Hi David,
Right now the triggers to get things going with a trace are based on opening the trace in the tool from the Project view. This will open the trace in an editor (read-only), start the trace indexing which will read all events and update the number of events in the table.
Your new trace class has to be assigned a trace type using the org.eclipse.linuxtools.tmf.core.tracetype extension point.
The Time Chart view only knows about punctual events and their timestamps, so it will show ticks in a time line when events occur, in a single row for the trace. I don't think that's what you're trying to achieve.
What you're looking for is a view based on a time graph, that has time graph entries (rows) for threads and processes. In order to go from punctual events to states with duration, most views use a state system that is built using an analysis (you need to define it with extension point org.eclipse.linuxtools.tmf.core.analysis).
I think you might have some luck with creating an analysis that extends AbstractCallStackAnalysis. You will need to create a state provider (I suggest to extend CallStackStateProvider), which will populate the state system with attributes and intervals based on the events you identify in your trace. Then the overridable methods in AbstractCallStackAnalysis will identify which state system attributes will map to rows in the Call Stack view. If you're not really doing a full call stack model, you could 'fake it' in such a way that a thread start is seen as a function entry and a thread end is seen as a function exit.
You could also create your own view that extends AbstractTimeGraphView, then you need to implement the methods that create time graph entries (rows) and compute the time graph model time events (states) from your trace. Usually this is also done through a state system, but doesn't have to be.
FYI, the Nexus sample code was lost in the move from Linux Tools to Trace Compass. I could point you to the last version in Linux Tools git but it would surely not compile in Trace Compass.