In the event timeline section of NovelBase, I wanted the ability to view events as they occur by dates. This mean the horizontal axis shows a chronological timeline, with the dates increasing to the right. The length of the event, i.e the timespan between the start and end date of the event serves as an indicator of the width, and obviously vice versa. The wider the event, the greater the timespan.
On the vertical axis is a list of characters in your book. Each character can have multiple events, and to show this involves some positioning of the events themselves to minimize overlapping. The event timeline as it currently stands is subject to change. I can see some improvements could be made, but that would have to be effectively a rewrite. The current implementation is functional, in that you can see, at a glance, how the event timeline is shaping up.
As the event screen also serves as the scene writing section, this could be named Scenes instead of Events. A scene can actually occur without having the properties of an event, that is the start date and end date can be left blank. This allows the author to create the scene, without having to worry too much about the dates in which it occurs. The downside is that scenes with no dates cannot be displayed in the timeline. Of course, the author can go back and enter the dates after writing the scene and then it will be shown in the timeline.
I wanted to strike a compromise between the immediacy of writing and the usefulness of the timeline, so that if why dates are optional.