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Compress / skip time in timing diagram

+23 votes
asked Apr 17, 2018 in Wanted features by maia (120 points)
In the timing diagram, short events become very small (looking instantaneous) when having long total durations.

As a solution, one could add the possibility to cut out the range between two times, so that timesteps are eluded.

This could work like  the ... "skipping time" ... in sequence diagrams. Start and end of the skipped times would be required. Furthermore no signal change can happen within the skipped time.

"Break in timeline" refs:

http://forum.plantuml.net/5783/timing-diagram-problems-with-very-large-values?show=5783#q5783

http://forum.plantuml.net/5526/on-timing-diagram-please-provide-way-to-color-parts-concise?show=5526#q5526 (comment)
commented Jan 17, 2019 by Tomer Spector
I am looking for exactly same feature. I prefer having the ability to visualize it using two waves like WaveDrom interprets '|' within wave.
commented Apr 13, 2021 by Filippo (140 points)

I am looking for the same feature: removing a range of time from the diagram.
I am using timing diagrams to represent historical timelines.

Let say I am making the timeline for the history of Venice. In the old times, we have little information on what has happened. Events are scarce and sparse: there are large spans of time with nothing in it. We must scroll a lot before arriving to the next event. And at the same time, there are periods of time dense in events that force us to have a scale letting them space so that we can describe events, and descriptions in notes don't overlap.
With such a scale, events that were far from each other tend to get much farther.

If we could skip completely a time range we wouldn't have to scroll so much periods completely blank, with no event, looking for the next event.
Or maybe we should support the change of scale in the middle of the timeline. But it might be trickier and more confusing.

commented Jan 25, 2022 by anonymous
I have the same request.
commented Jan 26, 2023 by nobody19 (100 points)
any news? When will this feature be available? Or when already available, how I can do that?
commented Mar 15, 2023 by ivand (140 points)
Same problem here. I have an activity once per 24 or 72 hours and because it is too short, the whole diagram becomes unreadable.

3 Answers

+5 votes
answered Oct 12, 2018 by Vijay (140 points)
I signed up to request for the exact same feature!

A sample of what I am looking for is at https://rheingoldheavy.com/timing-diagram-basics/ Where the period from 12 to 19 is skipped.

I have a diagram in which every event is in ms but one blocking event runs for seconds without the ability to compress the time for this event the tool tries to render a very large graph and fails.
+1 vote
answered Apr 10, 2021 by Filippo (140 points)
I am looking for the same feature: removing a range of time from the diagram.
I am using timing diagrams to represent historical timelines.

Let say I am making the timeline for the history of Venice. In the old times, we have little information on what has happened. Events are scarce and sparse: there are large spans of time with nothing in it. We must scroll a lot before arriving to the next event. And at the same time, there are periods of time dense in events that force us to have a scale letting them space so that we can describe events, and descriptions in notes don't overlap.
With such a scale, events that were far from each other tend to get much farther.

If we could skip completely a time range we wouldn't have to scroll so much periods completely blank, with no event, looking for the next event.
Or maybe we should support the change of scale in the middle of the timeline. But it might be trickier and more confusing.
commented Jun 3, 2022 by awschult (460 points)
Does anyone know if there has been any improvement on this yet? I have seen plenty of timing diagram updates recently; but this one seems to have been forgotten.

I wonder if I can @plantuml team or something. I might just have to make a fresh request and see if that ends up at the top of their stack.
0 votes
answered 22 hours ago by dmf19 (580 points)
edited 13 hours ago by dmf19

I've implemented this. A new command squeezes a stretch of the time axis:

```
break <from> to <to>
```

Example:

```
@startuml
robust "Web Browser" as WB
concise "Web User" as WU
binary "Enable" as EN

@0
WU is Idle
WB is Idle
EN is low

@100
WU is Waiting
WB is Processing
EN is high

@300 as :wait
WB is Waiting

@5000
WB is Idle
WU is Idle
EN is low

@5200
WU is Waiting

break :wait+100 to 4900
highlight 250 to 5100 #Gold : busy
WU -> WB@5000 : late
@enduml
```


How it behaves:
- The broken stretch is squeezed to half a tick interval, so the 4,500 empty
  units above take almost no space.
- On every player (binary, clock, robust, concise) the squeezed part is masked
  and bordered by zigzag lines, so it reads as a tear rather than a hidden
  signal. The axis line is interrupted there too.
- `<from>` and `<to>` take the same time expressions as `@`, including anchors
  and offsets like `:wait+100`.
- You can use several breaks, as long as they don't overlap. A break that ends
  before it starts, or overlaps another, gives an error.
- Diagrams without `break` render exactly as before.

The code and a regression test are in this pull request:
https://github.com/plantuml/plantuml/pull/2981

Feedback on the syntax or the zigzag look is welcome, especially from anyone
with a real diagram to try it on (e.g. the 24h/72h cases above).

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