TIPS FOR USERS

Resolution: You may find the timeline easiest to view if you set your screen resolution to 1280 x 960.

Scrolling: Scroll through the timeline by clicking on it and dragging left or right. You can scroll more quickly if you click and drag on the dark gray band at the bottom of the timeline (which provides a "zoomed out" view).

Filter: The Filter function is located below the timeline. Use this function when you went to see only events related to the topic you're interested in. For instance, if you want a timeline specific to the history of American Catholics, type Catholic into the Filter box. When you hit the Return key, all events not containing the word or tag "Catholic" will disappear. To return to the unfiltered timeline, hit the Clear All button.

The Filter function looks for exactly the word or phrase you type into the box. Use the simplest possible version of your search term to maximize your results. For instance, using Catholic as your filter term will produce more events than if you use Catholics or Catholicism.

At present, the Filter function does not allow you to combine terms (like Catholic AND women). To perform that kind of search, see Boolean operators (below).

Highlight: The Highlight function is located below the timeline. This function places colored tags on events related to the key terms you enter. Unlike the Filter function, the Highlight function does not remove other events from the timeline, so you are still able to see the context for the events you tag.

For instance, if you type women into the text box over the yellow band and hit the Return key, all events containing the word or tag "women" will be highlighted in yellow. You can highlight up to four different terms at once, using a different color for each. To eliminate the colored tags, hit the Clear All button.

The Highlight function is useful when you want to focus on anywhere from one to four traditions or themes at once. The Highlight function won't filter out all unrelated events, but the highlighting in different colors makes the threads you're interested in easy to follow. The Highlight function could also be useful if you want to be sure not to miss events that might contain synonymous key terms. For example, you could highlight both the terms Jew and Judaism.

Highlighting multiple terms is the equivalent of doing an OR search in Boolean operators. That is, if you highlight women in yellow and Jew in orange, all items related to women will be tagged yellow, and then all items related to Jews will be tagged in orange. The Highlight function will not narrow the timeline down to events related to women AND Jew. To perform that kind of search, see Boolean operators (below).

Boolean operators: At present, the technology for the timeline does not support searches for Boolean operators (AND, OR). However, such searches can be approximated as follows:

AND	Use the Filter function for the first term, the Highlight function for the second.
OR	Use the Highlight function, a different color for each term.