The timeline: blocks, links and milestones

This guide builds on the vocabulary laid out in Understanding the timeline in five minutes and details the gestures: drawing, moving, linking two blocks, placing a milestone, locking.

Drawing a block

On a named row, click in the time grid where the block should start and drag horizontally to the end date, then release. A blue block appears with a text field ready to receive its name; type it and confirm with Enter. A start date that falls outside a working slot (a weekend, a closure) is snapped to the next one.

If the text field doesn't open, or you want to rename a block later, right-click the block › Edit the label does the same thing at any time.

Moving, resizing, recoloring

• Dragging a block horizontally moves it along the same row. Dragging it onto another row moves it there.
• Dragging an edge (left or right) of the block changes its duration.
• Double-clicking a block reopens its label for editing, in place.
• Right-clicking a block opens a menu: Edit the label, Edit the comment (or Comment, if none exists yet), Color ▸, Add a dependency, Place a marker here, Actions… (shortcut A), Lock, Delete the block (shortcut Del).
• Lock freezes the block's place and existence: it no longer moves, resizes, or gets deleted until unlocked — its label, color, progress, comments and actions stay editable.

Milestones (icons)

A milestone is an icon placed on a precise date rather than a duration — a site handover, a meeting, an alert. It's placed and handled like a block (right-clicking an empty cell in the time grid offers to insert one), moves, gets renamed and locked the same way.

Linking two blocks (or icons)

From a block's right-click menu, Add a dependency then aim at the second element. A link states that the target can't start before the origin is finished (the most common direction; others are possible — finish-to-finish, start-to-start…).

Two kinds of link, visible on screen:

• Hard (solid line): if the origin moves and the constraint is no longer met, the target is pushed by the minimum needed — this is what makes a whole project shift cleanly when a single task runs late. It counts toward the critical path.
• Soft (dotted line): never moves anything, is never "violated"; useful for showing a logical order without suffering the push — and it's the only link type that can close a loop.

What happens when you get it wrong

• A block placed or sized wrong: drag it again, or Ctrl+Z (the Undo button, at the top of the ribbon) undoes the last gesture — the button renames itself after the action it's about to undo ("Undo: Place a block"), which helps you check before clicking.
• A dependency that no longer makes sense: right-click the link (or from the block) to delete it; the blocks stay where they are, nothing moves back.
• A locked block you're trying to move: the gesture is refused (the element doesn't move) — you first have to unlock it from its menu.

What this page doesn't cover

• The columns of the left panel, indenting rows: see The grid and columns.
• Closures and absences that extend a block: see The calendar, closures and absences.
• Named colors in the legend, and the filter that hides rows: see The legend and the filter.
• Actions to check off on a block, and the progress that comes from them: see A block's actions and its derived progress.