Timeline Visualizations for Website

Building Timeline Visualizations for Websites

Timeline visualizations display events over time: company history, audit logs, biographies, project activity feeds. Can be vertical (news feed) or horizontal (historical timeline).

Libraries

• vis-timeline — interactive horizontal timeline with groups, drag-drop
• react-chrono — beautiful vertical and horizontal timelines
• Framer Motion — custom animation for vertical timelines

vis-timeline — interactive horizontal

npm install vis-timeline vis-data

import { useEffect, useRef } from 'react';
import { Timeline, DataSet } from 'vis-timeline/standalone';
import 'vis-timeline/styles/vis-timeline-graph2d.css';

function ProjectTimeline({ events, groups }) {
  const containerRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null);
  const timelineRef = useRef<Timeline>();

  useEffect(() => {
    if (!containerRef.current) return;

    const items = new DataSet(events.map(e => ({
      id: e.id,
      group: e.groupId,
      content: `<div class="timeline-item">${e.title}</div>`,
      start: e.startDate,
      end: e.endDate,
      className: `status-${e.status}`
    })));

    const groupsDS = new DataSet(groups.map(g => ({
      id: g.id,
      content: g.name
    })));

    const timeline = new Timeline(containerRef.current, items, groupsDS, {
      start: new Date(Date.now() - 7 * 24 * 3600000),
      end: new Date(Date.now() + 30 * 24 * 3600000),
      height: '400px',
      locale: 'en',
      groupOrder: 'id',
      zoomMin: 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24,
      zoomMax: 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365
    });

    timeline.on('select', ({ items: selectedIds }) => {
      if (selectedIds.length > 0) {
        const item = events.find(e => e.id === selectedIds[0]);
        onEventSelect(item);
      }
    });

    timelineRef.current = timeline;

    return () => timeline.destroy();
  }, []);

  return <div ref={containerRef} />;
}

Vertical Timeline (CSS + React)

import { motion } from 'framer-motion';

interface TimelineEvent {
  id: string;
  date: string;
  title: string;
  description: string;
  type: 'milestone' | 'update' | 'issue';
  actor?: string;
}

function VerticalTimeline({ events }: { events: TimelineEvent[] }) {
  const icons = {
    milestone: '🎯',
    update: '📝',
    issue: '⚠️'
  };

  return (
    <div className="relative">
      <div className="absolute left-8 top-0 bottom-0 w-0.5 bg-gray-200" />

      <div className="space-y-6 pl-20">
        {events.map((event, index) => (
          <motion.div
            key={event.id}
            initial={{ opacity: 0, x: -20 }}
            animate={{ opacity: 1, x: 0 }}
            transition={{ delay: index * 0.05 }}
            className="relative"
          >
            <div className="absolute -left-12 w-8 h-8 rounded-full bg-white border-2 border-blue-300 flex items-center justify-center text-sm">
              {icons[event.type]}
            </div>

            <div className="bg-white border border-gray-200 rounded-lg p-4 shadow-sm">
              <div className="flex items-start justify-between mb-1">
                <h4 className="font-semibold text-gray-800">{event.title}</h4>
                <time className="text-xs text-gray-500 ml-4 shrink-0">
                  {formatDate(event.date)}
                </time>
              </div>
              <p className="text-sm text-gray-600">{event.description}</p>
              {event.actor && (
                <p className="text-xs text-gray-400 mt-2">{event.actor}</p>
              )}
            </div>
          </motion.div>
        ))}
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

react-chrono

import { Chrono } from 'react-chrono';

function CompanyHistory({ milestones }) {
  const items = milestones.map(m => ({
    title: m.year.toString(),
    cardTitle: m.title,
    cardDetailedText: m.description,
    media: m.imageUrl ? {
      type: 'IMAGE',
      source: { url: m.imageUrl }
    } : undefined
  }));

  return (
    <Chrono
      items={items}
      mode="VERTICAL_ALTERNATING"
      theme={{
        primary: '#3b82f6',
        secondary: '#eff6ff',
        cardBgColor: '#ffffff',
        titleColor: '#374151'
      }}
      cardHeight={200}
      useReadMore={false}
    />
  );
}

Timeline

Vertical Timeline with animations — 2–3 days. vis-timeline with groups and drag-drop — 4–6 days.