In the Timeline, why are the lightning bolt bullets always purple instead of the Epic color?
Asked by Joe Ancona:

In the Timeline, why are the lightning bolt bullets always purple instead of matching the Epic color you've set?

It hurts the human brain to have the Epic bullet icons all be purple, instead of the assigned colors of that Epic... especially when there is actually an Epic assigned to purple.  

Having the lightning bolts all be purple forces you read each epic (or look at time line elements which may not be visible in the current time window range), before expanding the Epic.... If you are in charge of items in the 'Red' Epic, your eyes can just go straight to the red lightning bolt and expand... instead of looking through dozens of purple lighting bolts?  

What is the purpose of changing the color of the timeline bars if you don't also match it up with the lightning bolt bullets!


Answers:
author: Trudy Claspill
body: Hello [@Joe Ancona](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5517328)

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Are you referring to the graphics that appear to the left of the issue keys?

![Screenshot 2024-06-10 at 12.57.39?PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/329002iBCB318225A977606/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2024-06-10 at 12.57.39?PM.png")

Those are the Issue Type Icons. They have nothing to do with colors assigned to individual issues. They are based exclusively on the issue type of the issue.

If you want to show colors for your issues you can color the bars shown in the timeline based on the guidance shown here:

<https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/add-color-to-issues-on-your-advanced-roadmaps-timeline/>

I didn't find a change request to show colors based on the color selected for the individual issue, in the Atlassian public backlog. You might want to raise that suggestion through a support case or by providing feedback directly from within the Jira application.

comments: author: Joe Ancona
body: Thanks for the reply Trudy - yes indeed, just wondering why the Issue Type icon wouldn't match the color you've selected for that Epic's bars. The lightning bolt image would still provide identification as to what type of issue it was, whereas the color would help the user quickly color scan and identify which epic is which (without reading text). Just seems like a wasted opportunity for user value-add.  

I will make a suggestion within the app, now that I know it's a non-settable configuration at the moment.


author: Trudy Claspill
body: While the purple lightening bolt is the default icon for the Epic issue type, Jira Admins are able to customize that to be an entirely different image in their Jira instance. The image supplied is a static image though, in either case. There is no (reasonable, IMO) method for Atlassian to dynamically change the color on a static image that is customizable in every Jira instance.

It might be more reasonable to add a separate issue color icon between the issue type icon and the issue key, or allow the Issue Color field to be one of the fields that can be added to the Fields section.


author: Joe Ancona
body: My issue I guess, is that they chose to use purple for that icon, vs a more neutral color like grey, and just let the lightning bolt be the identification... Since you can custom color your bars, it just doesn't make good visual sense to have the Issue Type icon to be colored... make it agnostic. I don't think I'd add more clutter with a separate color icon, when the Issue Type icon is already in the perfect spot/functional area....just ready to be color-matched to the bars! Thanks for your candor-


Tags: cloud

jira-cloud