Welcome

Welcome Screen

Radial Timeline is a writing system for visualizing, organizing, and structuring a narrative as a living manuscript. You’ll set up a bit of story structure early—this usually takes about five minutes.

Welcome screen — quick-start guide for new vaults

Primary Action

Create your first scene — Use the button on the welcome screen, or the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl + P) → Radial Timeline: Create basic scene note.

Secondary Actions

• Design a story framework — Launch Book-Designer to set up acts, subplots, characters, and optional beats as a starting point.
• How scenes, structure, and the timeline work — Start with Scenes-Structure-Timeline.

First Session in Three Steps

1. Create your first scene

Start a scene so you have a place to write. Choose where your scenes live in your vault, then create your first scene note.

(This folder is called the Source path in Settings → Core → General.)

2. Write prose immediately

Open the scene and start writing. You can leave scene details blank until you need them.

3. Shape the story structure

Design the framework and refine it as you go.

• Design the framework — Use Book Designer to set up acts, subplots, characters, and optional beats as a starting point.
• Refine structure later — Adjust acts and beats anytime in Settings → Core.

Scenes are reordered and explored visually in the timeline—file order stays stable while story order stays flexible.

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Backup & Sync

Back up your Obsidian vault regularly to protect against data loss. Sync does not protect against all forms of data loss.

• Obsidian Backup Guide
• Obsidian Sync or Obsidian Git

Documentation Tiers

Start Writing

• Scenes-Structure-Timeline — A short, friendly primer for fresh vaults.
• Migrating-from-Other-Apps — How Obsidian’s markdown workflow differs from conventional writing tools.
• Fresh-Vault-Onboarding — Start from scratch with Book Designer and beats.
• Existing-Vault-Onboarding — Connect an existing manuscript to Radial Timeline.
• Core-Workflows — Learn how to plan, write, and track your novel.

Story Setup

• Book-Designer — Build a structure quickly without hand-editing.
• Settings — Configure acts and story beats.
• YAML-Frontmatter — Add subplots, characters, and scene details.

Organization & Analysis

• Timeline-Modes — Narrative, Publication, Chronologue, and Gossamer views.
• Inquiry — Analyze scenes and themes with Inquiry tools.
• Author-Progress-Report — Track drafting and revision progress.

Advanced Customization

• YAML-Frontmatter — Full schemas and custom fields.
• Commands — Command palette reference.
• AI-Analysis — Optional AI scene analysis workflows.