/javascript"
  src="https://unpkg.com/vis-timeline@latest/standalone/umd/vis-timeline-graph2d.min.js"
></script>

import { Timeline } from "vis-timeline/standalone";

This has no dependencies and therefore is great for things like MWEs but has more issues with interoperability and bundle bloat. For more information see the following example.

Peer build

<script
  type="text/javascript"
  src="https://unpkg.com/vis-timeline@latest/peer/umd/vis-timeline-graph2d.min.js"
></script>

import { Timeline } from "vis-timeline/peer";

For this build to work you have to load Vis Data and Moment (including locales except English) packages yourself. The advantage here is that it works well with other packages. For more information see the following example.

ESNext build

<script
  type="text/javascript"
  src="https://unpkg.com/vis-timeline@latest/esnext/umd/vis-timeline-graph2d.min.js"
></script>

import { Timeline } from "vis-timeline/esnext";

This is the same as the peer build but without any bundled dependencies or pollyfills. It's indented to be used with bundlers like Rollup or Webpack which will fetch the dependencies, prevent duplicate dependencies in the bundle, use transpilers to add necessary polyfills etc.

Legacy build

<script
  type="text/javascript"
  src="https://unpkg.com/vis-timeline@latest/dist/vis-timeline-graph2d.min.js"
></script>

import { Timeline } from "vis-timeline";

This is solely kept for backwards compatibility. It is deprecated and will be removed in case of URLs and replaced by the peer build in case of Node.js/bundlers. Don't use this, please.

Build

To build the library from source, clone the project from github

$ git clone git://github.com/visjs/vis-timeline.git

The source code uses the module style of node (require and module.exports) to organize dependencies. To install all dependencies and build the library, run npm install in the root of the project.

$ cd vis-timeline
$ npm install

Then, the project can be build running:

$ npm run build

Excluding external dependencies

External dependencies such as moment, hammerjs can be excluded in the build by running:

$ npm run build -- -e [comma separated module names]

Example:

$ npm run build -- -e moment,hammerjs

Test

To test the library, install the project dependencies once:

$ npm install

Then run the tests:

$ npm run test

Contribute

Contributions to the vis.js library are very welcome! We can't do this alone!

Backers

Thank you to all our backers! 🙏

Sponsors

Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website.

License

Copyright (c) 2014-2017 Almende B.V. and contributors Copyright (c) 2017-2025 vis.js contributors

This work is dual-licensed under Apache-2.0 and MIT. You can choose between one of them if you use this work.

SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 OR MIT

vis-timelime

vis-timelime