Timeline TWiki Plugin

Timeline

Syntax Rules

The %TIMELINE% variable handles the following parameters:

• DEFAULT - the url of the datasource
• urltype - XML or JSON (defaults to JSON)
• interval - (DAY, MONTH, YEAR, DECADE)
• date - the initial date that the timeline will be centered on
• height - height in pixels that the timeline area will use
• width - width in pixels that the timeline area will use
• orientation - horizontal or vertical (horizontal by default)

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a plugin setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, i.e. %TIMELINEPLUGIN_SHORTDESCRIPTION%

• One line description, is shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Show a scrolling Timeline from a TWiki SEARCH

• Debug plugin: (See output in data/debug.txt)
  • Set DEBUG = 0

Example (shows when Plugin is installed and running successfully)

Note that the JSON based output is much more reliable cross browsers, so only use xml is you really need to.

Static file

The first example shows a timeline based on a pre-existing JSON file (https://twiki.org/p/pub/TWiki06x01/TimelinePlugin/cubism.js)

%TIMELINE{ urltype="JSON" "https://twiki.org/p/pub/TWiki06x01/TimelinePlugin/cubism.js" interval="DECADE" height="200px" width="700px" date="1890" }%

To use data from a twiki topic, you need to set the SKIN=text and add ?contenttype=text/xml (to trick IE's XHTTPRequest into working) to the url

"http://10.10.10.20/trunk/bin/view/TWiki/TimeLineSearchJSON?contenttype=text/xml"
urltype="JSON"

TWiki SEARCH based timeline

This example uses the TimeLineSearchJSON topic to show the last 10 modified topics in all webs.

%TIMELINE{ urltype="JSON" "https://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki06x01/TimeLineSearchJSON?contenttype=text/xml" interval="YEAR" height="450px" width="700px" date="23 May 2026" }%

The example is made up of the the %TIMELINE% variable that is converted into the client side javascript, and a TWiki %SEARCH% statement that formats the results into the XML data format that the javascript requires.

%TIMELINE{
urltype="JSON"
"%SCRIPTURL{view}%/%SYSTEMWEB%/TimeLineSearchJSON?contenttype=text/xml"
interval="YEAR"
height="450px"
width="700px"
date="%DISPLAYTIME{"$day $month $year"}%"
}%

where TimeLineSearch contains

<data>
<!--
   * Set <nop>SKIN = xml

the format of and event:  
   start="May 28 2006 09:00:00 GMT"
   end="Jun 15 2006 09:00:00 GMT"
   isDuration="true" 
   title="Writing Timeline documentation" 
   image="http://simile.mit.edu/images/csail-logo.gif" 
-->
%SEARCH{
".*" web="all" regex="on" nototal="on" noheader="on" nosearch="on" order="modified" reverse="on" limit="10"
format="<event start='$date' title='$topic' link='%SCRIPTURL{"view"}%/$web/$topic' >$summary(noheader)</event>"}%
</data>

Plugin 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 where TWiki is running.

Like many other TWiki extensions, this module is shipped with a fully automatic installer script written using the BuildContrib.

• If you have TWiki 4.2 or later, you can install from the configure interface (Go to Plugins->Find More Extensions)
  • See the installation supplement on TWiki.org for more information.
• If you have any problems, then you can still install manually from the command-line:
  1. Download one of the .zip or .tgz archives
  2. Unpack the archive in the root directory of your TWiki installation.
  3. Run the installer script ( perl <module>_installer )
  4. Run configure and enable the module, if it is a plugin.
  5. Repeat for any missing dependencies.
• If you are still having problems, then instead of running the installer script:
  1. Make sure that the file permissions allow the webserver user to access all files.
  2. Check in any installed files that have existing ,v files in your existing install (take care not to lock the files when you check in)
  3. Manually edit LocalSite.cfg to set any configuration variables.

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.SvenDowideit - http://WikiRing.com
Copyright:	TWiki Plugin © 2006-2008, TWiki:Main/SvenDowideit; © 2006-2010 TWiki:TWiki/TWikiContributor
	The SIMILE Timeline software is sponsored by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is maintained by the SIMILE project, in particular: David Francois Huynh, dfhuynh at csail.mit.edu
Plugin License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
SIMILE Timeline License:	BSD license
Plugin Version:	18537 (2010-04-26) - 2010-04-26 23:15:22
Change History:
2010-04-26:	TWikibug:Item6433 - doc improvements
19 March 2008:	updated to Revision 9234: http://simile.mit.edu/repository/timeline/trunk/src/webapp/api and http://simile.mit.edu/repository/ajax/trunk/src/webapp/api/ , updated Plugin to add features.
22 July 2006:	Initial version
TWiki Dependency:	$TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
CPAN Dependencies:	none
Other Dependencies:	none
Perl Version:	5.005
Bug reports:	http://develop.twiki.org/~twiki4/cgi-bin/view/Bugs
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/TimelinePlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/TimelinePluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/TimelinePluginAppraisal

Related Topics: TimeLineSearch, TimeLineSearchJSON, TWikiPlugins, DeveloperDocumentationCategory, AdminDocumentationCategory, TWikiPreferences