Cool Timeline (Horizontal & Vertical Timeline) vs Herodotus – On This Day

Horizontal & Vertical Timeline, History Timeline Slider Cool Timeline is an advanced WordPress plugin that helps you easily create timeline sliders for your website. You can use it to display your company’s history, product roadmaps, personal stories, or key events in a vertical layout. Using Cool Timeline, you can create timeline stories in two ways: Gutenberg Timeline Block: Add and manage timeline stories easily using the built-in block in the WordPress editor. Great for showing steps, events, or roadmaps with a clean design. Shortcode-Based Classic Timelines: Using the classic editor? Just add a simple shortcode to display your timeline on any page or post and customize it the way you like. Check Free Version Demos Key Features Timeline Slider: Display your stories in a stunning vertical or horizontal timeline layout. Gutenberg and Classic Editor Support: Create timelines easily using the Gutenberg block or a simple shortcode. This works with both new and classic WordPress editors. Smart Shortcode Generator: Use shortcodes to display timeline slider anywhere on your site without needing the code. Cool Timeline Shortcode: [cool-timeline layout=”default” skin=”default” date-format=”F j” icons=”YES” show-posts=”20″ order=”DESC” story-content=”full”] Works with Page Builders: Compatible with popular page builders like Gutenberg, WPBakery, and Classic Editor. Elementor and Divi users can also create timelines with additional plugins. ASC/DESC Order: Arrange your timeline stories in ascending or descending order as needed. Customizable Description: Choose to show either a summary or the full description for each timeline story, depending on how much detail you want to present. Story Order (ASC / DESC): Sort your stories in ascending (oldest to newest) or descending (newest to oldest) order based on your timeline. Date Format: Choose from various date formats to display your timeline stories according to your requirements. Customizable Colors & Fonts: Change colors, fonts, and styles to fit your brand or website design. Pagination: Set how many stories you want to display per page to easily manage multiple timelines. Icons or Dots: Highlight events using custom icons or simple dots to visually distinguish each story on the timeline. Content Alignment: Align your timeline content left, right, or center to match your website’s style and improve readability. Multiple Timelines: Create and manage several timeline sliders on one site, like company history, product updates, or personal stories. Animation Effects: Add subtle animations to your timeline items as they appear, making the overall experience more interactive and engaging. Where can you use the Cool Timeline? Company History Showcase: Display your company’s growth and key milestones in a timeline format. Event Highlights: Present a timeline of events for conferences, seminars, or special occasions. Product Launch Timeline: Highlight the different stages and key dates leading up to a product or service launch. Personal Journey: Share your personal story, career progression, or life journey using a timeline. Project Roadmap: Create a visual timeline of project phases, deadlines, and achievements. Achievements and Awards: Showcase significant accomplishments, recognitions, and awards over time. Nonprofit or Charity Timeline: Present the key initiatives and impact of your nonprofit organization through a timeline. Portfolio Showcase: Display your work history or project portfolio in chronological order. Historical Events Documentation: Document important historical events or milestones in a timeline. School or Educational Timeline: Highlight significant academic events, school history, or student progress. Wedding or Family Timeline: Capture important family milestones like weddings, anniversaries, or life events. Event Planning: Outline and share a detailed timeline for upcoming events or project plans. Real Estate Development: Display the various stages of a property’s development from start to completion. Startup Journey: Share your startup’s timeline, from idea conception to growth and scaling phases. Sports Achievements: Highlight key moments and accomplishments in an athlete’s or team’s career. Cool Timeline Pro Features Upgrading to the Cool Timeline Pro plugin unlocks the advanced features like access to multiple layouts, including Horizontal layout, Category-Based Timelines, Ajax Load More, Multimedia ( images, videos & slideshow), and more: Timeline Slider Designs: Cool Timeline Pro offers 4 layout types Vertical Timeline Vertical Compact Timeline Vertical One-Side Timeline Horizontal Timeline Each with 6+ design styles like Classic, Modern, Elegant, etc., and 3 skins (Light, Dark, Colorful). Check All Demos. Advance Customization: Set different colors for each timeline story, making your timeline more visually interesting. Add Images & Videos: Make your timeline stories more interactive by adding images, videos, and slideshows. Multiple Timelines: Create and manage several timelines on one site, like company history, product updates, or personal stories. Smart Shortcode Generator: Use shortcodes to display timelines anywhere on your site without needing to code. Works with Page Builders: Compatible with popular page builders like Gutenberg, WPBakery, and Classic Editor. Elementor and Divi users can also create timelines with additional plugins. Custom Labels: Use labels instead of dates for events, such as process steps or historical periods like AD/BC. Category Filters: Add filters so users can sort timeline stories by category. Blog Post Timeline: Display your blog posts in a timeline layout, highlighting your content by date. Ajax Load More & Pagination: Add pagination and “load more” buttons to easily manage timelines with many stories. Scrolling Navigation: Add scrolling navigation to let users move through long timelines more quickly. Custom Icons: Replace default dots with icons or custom images to make your timeline more personalized. HTML/Links Support: Add “Read More” links or custom HTML in timeline stories to guide users to full content or other pages. Customizable Date Formats: Choose from various date formats to display your timeline stories as you like. Animation Effects: Add animation effects to your timelines to make them more engaging for visitors. Premium Support: Get dedicated support as a Pro user for any help or questions. 🔗Check Pro Version Demos | Get Pro Check Our Other Timeline Plugins Timeline Widget For Elementor: Showcase your company history, product roadmap, and personal journey in vertical & horizontal layout directly inside Elementor. View Demo Timeline Block For Gutenberg: Create interactive timelines directly within the WordPress Block Editor to display step-by-step tutorials, a company’s history, and a product roadmap. View Demo Timeline Builder: Create a small timeline inside the Gutenberg block editor using a vertical or horizontal timeline. View Demo Timeline Module Pro For Divi: Showcase your personal story or company history using stunning vertical or horizontal timelines directly inside the Divi Builder. View Demo Use of 3rd Party Services: This plugin connects to the Cool Plugins API to display information about related plugins inside the dashboard. It also offers optional usage tracking and optional feedback submission on deactivation. Data is sent only after explicit user consent. No hidden tracking is performed, and no frontend visitor or site user data is collected. For more details, please review our Data Usage Policy, TOS, and Privacy Policy.

Herodotus is a specialized tool for creating recurring historical events based on Day and Month, making it perfect for “This Day in History”, birthdays, anniversaries, or any annual recurring timeline. Unlike the default WordPress behavior where posts are tied to a specific publication year, Herodotus introduces its own herodotus_post Custom Post Type. You simply pick a day and a month from the custom date picker in the block editor, and your post will automatically appear on that exact day every single year. Key Features: Dedicated Custom Post Type — keeps your regular blog posts completely separate from historical events. Custom Taxonomy — group historical events into categories like “Science”, “Politics”, “Birthdays”, etc. Annual Recursion — just set “May 15” and the post appears every May 15, forever. Three Layouts — standard list layout for pages, compact layout for sidebars and widgets, and a plain text layout with no images at all. Shortcode & Gutenberg Block — use [herodotus] or the included block to display events anywhere. Year Support — set the year of the event for display purposes. Year Badge — the historical year is displayed as a badge on each event card, so visitors immediately see when the event occurred. BC/AD Era Support — mark events as BC or AD. BC events are sorted chronologically before AD events. The “AD” label is shown in the year badge when selected. Category Filtering — display posts from a specific category using [herodotus category="history"]. Category Labels — category is displayed on each event card and on the single event page. Hide Images — show posts as text-only using [herodotus show_image="false"]. Open Graph & Twitter Card — automatic meta tags for beautiful social media sharing previews. Schema.org Markup — JSON-LD structured data (Article, Event, CollectionPage) for better SEO and Google rich results. Automatically disabled if Yoast SEO, RankMath, AIOSEO or The SEO Framework is active. Timezone Aware — strictly respects your WordPress timezone settings. WPML & Polylang Ready — includes wpml-config.xml for full multilingual compatibility. Translation Ready — includes translations for Georgian, Russian, Ukrainian, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Turkish. Caching — built-in transient caching for fast frontend performance. Sortable Admin Columns — the posts list in the admin shows “Herodotus Date” and “Year” columns, both clickable to sort your events by date or year. Quick Edit — change the day, month, year and era straight from the posts list, without opening the editor. RSS Feed — /herodotus/feed/ delivers today’s events, refreshed every day. Works with RSS readers and automation services. Available Shortcode Attributes: [herodotus] — show today’s posts using global settings. [herodotus layout="compact"] — compact view, ideal for sidebars. [herodotus layout="text"] — plain text list: no images, no card borders. [herodotus limit="5"] — limit to first 5 posts. [herodotus category="history"] — show posts from a specific category (use slug). [herodotus excerpt_words="15"] — set custom excerpt length. [herodotus show_image="false"] — hide images, show only title, excerpt and Read more. [herodotus order="DESC"] — reverse sort order for this instance (overrides the global setting). [herodotus_random] — show a random pick out of today’s events. Accepts limit, category, layout, excerpt_words and show_image.