# Secrets and reveals > Hide items until you reveal them, keep entities and relations secret, preview a timeline as a viewer, and read up to a chapter without spoilers. Visibility decides who can open a timeline. Reveals and secrets decide what they see once they're in: you can hide single items until the session or the chapter where the players or readers find out, and keep an entity or a relation to the people who edit it. This article covers who sees what, managing reveals, previewing a timeline as a viewer, reading up to a reveal, and what isn't hidden. All of it is on every plan, Free included. ## What a reveal is A reveal is a named step of a timeline, such as "Session 5", "Chapter 12" or just "Secret". You put items in it, and they stay hidden until you reveal it. A timeline's reveals are kept in order, so revealing one after another follows the story. A new reveal starts hidden; once you reveal it, its items show to everyone who can open the timeline, and its name becomes a label on them, like a chapter heading. You can hide a reveal again at any time. An item is in one reveal or in none. An item in no reveal shows as usual. ## Who sees hidden things Hidden items, secret entities and secret relations show only to the people who can edit them. Everyone else sees nothing in their place: no gap, no placeholder and no count. | Who | Sees what's hidden | | ----------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------ | | The timeline's owner | Yes | | A team's owner, admins and contributors, on its timelines | Yes | | Editor collaborators, while they can edit | Yes | | Site admins | Yes | | Viewer collaborators and view-only team members | No | | Anyone with a share link, and visitors to a public timeline | No | For entities and relations the rule is the entity's own: whoever can edit the entity sees its secrets. So an editor of someone's personal timeline sees the timeline's hidden items, but not the owner's secret entities. An editor shown as view-only, because the payer's plan has lapsed, sees what a viewer sees; see [collaborators and roles](https://timescrolly.com/help/collaborators). A [share link](https://timescrolly.com/help/sharing-and-visibility) shows exactly what a viewer sees, so it works as a player view on any plan: send it to your players or readers, and nothing hidden reaches them. ## Managing reveals Open the timeline in the dashboard and choose its Reveals tab, which shows to anyone who can edit the timeline. Under New reveal, type a name of up to 80 characters and choose Add. A timeline can have up to 200 reveals. The list shows the reveals in order, each with its number, its name, how many items are in it and a switch between Hidden and Revealed. Choose a name to rename it, and use the up and down arrows to move a reveal. The ⋯ menu of a reveal has: - **Reveal this and all before it**, which reveals every hidden reveal up to and including this one, asking first when that is more than one. - **Delete**, which asks first. When items are still in it, the dialog also asks where they go: choose None or another reveal under Move N items to, then Move and delete. Items in the trash that use the reveal have to be restored and moved, or deleted permanently, from the trash before the reveal can go; see [deleted items and restoring](https://timescrolly.com/help/deleted-and-restore). Counts shown elsewhere, such as the number of items on a timeline, leave hidden items out. ## Hiding items There are three ways to put an item in a reveal: - In the item's form, the Reveal field offers None and each of the timeline's reveals. It shows only to people who can see hidden things. - In the timeline view, an item's hover actions and its right-click menu have Hide in a reveal… (or Change reveal… when it is already in one). Choose a reveal or None, or type a name under New reveal to make one on the spot. On a timeline with no reveals yet, the name is filled in as "Secret", so Save is all it takes. - On the timeline's Items tab in the dashboard, select items and choose Set reveal… to put them all in the same reveal. The table's Reveal column shows each item's reveal. A period's nested events keep their own reveal. When you hide a period from the timeline view, the dialog offers Also put its N nested events in this reveal, ticked by default; untick it to leave them where they are. The item form and the Items tab change only the items you chose. Moving an item to another reveal is recorded in its History. Restoring an earlier reveal from History when that reveal has since been deleted leaves the item in its current one. A [suggested edit](https://timescrolly.com/help/suggested-edits) can't put an item in a reveal. ## How hidden things look to you If you can see hidden things, Timescrolly marks them so you always know what a viewer would miss. A hidden item has a crossed-out eye before its label on the timeline, in the list view, on the Items tab and in the trash. The item's panel and its page show its reveal's name, with the crossed-out eye while the reveal is hidden. A secret entity has a Secret badge on its page and a crossed-out eye beside its name in lists and relations. ## Previewing as a viewer To check what your players or readers will see, choose Preview as a viewer from the Share menu in the timeline view, or from the Reveals tab. The timeline then opens exactly as a viewer sees it, without the hidden items, secret entities and secret relations, and a Previewing as a viewer bar shows under the header. Nothing can be changed while you preview. Choose Exit preview to go back. ## Reading up to a reveal A reader who doesn't want spoilers can stop the timeline at a reveal. Open Filters in the timeline view: when the timeline has a reveal you can see, Show up to comes first, with Everything and each revealed reveal in order. Choose one, and the timeline shows only the items in no reveal and those in that reveal or an earlier one. What is in a later reveal stays out of mentions and relations too, as if it hadn't been revealed yet. People who can see hidden things also get the hidden reveals in the list, marked with the crossed-out eye. The choice is remembered in your browser for that timeline, and it's part of the page's address, so you can hand out a link that reads up to chapter 3; that works on a share link too. If the chosen reveal is hidden again or deleted, the choice is cleared and the timeline shows everything that is revealed. Show up to counts as one of the active filters. ## Secret entities and relations An [entity](https://timescrolly.com/help/entities) or a [relation](https://timescrolly.com/help/relations) can be marked Secret, with the Secret switch in the entity's edit form, in the New entity dialog, or in the relation's details. Only people who can edit the entity see a secret entity; everyone else sees no trace of it, its relations or its mentions. Only people who can edit the entities see a secret relation, even when both entities show. ## Mentions, and what isn't hidden A mention of a hidden item or a secret entity is left out for readers who can't see it. A co-editor who can't see what it points to gets a Hidden chip in its place instead, so the mention survives their edits. Removing one asks first, because it removes the owner's mention too. When you mention something hidden in notes or a description that isn't hidden itself, Timescrolly warns you: the mention will be left out, but the text around it won't. Text you type is never hidden. "The traitor is the duke" stays readable however you mark the duke, and the short excerpts of notes shown on cards keep a mention's name. Keep the words that give a secret away in an item that is itself hidden. ## Exports The booklet and poster export forms have a Leave out what viewers can't see checkbox for people who can see hidden things. It is off by default, so your own export has everything; tick it for a copy to hand out. While you preview as a viewer, it is always on. See [printing and images](https://timescrolly.com/help/printing-and-images).