The Post Timeline widget by Atomic Addons shows your posts along a curved line that winds down the page, switching sides at each post. A Start marker opens the line and an End marker closes it. On wide screens each post gets a date badge on the line. Each post shows its featured image, category, title, publish date, a short text, the author and the comment count. This guide covers adding the widget, choosing what each post shows and which posts appear.
Enable the Post Timeline Widget
Post Timeline is a Pro widget and needs Atomic Addons Pro. Switch it on from the plugin dashboard:
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Go to WordPress Dashboard → Atomic Addons.
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Click the Widgets tab.
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Search for Post Timeline. You can also open the Posts / Dynamic category.
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Turn the Post Timeline widget on.
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Click Save Settings.
Add the Post Timeline Widget
Post Timeline works on any page:
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Open the page in Elementor (Edit with Elementor).
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In the widget panel, search for Post Timeline. The widget sits in the Atomic Addons Pro category.
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Drag it into the page and set it up with the controls below.
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Click Publish (or Update).
It suits a blog page, a news page or a company history. You pick the posts in the Query section.
Layout
Open the widget and go to Content → Layout:
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Show Image: On by default. Posts without a featured image show a placeholder image. Turning this off hides the Image section on the Style tab.
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Title: The post title, linked to the post. On by default.
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Title HTML Tag: The title's markup: H1 to H6, div, span or p. H3 by default.
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Show Text: A short text under the title. If the post has a manual excerpt, the full excerpt is shown. If not, the text is taken from the post content.
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Text Limit: How many words of the post content to show, 20 by default. Enter 0 to show the full content. The limit does not apply to manual excerpts.
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Ellipsis: Text added after shortened content, such as
.... Empty by default. - 7
Strip Shortcode: Removes shortcodes from the text. On by default.
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Show Author: “by” and the author's name, linked to their posts. On by default.
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Show Date: The date badge on the line. On by default. See Dates.
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Show Category: The post's categories, above the title. On by default.
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Show Comments: The comment count, such as “3 Comments”. On by default.
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Separator: The character between the author and the comment count,
·by default. - 13
Image Resolution: Which image size WordPress serves for the images, Medium by default.
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Pagination: Page numbers under the timeline. Each page shows as many posts as the Item Limit. Off by default.
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Item Wrapper Link: Makes the whole post clickable. A click opens the post in the same tab. The panel warns that the title link stops working while this is on.
Dates
With Show Date on, two more fields appear:
- Day & Month Format — the top line of the badge, in WordPress date format.
m/dby default, for example “10/14”. - Year Format — the bottom line of the badge,
Yby default, for example “2026”.
The badge only shows on screens 1024px and wider. On smaller screens, each post shows a “Published on” line with the date above its text instead.
With Show Date off, no badge is shown and Show Inline Date appears (on by default). It shows the “Published on” line on every screen size. These options change that line:
- Human Different Time — shows the age of the post, such as “3 days ago”, instead of the date.
- Time Short Format — with Human Different Time, shortens hours, minutes and seconds (for example “5h ago”).
- Show Time — without Human Different Time, adds the publish time after the date, with a clock icon.
Query
Content → Query decides which posts appear:
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Item Limit: How many posts the timeline shows, 1 to 20. 6 by default. With pagination on, this is the number per page.
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Source: Posts is the default. You can also pick Pages or any other public post type on your site. Manual Selection shows only the posts you search for and pick under Search & Select. Current Query shows the posts of the page being viewed, such as a category archive or search results. The editor may not show them until you save and reload. Related works on a single post: it shows posts of the same type by the same author.
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Limit: A number field, 6 by default. Item Limit above takes its place, so set the number of posts there.
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Include / Exclude: Include By keeps only posts in the Terms you pick (categories, tags, formats or custom taxonomies) or by the Authors you pick. Exclude By leaves out terms, authors, the Current Post or posts you pick with Manual Selection.
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Offset: Skips this many posts from the start of the list. 0 by default.
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Date: All (the default), or only posts from the past day, week, month, quarter or year. Choose Custom to set a Before and an After date.
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Order By: Date (the default), Title, ID, Author, Comment Count, Menu Order, Last Modified or Random.
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Order: DESC (the default) shows the newest posts or the highest values first. ASC reverses the order.
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Ignore Sticky Posts: Posts source only. Keeps sticky posts in their normal place instead of putting them first. On by default.
Only Featured Image Post leaves out posts without a featured image. Query ID is for developers: it gives the query a name that custom code can filter.
With Current Query, the page's own query decides which posts show and in what order. The include, exclude, date and order settings are hidden.
Style the Post Timeline
Everything below is on the Style tab. Sections that belong to a feature you turned off are hidden.
- Items — the space inside each curve (Padding). Under Line: the line's color, width and corner radius. Under Start/End/Date: the color, background, typography and radius of the markers and date badges, with a separate Year Color.
- Image — border, radius for odd and even posts, padding, size and spacing.
- Title — a hover underline Style (Underline by default, Middle Underline, Overline or Middle Overline), plus color, hover color, typography, text shadow and spacing.
- Text, Meta and Date — colors, typography and spacing. Meta also has a Separator Color.
- Category — the category labels in Normal and Hover states.
- Pagination — alignment and the page numbers in Normal, Hover and Active states.
If no post matches the query, the widget shows nothing.
Can't find what you need?
Our support team can help with setup questions and anything the docs don't cover yet.