TimeLiner

TimeLiner is a Windows tool for visualizing time events.

I started working on TimeLiner in 2020 while analyzing software defects in my daily work. Many of these analyses involved events from different sources, such as log files, traces, or monitoring data, all related by time.

I looked for an existing tool that would let me draw timelines freely, place events accurately in time, and measure distances between them. Since I could not find anything that matched these requirements, I decided to write a small tool myself.

Features

• Visualize time events and time spans on multiple parallel timelines
• Correlate events from logs, traces, monitoring data, and other sources on a shared time axis
• Zoom from millisecond-level detail to week-level overviews
• Find and navigate to timeline items by name
• Measure exact time points and durations using movable start and end locators
• Calculate total duration, summed item duration, and timeline utilization
• Display times in UTC or a selected Windows time zone
• Use a simple CSV-based file format suitable for manual editing and automated generation

Known limitations

• Supported zoom scales range from milliseconds to weeks. Month- and year-based scales are not supported because their durations are not constant and depend on the calendar, including leap years.
• TimeLiner may become slow when displaying large numbers of timeline items due to WPF rendering limitations.
• CSV field escaping is not supported.

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Developer Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Windows 11 x64
• .NET 10 SDK (including the Windows Desktop SDK)
• PowerShell

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/Pizzy72/TimeLiner.git

Build and Test

Restore packages, build the x64 Release configuration, and run the complete test suite:

dotnet restore TimeLiner.sln
dotnet build TimeLiner.sln --configuration Release --property:Platform=x64
dotnet test Test/TimeLinerTest/TimeLinerTest.csproj --configuration Release --property:Platform=x64 --no-build

Run

After building, TimeLiner can be started:

• from Visual Studio, or
• with dotnet run --project Source/TimeLiner/TimeLiner.csproj --configuration Release --property:Platform=x64, or
• directly from the generated build output by running TimeLiner.exe.

The application is portable. User-specific settings are stored separately under:

%APPDATA%\TimeLiner\

Documentation

Developer-oriented documentation is located in the doc folder.

Start with TimeLiner – Overview

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Contributing

TimeLiner is a personal hobby project maintained in my spare time.

I am not accepting pull requests and cannot guarantee support, bug fixes, or new features. Bug reports and suggestions may be submitted through GitHub Issues.

You are welcome to fork the project for your own development.

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License

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

Copyright (c) 2020–2026 Christian Pistor

TimeLiner is licensed under the MIT License. Runtime dependencies are restored from NuGet; their notices are recorded in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt.

Acknowledgements

Parts of the TimeLiner codebase, tests, and documentation were developed with assistance from OpenAI Codex. All resulting changes were reviewed and integrated by the project maintainer.