v0.9.0

Changes since v0.8.1.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• Directory sign-in: LDAP and Active Directory (#286, #293): schools and organisations can let people sign in with their directory account. Set LDAP_URL, a service account (LDAP_BIND_DN, LDAP_BIND_PASSWORD), LDAP_BASE_DN, and optionally a user filter (Active Directory's by default), a required group (nested groups too), a CA file and a button label. The server finds the person with the service account, then checks their password by binding as them; the password is never stored or logged. Plain ldap:// without STARTTLS is refused unless LDAP_ALLOW_INSECURE=1. See authentication.
• Sign in with Microsoft (#292, #300): work, school and personal Microsoft (Entra ID) accounts, with OAUTH_MICROSOFT_CLIENT_ID and OAUTH_MICROSOFT_CLIENT_SECRET. OAUTH_MICROSOFT_TENANT chooses who may sign in: organizations (default), common, consumers, or one school's tenant ID or domain. Accounts are keyed on Microsoft's tenant and object IDs, never on email.
• Agreeing to the terms (#277, #297): signing up, with a password, Google, GitHub, Facebook, Microsoft or a directory account, requires agreeing to the terms of service and privacy policy, and the version and time are recorded. Existing accounts are asked to agree on their next visit; until they do they can still read, export, change account settings, delete their account and sign out, but not save. Existing API keys keep working.
• Cached downloads (#204, #295): a timeline's .ochx or .och download is built once per revision and kept, so the next one starts at once (a 200,000-moment .ochx: 2.6 s → 0.46 s). Access is checked on every download. The cache lives on disk or in an S3-compatible bucket, keeps within EXPORT_CACHE_MAX_BYTES (2 GiB by default) by removing the least recently downloaded, and EXPORT_CACHE_PUBLIC_URL can send public timelines' downloads to a file server or CDN. Debian and RPM servers start caching in /var/cache/openchronology/exports on upgrade; EXPORT_CACHE=off turns it off.
• Font sizes in the timeline theme (#267, #298): Timeline theme 2 adds Label size and Measure size (75%–200%), and the layout makes room rather than overlapping. Timelines using version 1 are unchanged; the plugin library offers Update to v2.
• A sitemap for every public timeline (#287, #294): /sitemap.xml is now an index of paged sitemaps listing all public timelines and profiles with their last changes, not just the latest 45,000.

Changed

• Turning a sign-in provider off (#301, #302): OAUTH_<NAME>_ENABLED=false hides Google, GitHub, Facebook or Microsoft while keeping its credentials, for example while an app review is pending.
• The footer is centred and links to the GitHub repository (#276, #291).

Fixed

• The large-timeline .och conversion is now covered by a test against the real converter (#296, #299). The error reported there came from an outdated local build; released servers were not affected.

Upgrading

Install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. New settings, all optional: LDAP_*, OAUTH_MICROSOFT_*, OAUTH_<NAME>_ENABLED, EXPORT_CACHE*. See administration.

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.8.1: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.8.1

Changes since v0.8.0.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

Faster

• Rebuilding a fork's search text (#285, #290): a fork's catalogue text, rebuilt in the background after it or its upstream is saved, is now 8–10× faster up to 50,000 moments (5,000 moments: 1.95 s → 0.25 s; 50,000: 7.58 s → 0.78 s). Timelines up to 50,000 moments read their moments in order with one sorted query instead of walking the index a step at a time, and the rebuild no longer pays for PostgreSQL's JIT compilation. The text is unchanged. bench/fork-text.mjs measures it.

Fixed

• A PostgreSQL platform test could see a fork it had marked as preparing become ready during its checks (#280, #288). bench/fork-reads.mjs works again since owners can no longer fork their own timelines (#290).

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.8.0: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate, which installs the faster rebuild. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.8.0

Changes since v0.7.0.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• Privacy policy and terms pages (#281, #282): /privacy and /terms show the service's privacy policy and terms of service as pages of their own, linked from the footer (Terms · Privacy · Licenses), sign-up and the analytics prompt. /legal still has every notice and license together.

Changed

• timescale.info's policies take effect (#282): the terms, privacy policy and copyright policy took effect on 25 October 2026, with privacy@timescale.info as the contact. The privacy policy now states the hosting (DigitalOcean, United States), how long logs and backups are kept, and how Google sign-in data is used: only the Google account identifier is kept, under the Google API Services User Data Policy's Limited Use requirements.

Fixed

• Search text rebuilt during a save or deletion (#261, #284): the background rebuild of a timeline's search text could log "Broken timeline index" if the timeline, or the one a fork reads through to, was saved or deleted while it ran. It now reads one consistent snapshot.
• A view left loading (#218, #283): after a large deletion, the desktop app could stay on its loading state with no moments drawn when a window request's reply was discarded or waited behind a prediction.
• Live updates after changing servers (#240, #278): a polling pass no longer checks a timeline that has left the screen, so a server switch can't report the new view's access as lost.
• A PostgreSQL test that could hang CI for hours now reports its failure instead (#238, #279). The publicity videos use the new logo (#274, #275).

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.7.0: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.7.0

Changes since v0.6.0.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• Sign in, Sign up and an account menu (#265, #266): the header ends with Sign in for guests, and Sign up while the site takes registrations. A signed-in account sees its picture and name instead, which open a menu: Account, Your profile, Site administration (for administrators) and Sign out. The navigation's Account link is gone.
• A tidier account page (#263, #264): a summary across the top (picture, email, storage meter, profile link and Sign out), then the settings as cards, two columns wide on a wide screen. The cards are the profile, security (email, password, two-factor and recovery codes), sessions, sign-in methods, API keys and deleting the account. Each change opens its own small form and asks for the current password only where it is needed.
• Fit a duration in the view (#268, #272): Fit in view in a duration's right-click menu, and in its details and reader panels, spans the view to it with the same margin as Fit all.

Changed

• Forking and duplicating (#259, #262): Duplicate is now only for a timeline's owner, and Fork on server only for someone else's timeline. An account has one fork of a timeline: forking it again opens that fork. In the HTTP API, an owner forking their own timeline, or anyone else duplicating it, gets 403; forking again answers the existing fork with 200 and existing: true. Timelines report canDuplicate, and a fork reports forkChanged.
• Proposing changes (#259, #262): Propose changes and Submit pull request are offered only to those who can't save the timeline themselves (contributors, and signed-in readers of a public timeline). Their authors can still update their pull requests. A fork offers Propose saved changes once it has saved changes of its own.

Fixed

• Durations no longer overlap (#269, #270): the bands beneath the axis took rows by their position in the list, so the first and fourth always shared one. Bands that overlap in time now never share a row.
• The copy rate limit says "Too many copies" rather than "Too many sign-in attempts" (#262). A flaky WebKit test is fixed (#271, #273).

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.6.0: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.6.0

Changes since v0.5.0.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• A new logo (#251, #252): the original OpenChronology clock, a "C" whose last hours are set apart, in the site's green and gold. It's in the site's and editor's headers and is the browser tab icon (SVG and .ico). It's also the home-screen icon on iPhone and iPad and the web app icon on Android (including a maskable icon), and the desktop app's icon on Windows, macOS and Linux. scripts/icons.mjs draws every size from logo/.
• A Support link (#249, #250): with SUPPORT_URL set to an https:// address, a platform shows ♥ Support in its header and Support this site in its footer. Unset, neither appears.
• A not-found page (#255, #256): an address with nothing the visitor may see now says so, and offers a guest to sign in and come back. It stays a 404 for a private timeline, so its address doesn't reveal that it exists.

Fixed

• A timeline's own address behind HTTPS (#255, #256): behind a reverse proxy that sends X-Forwarded-Proto: https, as Caddy does, opening a timeline at /<owner>/<slug> answered 500.
• The timeline is centered (#253, #254): the axis now sits in the middle of the stage at any height, notably in full screen, where it used to sit high and couldn't be dragged to the middle. Center axis centers it, a comparison centers its rows, and entering full screen keeps the timeline's place.
• The whole description (#257, #258): a timeline's description under its title now shows in full instead of scrolling inside one line.

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.5.0: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.5.0

Changes since v0.4.0.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• Full screen (#234, #237): Full screen in the timeline's toolbar, or F with the timeline focused, makes the timeline cover the window. It works even where the browser refuses its own full screen, such as an embed without allow="fullscreen". Dialogs still open above it. Exit full screen or Escape returns to the page.

Fixed

• One label per ruler tick (#241, #244): while two graduation levels crossfaded, a tick could draw both of its labels on top of each other, such as "20:00" and "20h" reading like "20000". Each tick now draws one.
• Readable offsets deep in a large unit (#242, #245): zoomed far into a display that counts in a large unit (millions of years, say), the ruler's offset labels read like "Δ 1.446e-13 million…", from a fraction of enormous integers. They now count in the largest smaller unit the view spans ("Δ 7 s", "Δ 250 ms", "Δ 3 days"), from a round base, and still parse back exactly.

Also

• An explainer video series and eight vertical shorts, with their scripts, sources and render pipeline, are in publicity/ (#243, #246, #247).
• CI jobs have time limits, and a flaky WebKit check waits for layout (#239).

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.4.0: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.4.0

Changes since v0.3.0.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• View mode (#233): people who can edit a timeline get a View mode switch at the top. When it's on, or when you can only view a timeline, clicking a moment or duration opens a reader instead of the editor. The reader shows the item's lead image, time, tags, notes, fields, links, stacks and gallery, and fills the screen on phones. Sharing, reporting and sensitive-content blurring work from the reader too.

Fixed

• Smoother panning and zooming (#232): the halo behind the axis, ticks and relationship arcs is no longer drawn by filtering whole layers. Timelines with background images pan and zoom without lagging. In a test with the CPU slowed 4×, a frame's median time fell from 67ms to 33ms.

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.3.0: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.3.0

Changes since v0.2.0.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• Timeline theme plugin (#230): the whole timeline's colors and fonts, set in the plugin list. It covers label color and font, measure color and font, halo color, default marker and duration colors, and a background color. Anything left blank keeps the usual look, and colors chosen on events still win. Timeline settings gain two new kinds, colors and font families, and plugins can declare a theme.

Fixed

• Duration band titles (#228): bands are tall enough to read their titles without hovering, which matters on touch screens. They no longer cover the axis's tick labels.

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.2.0: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.2.0

Changes since v0.1.1.

Early release. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions.

New

• Timeline background plugin (#223): one image behind the whole timeline, set from the plugin list rather than on any event. It sits behind the duration backgrounds. Plugins can now declare timeline-wide settings; this is the first to use them.

Changed

• Duration backgrounds (#220, #222):
  • They now sit behind the axis, labels and markers.
  • Timeline elements over a background get a white glow, and labels get a frosted backing, so they stay readable on any image.
  • The fade at each edge is a constant 48px instead of growing with the duration's width.
  • Very narrow durations fade their background out as you zoom away, as the rulers' graduations do.
• Security settings (#219): a password re-confirms changes such as creating API keys, so the five-minute sign-in rule now applies only to accounts without a password. Errors appear in the form that caused them and explain what to do.

Fixed

• The Windows server installer build installs NSIS reliably (#225).

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums. They're the same set as v0.1.1: desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux; server packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (Homebrew) and Windows; the offline HTML files; and the source archives.

To upgrade a server, install the new package and run openchronology-migrate. See administration.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.

v0.1.1

The first tagged release of OpenChronology: an editor for timelines whose times are exact rational numbers, as a website you can host, a desktop app and a single offline HTML file. (v0.1.0 was tagged first, but its release build failed, so it has no downloads; v0.1.1 is the same software with that build fixed.)

Early release. This version hasn't run in production yet. In SemVer terms, anything may change before 1.0, including file formats, the HTTP API and settings, though changes to .ochx and .och files will come with conversions. The hosted-service terms and privacy notice are drafts. Please report what breaks.

What's in it

• Events on an exact time axis. An event is a moment (one time) or a duration (a span, whose ends can follow moments). A third of a second stays exactly a third at any zoom. Nearby events gather into summaries and separate as you zoom.
• Time display:
  • exact rationals, decimals, scientific and SI units, Gregorian dates and custom printers;
  • rulers that graduate by calendar or decimal steps.
• Organising: tags, links between events, search, separation by tags or by links, and comparing timelines on one axis.
• Plugins and suites: icons, colours, shapes, stacks, backgrounds, rich notes and headings. The Causal factor analysis and History education suites bundle these for common uses.
• Server (platform):
  • accounts, private and public timelines, sharing and embedding;
  • forks, pull requests, history and retention;
  • moderation, syslog and log import;
  • an HTTP API with an OpenAPI reference;
  • help at /help.
• Desktop app: native .och (SQLite) files, with large timelines kept in an indexed native store, and connections to one or more servers.
• Offline file: the whole editor in one HTML file that never uses the network. The CFAM edition starts with the causal factor analysis plugins, Gregorian dates and today in view.

Downloads

The assets below are built from this tag by the release workflow. SHA256SUMS.txt lists their checksums.

• Desktop:
  • Windows (.exe installer);
  • macOS, Apple silicon and Intel (.dmg);
  • Linux: .deb, .AppImage, and .rpm for Rocky Linux and RHEL 10.
• Server packages:
  • Linux: Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04 (.deb), Fedora 44 and Rocky Linux 10 (.rpm);
  • FreeBSD 14 and 15 (.pkg);
  • macOS (Homebrew: brew install openchronology/tap/openchronology-server);
  • Windows;
  • Docker Compose from the source.
  • The package installs set up PostgreSQL with pgmp.
• Offline browser files: openchronology-offline.html, and the CFAM edition openchronology-offline-cfam.html (also at https://openchronology.github.io/ and https://openchronology.github.io/cfam/).
• Source: the web and desktop source archives that match these builds.

See the README to run or build it, and administration to run a server.

OpenChronology is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. It comes with no warranty.