Is there a help sheet for the Timeline template? It's not in the manual
that's on the pachyderm website.

I'm having trouble setting up a timeline for BCE dates and am wondering
if there's a particular protocol (negative numbers, perhaps?) that I
need to use to set the date range and/or the dates for the individual
objects?

At present I have 3 objects in the timeline, but only one is displaying.

You can have dates in the following styles and they will be recognized and displayed properly:

312
-210
500 bc
500 b.c.
500 bce
500 b.c.e.
ca 500 bce
c.a. 500 b.c.
1200 ad
1200 a.d.
1200 ce
1200 c.e.
ca 1200 ad
c.a. 1200 a.d.

Here is the way it works. I have added a new variable (date_str) that is used for display (which is what you type into the authoring environment), and now the old date variable is created from this string (used for numeric sorting). The string is parse this way:

1. Anything before the first digit is ignored unless it is the minus (-) sign just before the starting digit.
2. A number is constructed from the digits that are in sequence.
3. Once a non-digit is discovered, the numeric portion is finalized.
4. If the letter 'b' is encountered after the number in the string, it is considered to be part of bc, b.c., bce or b.c.e and the number is made negative.

thanks, Scott. It works like a charm now!