Easy Timeline Plugin

As the saying goes: a picture is worth a thousand words. This is certainly true for graphical timelines. A detailed listing of events and dates in tabular form may offer the reader a lot of specifics, but may fail to provide an overview, a grand perspective.

This plugin allows one to use %TIMELINE% tags to generate a timeline on the fly. This plugin is equal in function to the EasyTimeline Plugin for MediaWiki by Erik Zachte, on which this is based.

For first time users EasyTimelinePlugin may not seem that easy at all. As with all script languages it takes some getting used to. Also the syntax description may be a bit bewildering due to its sheer size. Fortunately many elements of the script language are optional.

The 'Easy' in EasyTimelinePlugin conveys the message that once a timeline exists it is not that hard to understand, enhance or correct.

Full syntax and markup description is available at http://infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/EasyTimeline/Syntax.htm.

Syntax

%TIMELINE%
Timeline markup
%ENDTIMELINE%

Examples

Icelandic Heritage Example

Pretty standard timeline, easy to extend.

%TIMELINE%
ImageSize = width:270 height:300
PlotArea  = left:45 right:0 bottom:20 top:20
AlignBars = early

DateFormat = yyyy
Period     = from:1944 till:2005
TimeAxis   = orientation:vertical
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:4 start:1944

Colors=
  id:1   value:rgb(1,0.4,0.2)
  id:2   value:rgb(0.8,0.6,0)
  id:3   value:rgb(1,0.8,0)
  id:4   value:rgb(1,0.6,0.2)
  id:5   value:rgb(0.6,0.2,0.2)

PlotData=
  bar:Leaders width:25 mark:(line,black) align:left fontsize:S shift:(25,-5) anchor:middle

  from:start till:1952 color:1  text:"1944-1952_[[Sveinn Bj�rnsson|Sveinn Bj�rnsson]]"
  from:1952  till:1968 color:2  text:"1952-1968_[[�sgeir �sgeirsson|�sgeir �sgeirsson]]"
  from:1968  till:1980 color:3  text:"1968-1980_[[Kristj�n Eldj�rn|Kristj�n Eldj�rn]]"
  from:1980  till:1996 color:4  text:"1980-1996_[[Vigd�s Finnbogad�ttir|Vigd�s Finnbogad�ttir]]"
  from:1996  till:end  color:5  text:"1996-_[[�lafur Ragnar Gr�msson|�lafur Ragnar Gr�msson]]"
%ENDTIMELINE%

Windows Versions Example

An example of multiple parallel timelines. View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

Binary Logic Example

This plugin might be of help in descriping binary logic execution patterns, as for instance a figure like the one below is not too hard to produce. View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

UNIX Versions Example

Information dense graphic, heavy use of mouseover areas. View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

Kurdistan Workers Party Example

Very condensed timeline. Not taking up much space, but very informative in it's layered telling. View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

New Kingdom Example

Typical chronological "Microsoft Project" look. View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

Btw: There's no hinderance to having the bars overlap if wanted. (I guess that's not how the Kingdom preferred it to be, though) View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

Freeciv Timeline Example

Very spartanic look, only a few colours used. View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

Vocal and Instrumental Pitch Ranges

An example on displaying something that is not chronological at all. View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

Timeline of Conquests of the Ottoman Empire Example

A somewhat dense and graphic timeline; could probably be lightened with good effect :-). View Raw Text of this topic to see source.

Coming from TWiki?

If you are coming from the TWiki version of this plugin you will need to be aware that the syntax of this plugin has changed. The TWiki version used the following syntax:

<easytimeline>
...
<easytimeline>

However, this syntax can cause problems when using a WYSIWYG editor and is different than the standard %MACRO% syntax. Therefore the syntax has been changed in this version to:

%TIMELINE%
...
%ENDTIMELINE%

There is a script included that converts topics using the old syntax to the new. Always test on a copy of your data first!

Installation Instructions

You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server.

Open configure, and open the "Extensions" section. Use "Find More Extensions" to get a list of available extensions. Select "Install".

If you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in configure, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See http://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.

Once you have installed the plugin you should visit configure and check that the paths for Ploticus and the EasyTimeline.pl script are correct.

Plugin Info

Related Topics: Plugins, DeveloperDocumentationCategory, AdminDocumentationCategory, DefaultPreferences, SitePreferences