Timeline

The schedule shows how your event unfolds – reception, dinner, speeches, first dance. Your guests stop asking what happens when, and you have the whole day in one view.

How the page is laid out

You find the schedule in the sidebar under Planning › Schedule. The page has three tabs – Content, Display and QR code – and inside Content the blocks always come in this order, top to bottom:

Schedule tabs with + Add schedule and the language bar
Start date
Design with the three looks
Plan the schedule – templates, start time, Shift all times, Add item, Print
Warnings about overlaps and gaps
The items themselves, closed off at the bottom by the Total duration
Live preview – what your guests get to see

At the very bottom sits the note Colours and fonts of this view apply to your whole event. with the link Open appearance. Fonts and colours are therefore not set here but once for the entire event under Settings › Appearance.

Several schedules

An event can hold several schedules – one for the ceremony, one for the party, one for day two. A row of tabs above the editor holds one entry per schedule.

Schedule tool with the tab row, Add schedule, the language bar and Save highlighted — ① The tab row sits **below** the language bar, right above the start date: the active schedule – here **Schedule** – carries a **pencil** and a **cog**; a **bin** is missing because this event has only one schedule. ② Next to it, **+ Add schedule** creates a second one. ③ Top right you see **Unsaved changes** and **Save**. ④ In between sits the language bar with **Select Translation Language**, **Update All** and **Fill Missing**.

Add schedule creates another one; the name can be typed in right away.
The active tab gets a pencil to rename it (Rename schedule), a cog for the visibility settings and – as soon as there is more than one schedule – a bin for Delete schedule.
Deleting asks first and states explicitly that all items of this schedule will be lost.
More than 20 schedules are not possible; after that the button is gone.

Two small icons in a tab tell you the state of a schedule without opening it:

a crossed-out eye when the schedule is hidden from guests – hovering it shows Hidden from guests
a clock with a time when a time window is set – hovering it shows the full window, e.g. Time window 22:00–02:00

Visibility and time window

The cog on the active tab opens a dialog named after the schedule – if the schedule is called Schedule, the heading reads Visibility: Schedule.

Visibility dialog with the switch, both time fields, the hint and the Apply button highlighted — ① **Visible to guests** – switched off, only admins see the schedule. ② Below it the **Time window (optional)** with **From** and **Until**; leaving both empty means “always”. ③ The hint with the clock icon only appears once one of the two times is set. ④ **Apply** closes the dialog – nothing has been saved yet at that point.

Visible to guests – switched off, only admins see the schedule. Handy for drafts.
Time window (optional) with From and Until – during that period your guests automatically see this schedule first. They can still switch at any time; the window never hides anything.
Times apply to the event day in local time. A window past midnight – 22:00–02:00, say – works.

Apply puts the settings into the draft, Save in the top right writes them to the server.

Start date

Every schedule has its own Start date.

Event date – the default. Below it you see which date that currently is, with a link into the event settings if none is set yet.
Custom date – reveals a date field.

A custom date is the key to multi-day events and to items past midnight: only then does Photogala know which day an item belongs to, and shows the live progress on the right day.

Creating items

Timeline editor with add item, print, the gap warning and the first item highlighted — ① **Add item** appends a new entry, ② **Print** puts the schedule on paper. ③ If time is left unplanned between two items, Photogala warns you – here “60 min gap after ‘Coffee and cake’”. ④ That is what an entry looks like: start time, end time below it, plus duration, title and description.

Add item creates a new entry and expands it right away. To open an existing item, use the pencil on the right of its row – it toggles the item open and closed.

Expanded item with the Title, Type, Icon, Start time, Duration and Happening simultaneously fields highlighted — Expanded, an item shows every field: ① **Title**, ② **Type**, ③ the **Icon** row – the chosen icon is outlined, here the clock. ④ **Start time** (with **Day** next to it for multi-day schedules), ⑤ **Duration (minutes)** – **Person / vendor** sits beside it. ⑥ The **Happening simultaneously** tick takes the item out of the gap and overlap check. The **Description (optional)** closes the form at the bottom.

The fields one by one:

Title – e.g. Champagne reception.
Type – Preparation, Ceremony, Photo, Reception, Entertainment or Logistics.
Icon – one from the row below.
Start time – the time of day.
Day – for multi-day schedules, the day the item falls on.
Duration (minutes) – in five-minute steps, at least 5.
Person / vendor – who is responsible, e.g. photographer.
Happening simultaneously – for items running in parallel with another. They are skipped by the gap and overlap check and carry a small Parallel label next to the duration in the list.
Description (optional) – details for your guests.

More than 200 items per schedule are not possible; the editor says so once the limit is reached.

Reorder, expand, delete

Every row has a drag handle on the left and four small buttons on the right.

Item row with the drag handle on the left and the four buttons on the right highlighted — ① The **drag handle** on the left: use it to pull the item to another position. ② On the right sit four buttons, left to right: **arrow up** and **arrow down** move the item one position, the **pencil** expands it for editing and collapses it again, the red **bin** removes it. On the first item the up arrow is dimmed, on the last one the down arrow – there is nowhere left to go.

Templates

Rather than starting from scratch, pick a ready-made schedule under Select template, set the Start time and click Apply template. Six templates are built in:

Plan the schedule section with the template grid, the start time, Apply template and the note highlighted — ① Six ready-made schedules to choose from – from **Traditional Wedding** to **Birthday Party**. ② The **start time** decides when the first item begins; everything else follows from it. ③ **Apply template** writes the schedule, ④ and the note next to it is explicit: **Replaces the current schedule.**

Traditional Wedding
Modern Wedding
Beach Wedding
Cocktail Party
Corporate Event
Birthday Party

Shift all times

When the day slips, Shift all times is the rescue. Four buttons move the entire schedule: -30, -15, +15 and +30 minutes. Your edits to individual items survive – the gaps between items stay exactly as they were.

Warnings and total duration

While you edit, Photogala checks the schedule. The warnings sit above the list of items, right below the Plan the schedule block:

Overlaps first – in red, when one item is still running as the next one starts.
Gaps below them – in grey, when more than 15 minutes stay empty between two items. Shorter pauses count as normal buffers and are not reported. The gap is also shown right at the item it follows.

Items marked Happening simultaneously are skipped by both checks – otherwise every parallel programme would read as an overlap.

Below the list, behind a thin divider, sits the Total duration of the schedule – and in small type under it, the time span, or across N days for multi-day schedules.

End of the item list with the day divider and the Total duration footer highlighted — ① When the schedule runs past midnight, Photogala inserts a **day divider** – here **Day 2 · Sunday, February 28**. ② At the very bottom the footer: **Total duration** on the left, the sum on the right – here **12h 45min** – and **across 2 days** beneath it. On a single-day schedule you get the time span instead, e.g. 13:15 – 02:00.

You create two schedules: Ceremony and Party. The first holds Ceremony (14:00, duration 45 minutes, type Ceremony), Champagne reception (15:00, 60 minutes) and Dinner (17:00). Because more than 15 minutes stay empty between 15:45 and 17:00, the editor reports a gap — intentional, since the couple’s shoot happens then. So you add Couple shoot (15:45, 60 minutes, Person / vendor photographer) and tick Happening simultaneously — which also clears the overlap warning against dinner. For the second schedule you set the Time window 22:00 to 02:00 in the cog dialog, so late in the evening guests see the party view first automatically. On the day the ceremony starts half an hour late: instead of editing every time by hand you tap +30 once under Shift all times — the whole run of the day moves along and the gaps between items stay exactly as they were. Then don’t forget to Save, or your guests keep seeing the old times. On the home page the widget under Up next only ever names the next item — during dinner, that is the first dance.

Design for your guests

In the Content tab, Design sets the look; the Live preview at the bottom of the page shows it immediately.

Design section with the heading and its hint plus the three design cards highlighted — ① The line under **Design** says what happens: **Choose how it looks for your guests — the preview updates instantly.** ② Below it the three cards. The active one carries a tick – here **Classic**. One click is enough; this too is only written with **Save**.

Classic – a vertical timeline with a connecting line. The default.
Cards – every item as its own card.
Compact – a dense list, no frills.

The Display tab controls Widget on the home page and Entry in the guest menu. The Widget style only appears once the widget is switched on.

What your guests see

Schedule from the guest's point of view with items and times — The guest view shows the schedule and marks the item that is running.

Tabs, as soon as more than one schedule is visible to guests. The one whose time window matches right now is preselected.
Live progress: the running item gets a Now marker, with a progress bar and the remaining time below it.
Print – for the copy on the welcome table or for your vendors.

Guest view during the event with the running item and the Now marker highlighted — During the event the running item stands out from the rest: ② the **Now** marker next to the title, ① a progress bar below it and the remaining time on the right – here **45min left**. Everything before and after stays faded. The display refreshes itself every 30 seconds.

The widget on the home page does not show the whole schedule but, under Up next, specifically the next item with its time and title.

Gallery home page with the Up next schedule widget highlighted — The widget on the gallery home page: **Up next**, with time and title below it – here **13:15 — Guests arrive**. Tapping it opens the full schedule.

It refreshes every minute and disappears once every item is in the past – for guests that’s exactly the information that matters.

Working together with other tools

Seating plan: in a seating plan’s settings, Take from a schedule item copies the start and duration of an item as the plan’s time slot. That way the guest view switches from the reception plan to the dinner plan by itself. Editing the time by hand later detaches the link.
Digital invitation: the Schedule (from Timeline) switch shows the schedule as a section right inside the invitation. The content isn’t copied – the invitation always shows the current state from this tool.

Troubleshooting

A schedule doesn’t show up for guests. Visible to guests is off in the cog dialog. You can spot it in the tab by the crossed-out eye.
An item sits on the wrong day. Set the schedule’s Start date to Custom date and pick the right Day on the item.
An item after midnight jumps to the top. The item’s Day solves that too – 01:00 on day 2 rather than 01:00 on day 1.
I deleted the wrong item. The bin doesn’t ask, but it only touches the draft. Reload the page without saving and the item is back.
The gap warning is noisy. It only appears above 15 minutes of empty time. If the pause is intentional, create an item for it – or mark the parallel item as Happening simultaneously.
The template overwrote my schedule. Apply template replaces the items of the active schedule. As long as you haven’t saved, the old state is still on the server – leave the page without saving and it stays.
The widget is gone. It only shows the next item. Once every item is in the past, it hides itself. The full schedule stays reachable via the guest menu.
The font in the schedule doesn’t match the rest. Fonts and colours come from the event settings, not from this tool. The Open appearance link at the bottom of the page takes you straight there.
Saving reports someone else’s change. Someone else saved in the meantime. Your input is kept – review it and save again.

For Guests: Tools at the event – how the schedule reaches your guests.
For Hosts: Seating Plan · Digital Invitation · Event Info · Tools – Overview