Join the discussions in the Google Group “wp-simile-timeline”
There’s something cool I stumpled upon yesterday: Timeline, a nice JavaScript based website widget that displays an interactive timeline of events which you can drag around. Just try the example on the Timeline website. Drag the timeline to the left to scroll back in time and the other way around — it works almost like in Google Maps.
Here’s a static screenshot:
However, my plan for months now was to setup a chronological timeline which lists recent changes I did on my blog (a changelog about features added, new themes etc..). This would have been a definition list I could have hacked into a static WordPress page — too boring. So the SIMILE Timeline came up just right.
Before I could implement the timeline with workarounds or code in pages, I thought a WordPress plugin would be the sexiest solution, so more people who would like to use the timeline in their WordPress blog could easily do so.
Therefore, I produly present to you: A new born WordPress plugin — SIMILE Timeline.
Download
Download SIMILE Timeline Plugin for WordPress 2.8
Requires at least WordPress 2.3
This is currently an advanced beta version! It works, but there’s room for improvement.
Feel free to make suggestions for new features the plugin should have.
How to Install
- Unpack and upload the wp-simile-timeline folder to wp-content/plugins.
- Activate the plugin in the admin panel.
- Initialize the plugin by visiting the options page (Options > SIMILE Timeline)
- Select a category to generate the timeline from.
- Enter the page oder post ID(s) where you wish to include a timeline. This will load the JavaScript only on pages where a timeline is found (Still suboptimal – working on a better solution).
How to use
- Add the shortcode
[similetimeline]to your post or page where the timeline should appear. - Choose a category under Options > Timeline which will be output by the timeline.
- Write posts in that category.
The timeline now appears on the page where you’ve included and displays all posts that are in the category you’ve defined.
Have fun with it! I’m sure that you’ll find a useful application for it. To see the timeline in action, visit the Simile project page or browse to my newly setup timeline archive (still WIP).
Changelog
The changelog can now be viewed on the WP SIMILE Timeline plugin’s homepage.
Feature Wishlist
Implemented features are crossed out
- Add more than two bands to a timeline
Define start date for eventsDefine start date for the timeline to focus on loadCreate and edit Hot ZonesUse RSS Feeds as inputAdd custom click handler for timeline entries
Resources I’ve used
- SIMILE Timeline Basic Tutorial – How to create Timelines
- SIMILE Timeline Documentation (The API has lots of cool things!)
- The WordPress Codex
Further Reading
- Geek to Live: Roll your own timeline
- I first came around Timeline by this article at Lifehacker.com, where Gina Trapani presents how to basically build your own timeline on a more static way. She also provides a really cool XML-O-Matic which generates the event markup for you. Nice!
- Timeline Archive View For WordPress
- An explanation on how to include the Simile Timeline with your WordPress archive as blog header. Very cool!
- Timeline WordPress Plugin
- I was inspired by the code of this plugin to realise the administration panels. Ironically this is also a timeline plugin, but creates a data table instead of an interactive draggable timeline.
- Category Visibility-RH Rev
- This is another plugin that enables WordPress to exclude categories from the frontpage and feeds. I do not want posts from the timeline appear there, so I also used this one.
Posted in Developing, Wordpress, Tags:interface, mit, plugin, simile, Timeline, widget, Wordpress
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357 Responses to “WordPress Plugin: SIMILE Timeline”
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I follow the “How to Install” , I install but it doesn’t work.
my timeline http://edblog.net/wp/timeline/
This is a very good tool :)
I would suggest to allow adding comments to the plugin features.
(I am staying tuned to this comment feed)
Tal.
Ed: I added the JavaScript
addEventfunction that was needed to init the script – accidently forgot to include it in the timline.js.php. If you just replace that file everything should run fine.Tal g: Of course – feel free to comment on suggestions to improve the plugin!
Sounds very useful, a definite try.
It’s working now :)
thanks so much. useful
Can it get old posts ? It seems like only new post after using this plugin.
Hope it can get old post
I thought this would fit nicely on my archives page, and since I normally use a ertain tag (interesting) in all my posts. But when I brought up the archives page (with it added) it only listed 2 posts, and not even the latest posts. It also seemed to show them in the wrong month.
http://www.litwc.com/archives/
To see what I mean. Did I hit a limit in number of entries? Currently there are 753 entries in that catagory.
I allways get the error message: “Caught Exception: Type Error: v1 has set no properties.” Or something like this. It is telling me all the time. I am changing categories linked to it in options panel but nothing happens. Would be glad if you could help out.
This error message occurs when the XML file is not readable for the script. Check out the following file:
wp-content/plugins/simile-timeline/timeline.xml.php.If that document isn’t well formed, Firefox will show the errors. Usually it’s because of some unescaped or special characters inside the posts. By viewing that file directly you can also check wheter all posts of the desired category are included.
Hi.
It´s not working at all!
Timeline: http://blogg.attefall.se/cv/cv-timeline
From: http://blogg.attefall.se/timeline
Whats wrong?
All installation is correct…
Best regards
/magnus, stockholm, sweden
Well I changed the file’s properties, chmoded it. But when I want to change it by hand, what should I change? There is the variable and inside it there stood “categoryname=”. I tried to change that to the name of the category I want to use. Must I input the id of the category either?
Thanks in advance
Magnus, I can see in your timeline at least the post from Feb/March 2005 is visible. And when you look at your XML file it seems that the second event(post) has no date specified, only the time. This might be the reason for just one post showing up. Please check that second post and try to save it again, which will hopefully bring back the date.
But as it looks the plugin is doing allright. I also just uploaded a new version.
Well I’ve checked and I don’t see anything in the XML file one way or another. I truthfully don’t know what I’m looking for. I just know that currenly it’s showing only one post, and it’s date is December this year (ahead in time).
Is there a way we can get an error checking, ie. list all the posts in a catagory (that it sees) so that if it’s only showing 1, we know something is wrong. I double checked, all the posts have the correct day and time.
WordPress doesn’t output the date for more than one entry if posts were published on the same day. Because I did not pay attention to that at first I had to use
get_the_timeinstead ofthe_dateandthe_time.Just update to the new timeline.xml.php included in the current download.
The dates for every post should show up then. This is the reason some posts don’t appear – I hope.
Thanks, it sort of works now (too bad it can’t pick up older posts). Any way I can change how it shows the dates… I seem to post too much, and currently it reads like I posted a bunch in December.
Is it possible that the category name has to be written one word? No spaces inbetween?
Nope, since the plugin reads the “nice-category-name” (which also appears in the URL). So it should be free of whitespaces anyway. No idea, yet.
Well I don’t have that much knowledge of php and so on. But I changed my webhosting provider lately. But I played around with Joomla (CMS) and read some advice that problems can occur if php is executed as a cgi. This produces problems with the file rights. Might that be a problem here as well?
I would love to be able to change the horizontal scale. Also, not having to limit to a single category would be nice.
This is really cool! Looking forward to the updates…
AHA! It doesn´t work in Explorer! (=not useful)… Is a fix nearby? :-)
Hehe. I’m afraid that’s a question you should ask the guys at Simile project, because their demo-timeline makes the IE on my PC scream: Timeline.Graphics is Null or no object.
Seems that Internet Explorer isn’t supported by the API, yet.
Hmm, everything was working, then it just stopped? Removed the entire plug-in, re-installed but still no-go.
The page I pointed to for your plug-in was:
http://www.totalbalance.info/simile-timeline/
What I did find interesting is after re-install, the option setting did not go back to their default but retained old settings.
I”m using one of my test wordpress sites so take a look and let me know what you think might be up. Note, there’s another implementation of timeline that I was previously working on and is working so I don’t believe it’s SIMILE issue.
When everything was working, both your’s and the other implementation work just fine together.
http://www.totalbalance.info
Thx. in advance.
Cool plugin, looking forwared to the fix in IE, does it work in IE7 ?
Hmm, my SIMILE stuff works in IE7 and FF. Wish this plugin worked so we could see how to incorporate all the great features!!!
http://www.totalbalane.info
hmmm I have been playing, and still haven’t successfully had it break down to days. Also the posts aren’t being linked.
I’m curious, looking at the xml file, can it parse a sitemap.xml file or use an rss feed? Something to get more information?
It’s not working for me. Put the code in a page called “Tijdbalk”, in options the catagory “events” and a posting with the same catagory. Nothing….
Any help?? thx
Ron: The trigger for the timeline actually is an HTML comment:
<!--similetimeline-->. Note that there are two dashes before and after the keyword. You accidently typed it with just one, hence the comment is visible on your page. Just change it – That’ll do.Version 0.2a is now online with some major improvements.
To update, replace all files and re-activate the plugin at the plugins page.
Tim,
Nice update. It also fixed whatever problem Iwas having with previous version and now everything works fine.
hmmm weird the XML file actually shows all the items now, but they aren’t showing on the graph. I see the work on changing scale on your todo list so I won’t meantion that. :)
http://www.litwc.com/archives/
Edit nm… a reactivate and a couple refreshes and it started working for me.
Idea good… but I think it definately needs a another layer at day… (and perhaps an ability to reduce the size of the font for the articles)
thanks a lot for your awasome plugin!
possible to have a day/month view??? it could be for me wonderful…
francois from france!
Tim,
Seem to have the same problem as before. If I make any modifications to the timeline.xml.php file, it breaks the plug-in. Even if I remove everything and do a clean install, it still does not work. Any ideas?
The link used for your plug in is:
http://www.totalbalance.info/simile-timeline/
Thx. in advance.
Tim,
It’s a mystery to me. But now it appears to be working. Must be gremlins.
Take care, BTW, I’ve made sme minor mods to mee some of my needs. Take a look if you like.
Lars
Sorry Tim, it’s not working for me…
Hi,
Thanks for your work developing this plugin. I went about hard-coding the xml and got half-way through before I found your plugin — it will hopefully be a lifesaver!
However, I can’t get it to run on the page I want to (I did have it running on a test page).
I’ve written this in the template:
If you can't see red pins on the map, your web-browser isn't working properly.We recommend using Firefox.
<!--similetimeline-->
I can’t see why it won’t work. Perhaps you could tell me the php call to bring up the timeline?
The page is here: http://www.mars-hill.co.nz/blog/navigate, if anyone want to offer some suggestions I’d really appreciate it!
Tim,
It would be great if we could apply a category to a speific page (i.e. Productivity tags show up on the Productivity page, Project tags show up of Projects page, Family tags show up on Family page, etc.)
Any ideas of how to mod your excellent plug-in to accomplish this?
Lars
Any way to style this differently. I can’t seem to find any css document for the timeline. I can edit it in ff but then can’t save it anywhere.
Well, SIMILE provides an API for themes that is not really documented yet. Might be possible to override the color values for the CSS class names defined in that JavaScript file. I will study that in detail and probably implement an interface on the options page to change the appearance.
Lars: What would make sense is to filter only one category when the timeline is integrated into a category page. You describe a functionality that would require to allow multiple instances of the timeline. I’ll think about that.
Because the API is so powerful, there is lots of potential for more applications. E.g. the attributes latestStart and earliestEnd in the XML file could be used for project management; the timeline can have more than two bands, it can be orientated vertically; different icons and colors for categories etc…
But the next milestone for the plugin will be the HotZone-thing first. Which means that e.g. 30 posts per week will be displayed in a daily/hourly interval.
This is a great plugin. one question, how does one go about adding the plugin to say the navigation in a manner similar to http://www.totalbalance.info/ I think having this plugin as a navigation would be fantastic.
What about if you don’t want to show certain posts & only SPECIFIC POSTS on Similie Timeline. How can we adjust for this?
Darrin, the most common solution would be to create a category (e.g. “Timeline”) and add your posts you wish to “timelinearize” to that category.
As entries can have more than one category, this enables you to show only a subset of blog posts you might have in Apple and Personal. Hope this helps.
So I’m curios as to whether or not there would be a way to display a certain category on it’s own time line.
eg. if i have categories A, B and C and then 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and then for cat. A, B and C have individual timelines (simliar to the live example from SIMILE’s Jewish/Christian timeline) and then any post that is categorized either soley under A or A, 1, and 2 show up on a seperate timeline then anything categorized on B, etc. etc.
If this doesn’t make sense I apologize.
+dk
Argh- I’m getting the following popup error for some annoying reason:
“Error: Failed to derive URL prefix for Timeline API code files”
Anyone else run into this? I tried the other timeline plugin menitoned above (Timeline Archive View For WordPress) and it gives me the exact same error.
My page is http://www.nelsonblog.com/timeline
Help?
Hello, I have a question regarding your last changelist:
v.0.2a * Posts can now have an end date to visualize durations. Simply set the Event End Date in the edit view.I am not sure about what event end you are talking.
Nevertheless I use the event calendar plugin from here: http://wpcal.firetree.net/ and your plugin picks up the event end date beautiful, I would just like the plugin to also pick up the end date and make it visual so visitors can see the duration of an event….
check it out here: http://sibiu.zice.ro/timeline
my basic problem is that posts are ordered by their post date and not by the start date specified with the event calendar plugin…
could you help with that, please?
I’ve added a screenshot of WordPress’ “Write” side section to illustrate where the “Event End Date” from my plugin should be defined.
Gothmog, did you make sure to set the value “Pages with a timeline” (Options>SIMILE Timeline) to the Page ID of your /timline page?
ok, I found it finally,
my problem is I have a page where I publish events from out town, so I publish a lot of events at the same time, but until now I used the event calendar to list the events. this plugin ads a table with start and end date and time of an event.
I might have a look at your plugin and make it use these dates isntead of the post_date which makes no sense in my case.
If I get it working that would be great indicating all of my events in a timeline…
I’ll post again if I am successfull, maybe yo ucould give me a hint where this plugin looks up the date, and where it computes its nice grafic below, I hope it is possible to make it use 2 values from another table.
Well, the end date simply is an additional column in the database table
wp_posts, calledstl_timeline_event_end. This data is fetched from the database in the file timeline.xml.php (starting at Line 37 with a check whether the end date is set at all).If you would like to use existing data from other tables I recommend to query that specific table with
$wpdb->get_var().ok thx,
but do you think I could also use data from another table instead of the date the post was posted? I mean it makes more sense to use the data the event will start instead of the date I posted…
btw. what plugins do you use to enhance your comments? the live preview and the changeable size are great. Also the fact that after commenting I am sent back right to my comment…
very nice site by the way
Yes, Tim- the ID for the page I’ve put the timeline on is 359 and that’s what I put in the ‘Pages with a timeline’ box under options.
Is that the error that appears when the wrong ID in put in there? I’m pretty sure I got it right. I’ve tried installing it on another WP installation and the error still occurs.
Gah. :P
PS: Oh and I second ovizii- you’re site looks great and the the comment interface is especially slick. :D
Hi there,
I now have another problem on the page I implemented this plugin: http://sibiu.zice.ro/timeline/
if viewing with IE7 I get this error:
Line 115, "Event" is undefined.I guess its related to this plugin as all other pages display just fine…Plus it does not load the timeline….
aby ideas?
ovizii:
- When posting, just use the post data as starting date (you can modify the date by checking “Edit Timestamp” in the writing panel). My plugin adds the complementary end date to the posts-column. This is editable in the same way.
- I don’t know yet about the JavaScript error, which occurs when prototype.js’ Event handler is called. Thanks for the hint.
Gothmog: Seems your timeline is running fine now. I can’t reconstruct any errors.
Thanks for feedback on the comment mechanism. Parts of it come with the K2 theme. Read more about my theme on the About page, whereas the comment textfield resizing function is still “custom code” — no plugin.
thx for the help, still I do need to have an event start and end date, different from the post date because, I try to build a site where you can read about upcoming events in our town, meaning that when I get to know about new events I’ll post them all together, so I would have a lot of events starting at the same time, if I modify the postdate, my readers won’t know about the events, because the posts will only be published on the date I enter, right? I need the posts to appear when I write them on my homepage so I started using the event calendar plugin which tags each event with a start date and an end data. now I just need to modify your plugin to work with these fields.
please check whats happening with the IE 7 and the js.
Huh- so you can see my timeline running at http://www.nelsonblog.com/timeline? it’s still giving me the error?!?
Yep, it’s working just fine in Firefox 2, OS X. But I’m curious on which browser you are.
Have you tried to view the page with different browsers?
Because the error output is generated by the Simile script, I can’t exactly tell what’s going wrong now… But “Failed to derive URL prefix for Timeline API code files” pretty much sounds like a logic error in the Timeline class.
I’m using Firefox 1.5 and IE 6.0 on WinXP… I know, I know- I’m behind the times… I’ll try upgrading to FF 2.0 and see what that does.
Hello,
I have some difficulties implementing the changes I need, could you have a look at this code and help me fix it?
' . "\n\r";
//remove_filter('the_excerpt','wpautop');
// Number of Maximum posts the timeline will process
define('STL_MAXPOSTS', 900);
global $tabel_prefix, $post;
/* Get posts from the timeline categories */
$q = "cat=" . get_option('stl_timelinecategories') . "&showposts=" . STL_MAXPOSTS;
query_posts($q);
?>
0) $sep = " "; else $sep = "-";
$gmt_offset = get_option('gmt_offset');
/* Begin the LOOP */
while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
ID, 'timeline_end_date', true);*/ ?>
get_var('SELECT start FROM {$table_prefix}.ec3_schedule
WHERE post_id=$post->ID'); echo mysql2date('M d Y H:i:s', $time) . " GMT" .
date('O'); ?>"
end="get_var('SELECT end FROM {$table_prefix}.ec3_schedule WHERE
post_id=$post->ID'); echo mysql2date('M d Y H:i:s', $time) . " GMT" . date('O');
?>"
isDuration="true"
title=""
link="">
the table is called ec3_schedule and the fields are start and end… still I get errors: http://sibiu.zice.ro/timeline/
Please, have a look…
I don’t know if WordPress just stripped out something from the code in your comment, but the “\n\r” is obviously missing something. Also, if you call the timeline.xml.php file directly it prints a PHP error:
Make sure that Lines 1 to 11 of that file are the same as in the original release!
Furthermore you’ve got a typo in your global variable declaration: You declared
global $tabel_prefixand used$table_prefix.Hope that’ll help…
thx,
we corrected soem mistakes, it looks good now :-)
http://sibiu.zice.ro
I still have to correct some of the start and end dates, but now it does what I want it to do – a million thx for your great plugin
one small issue needs to be solved, though: if you click on an event, the small popup shows you the date and the GMT date,… strange…
hello there,
I am back to spam your comment section ;-) just joking.
I have some questions regarding this implementation:
http://sibiu.zice.ro/timeline/
- one small issue needs to be solved, though: if you click on an event, the small popup shows you the date and the GMT date,… strange…
- it does not work in IE, neither version 6 neither 7
- it seems not to show “future” events… I have posted 2 posts which will take place on new years eve and neither of them shows up in the timeline, but you can see them both in the event calendar: http://sibiu.zice.ro/calendarul-evenimentelor/
would you please have a look and give me some hints?
p.s. we changed the plugin code a bit so it now does not take a posts date as start date but a date stored in a separate table…
hi, i have installed the timeline plugin but don’t work
can you help me?
http://www.pensierisuperflui.com
thanks
Very nice plug-in. I ran into a bit of an odd debugging problem that I ultimately solved. I was testing this on a local configuration of PHP which had short_tags disabled. That causes the option set up code to fail with only a message in the Apache error logs for an undefined function.
Worked fine once I enable short tags
Thanks for the hint, Jim. I’ll see if I can catch that exception somewhere.
And about future posting: Of course it would make sense if future events are also displayed in the timeline. But this still seems to be a bit tricky to do because future posts have the post status of
publishedbut a date marked in the future is not included in the loop.But one should expect better handling of that in WordPress 2.1. In the announcement it states that future posts then gain the
post_statusof ‘future’ which eliminates the use of NOW() in all queries in the core.Hey Tim, great plugin.
One quick question. All my posts have start and end dates, so they all get displayed as duration events. If I want to have different colors represent the different categories along the timeline is that possible? I know they do it on the SIMILE site. And I don’t mind facing the API and making changes but my javascript is a little rusty. Thanks.
Derek: The option to colorize durations by category will be included in the next version that I’m planning to release after Christmas.
However, if you set an additional property in the timeline.xml.php e.g. like
<event colors="#FF0000"></event>durations will be displayed in the color of your choice (not category-specific).Tim: most excellent. I think that’s the one feature I was hoping for the most. Do have a tentative ETA for the next versions release and/or any other features you plan on adding that you wouldn’t mind sharing with us? :)
Aaah ok, you got me!
There will be more options in the admin panel e.g. to set background colors of the Timeline and take control over the interval-resolution of the timeline.
And eventually prepare for some surprises. But those will have to work flawlessly until the next release date. I can’t promise that.
Tentative release for the update will around the 28th of December, I think. But before that we all will hopefully enjoy some comfy and joyful Christmas days — Merry Christmas to all of you!
Thanks Tim. Sounds promising. Can’t wait. Mm… interval resolution… it’s like a Christmas present over the internet. Woohoo. And to you as well have a merry Christmas. Cheers.
Hope all you guys have survived Christmas…
Version 0.3a of the Timeline plugin is available for download now, including interesting new features. View the changelog to find out about all of them.
To upgrade, deactivate the plugin and delete all plugin files. Then upload the folder simile-timeline in wp-content/plugins and re-activate the plugin. All previously set options will still be there.
Hi,
great plugin. I’ve downloaded the latest version today, but I don’t see any results. The timeline.xml.php doesn’t seem to work correcty. When I call the page, I get this result:
Warning
: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in
−
/var/www/buki/bukis.org/wp-content/plugins/simile-timeline/timeline.xml.php
on line
40
At the moment I’m looking within the source code, but up to now I don’t know what’s going wrong. Maybe any hints?
Tim: This update has a lot of great additions. Just one question. I’m using the timeline in the header, by including the Javascript files and I’m calling the timeline.xml.php as my data source. This seems to no longer work, the error i’m getting says “Caught exception: TypeError: v1 has no properties.” I’ve also set it up to include one more band that shows decades which no longer tracks the other to bands, but the other two bands still track the third band i’ve added. I’m wondering if there is another way to get your plugin to show in the header and still have all the features. Again, thanks.
Andreas, the XML file is called by the JavaScript with parameters only (e.g.
timeline.xml.php?cat=1). Calling it directly does give an error, yes. But this doesn’t affect the function of the Timeline.I checked your post but everything seems ok so far (except nothing shows up in the Timeline). Even the XML-Request is executed correctly and there are posts returned. But I have currenty no clue why they’re not visible. All test scenarios I covered have worked perfectly.
Derek — the secret to synchronizing timeline bands is the attribute
syncWith. Check out the sourcecode of the Dinosaurs example. At line 70 you’ll see how it’done. PuttingbandInfos[2].syncWith = 0;in your JavaScript code should make it sync.Hi,
you’re right. With the parameter timeline.xml.php works perfectly. Strange that the results don’t show up.
My site is here: http://buki.brotkasting.de/index.php?tag=zeitleiste Maybe you can find an error.
Greetings,
Andreas
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the info. The three bands were synced with each other, and they no longer sync. I’m wondering if it’s because the plugin is only looking to style upper and lower bands? Perhaps you code take a look at the site http://test.ideacompany.ca/ and see if you can see something that may be going wrong. thanks again.
Hi,
in IE nothing shows up at all? Very strange. It gives an error indacting “‘Event’ is not defined”, but the line it indicates within the source code is empty? I’m still invastigating, but any hints are apprecicated :))
Regards,
Andreas
Hi,
I really don’t want to bother you, but firebug showed me some errors:
In bundle.js line 108 and in timeline.js.php line 90.
Maybe this helps.
Regards,
Andreas
Tim,
same problem her, the new version shows no/not all entrys. Seems to be a problem if a post is in more than one categorie…
Try here: http://tischbahn.de/index.php/timeline/
Add: Option “Show labels” will not be saved when i click “Update Options”…
fr
I verify that IE gives the ‘Event’ issue mentioned above- also the labels won’t turn on?
Labels will show if you change your timeline.xml.php with the following code where the colors are set:
get_var(“SELECT category_id FROM $wpdb->post2cat WHERE post_id = ‘$post->ID’”);
$color = $wpdb->get_var(“SELECT stl_category_color FROM $wpdb->categories WHERE cat_ID = ‘$catid’”);
echo “color=\”".$color.”\” textColor=\”".$color.”\” “;
?>
It seems that textColor attribute is very important for showing the text.
Cheers,
igoychev
Wow, the above script appeared broken. Here it is again:
Line: 56
php_start_tag_here
$catid = $wpdb->get_var(“SELECT category_id FROM $wpdb->post2cat WHERE post_id = ‘$post->ID’”);
$color = $wpdb->get_var(“SELECT stl_category_color FROM $wpdb->categories WHERE cat_ID = ‘$catid’”);
echo “color=\”".$color.”\” textColor=\”".$color.”\” “;
?>
Actually, the “Show Labels” option broke because of a typo in the
nameattribute of the checkbox. So the$_POSTarray for that option contained null. Nevertheless, this is fixed in the current version I uploaded yesterday.The problem of not-showing-up-posts might be based in the option for the blogging behaviour. The default setting is “Frequent Writer” where no HotZones are declared for the Timeline. Please try to keep that setting for now because apparently the HotZones I defined for the plugin are still buggy.
I’m working on it.
igoychev: Thanks for your effort, I’ll digg into that later. And Yay! Your code was escaped by the new WordPress 2.0.6 comment filter.
Hi Tim,
Firebug showed me an issue on line 252 of bundle.js. I’m not sure if it’s erroring because my posts fall into multiple categories or if it’s because i’m giving them back in the day timestamps. Thanks for the help. Here it is:
v1 has no properties
parseFromObject(null, Mon Apr 30 1928 00:04:48 GMT-0400 (EDT))bundle.js (line 252)
_Iterator(Object _id=e961439 _instant=true _node=br)bundle.js (line 51)
removeAll(function())bundle.js (line 44)
_Iterator(Object _a=[1], Mon Apr 30 1928 00:04:48 GMT-0400 (EDT), Tue Sep 22 1931 00:04:48 GMT-0400 (EDT), Object)bundle.js (line 51)
getFirst(Mon Apr 30 1928 00:04:48 GMT-0400 (EDT), Tue Sep 22 1931 00:04:48 GMT-0400 (EDT))bundle.js (line 46)
clear(Mon Apr 30 1928 00:04:48 GMT-0400 (EDT), Tue Sep 22 1931 00:04:48 GMT-0400 (EDT))bundle.js (line 237)
DurationEventPainter()bundle.js (line 218)
_paintEvents()bundle.js (line 32)
getLocale()bundle.js (line 22)
getLocale()bundle.js (line 22)
_onChanging()bundle.js (line 32)
_autoScroll(-88)bundle.js (line 29)
getLocale(Thu Jan 09 1930 22:00:00 GMT-0500 (EST))bundle.js (line 22)
_onChanging()bundle.js (line 31)
_onChanging()bundle.js (line 31)
_autoScroll(-15)bundle.js (line 30)
getLocale(Thu Jan 09 1930 22:00:00 GMT-0500 (EST))bundle.js (line 22)
_onChanging()bundle.js (line 31)
_onChanging()bundle.js (line 31)
_autoScroll(-3)bundle.js (line 30)
_onMouseDown(div.timeline-band, mousemove clientX=0, clientY=0, div.timeline-band-layer-inner)bundle.js (line 24)
registerEventWithObject(div.timeline-band, mousemove clientX=0, clientY=0, div.timeline-band-layer-inner)bundle.js (line 83)
registerEventWithObject(mousemove clientX=0, clientY=0)bundle.js (line 84)
[Break on this error] return(format==”iso8601″||format==”iso 8601″)?Timeline.DateTime.parseIso8601Date…
Hmmm I had the timeline running, but for some reason it stopped even showing up. I double checked that the comment was there to call it, but still no joy.
http://www.litwc.com/archives/
I had it about the cleaned up archives.
Checking the XML file it’s coming up blank (previously it had noted all the posts).
FYI – This is after upgrading. I’m not seeing anything, so any guidance is appriated.
Yikes, I can’t even activate the plugin. I’m using WP 2.1 and the plugin is version 0.31a. I get these errors upon trying to activate:
Warning: call_user_func_array() [function.call-user-func-array]: First argumented is expected to be a valid callback, ‘stl_upgrade’ was given in /home/mysitespath/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 123
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/mysitespath/wp-includes/plugin.php:123) in /home/mysitespath/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 275
Well, I ignored the errors above as I saw that the plugin was int he active state, but I’m just getting a blank window on the page I call the timeline to. Is that the border, and the TIMELINE© SIMILE link on the lower left, but the rest is just empty. It never loads the flash.
Now the timeline shows up (don’t you love it when people solve their own problems)? But I’m wondering if there’s a way to have the timeline start in a certain year? All of the events I’m creating for my site happen in the early 90s, so starting in 2007 mean that you start with an empty view and have to scroll back 15 years.
Thanks for a wonderful plugin!
Thanks for the cool plugin.
> Line 115, “Event” is undefined.
JFYI: I’ve had this error too on my IE6 with prototype.js.php, version 1.5.0_rc0 bundled with theme, then replaced with version 1.5.0 extracted from another theme solved the error and loaded timeline correctly for me.
Joe, how do you solve that blank problem?
I meet the same problem.
for me, it seems the plugin is installed and working but there are only hash marks showing up instead of points on the timeline that can be clicked. does anyone know why this might be happening?
http://www.artifacting.com/blog/archives/time-line/
my time line loads and show up but there are no clickable points in it, just hash marks that contain no data. does you know how to solve this problem?
http://www.artifacting.com/blog/archives/time-line/
The necessary plugin (:
Thank u so much!
I’ve installed the timeling plugin, and it comes up, but there is a problem. THe posts that are suppose to appear on the timeline, dont appear properly. the timeline catagory is “history”. see for yourself: http://www.montclairmsa.com/timeline/
what do you suggest to fix this problem?
Nice plugin, but I’m having a problem with the info bubbles: The text of the post and picture do not show up at all, just the full title of the post and the timestamp. Am I missing something?
http://press.kscdirect.com/?page_id=27
THANKS!
hello,
I want a very simple implementation of this plugin but somehow it does not work for me. I want one category to contain posts that show up on the timeline. the timeline implementation is here: http://www.pensiunea-nora.ro/contact/ I also posted 2 posts this month (july) but nothing shows up in the timeline.
any idea?
is this project still alive?
Yes, it is.
The API docs in the SIMILE wiki might also be a bit more developed by now, so the chances for the implementation of new functions in this plugin are good.
Is there an easy way to add the timeline directly into a template instead of directly into page content?
I successfully added the timeline to a page of my blog and it is a sweet little plugin. I’d like to be able to make the timeline available on the index page where the new content shows up as a way to navigate the archives. How possible is this?
christen, you can use
<?php stl_simile_timeline(); ?>to include the timeline manually outside the loop. Don’t forget to set the page id in the admin options for the plugin to ’0′ to active the Simile JavaScript to be included on all pages.Thanks for the quick response, Tim. Unfortunately, the timeline doesn’t quite display entirely using the code you suggest above. I have it near the top of my index page template, but a box with a border is the only thing that renders.
I’ve tried the same thing with another site I have and get the same result
Alight, I have been able to output the timeline outside the loop with the code suggested above in comment #100 from Tim, but I had to edit line 52 of timeline.php from:
function stl_simile_timeline($cats=’1′, $id=’stl-othertimeline’){ to
function stl_simile_timeline($cats=’1′, $id=’stl-timeline’){
I’m also getting a TypeError when I try and display certain categories, but I’m sifting through my post table to see if it is something messing with the XML output (still).
Has anyone tried this plugin with WordPress 2.3 yet?
Any ideas how to get this to read data from an external RSS feed? I am interested in syndicating my Facebook Status Updates onto a timeline… should be interesting, if some what trivial. Any suggestions appreciated.
the 0.31a version seemed to have conflict with new wordpress 2..3.1.
the reponse page kept showing caught exception!
will you check it out for that issue
thanks very much
Hi all… Just installed…I’m getting the following error.
WordPress database error: [Table 'dbname.wp_categories' doesn't exist]
SELECT cat_ID FROM wp_categories
Can anyone help?
@shawn / there is neither a cat_id nor categories table in the database structure of the 2.3 branch of wordpress. i am working on patching it to work using the table “terms”, but i have a feeling it will take me about a week to hack it back to working order.
as soon as i have any results i’ll post them here…
A new version is ready to download. The Simile Timeline plugin is finally WP 2.3 compatible.
As correctly stated by danielcaleb the main issues had been the deprecated post2cat and category tables from WP 2.1 that were replaced with terms and taxonomies.
I installed the plugin and I think I’ve followed your advice properly, but when I display my timeline it shows the “|” mark where the posts are but it shows them on the bottom and main ‘lines’. In other words there is no ‘zoomed’ view where the post titles are shown etc. See http://tjwoodlock.com/blog/timeline/ to view the effect.
Thanks
GIbt es evtl. auch noch eine Version die WP 2.2.1 kompatibel ist?
Mit dieser hier gibts ja leider nen Fehler bzgl. der WP DB Abfrage Syntax.
“WordPress Datenbank-Fehler: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'INNER JOIN ON(.term_id = .term_id) WHERE .taxonomy = 'category'' at line 1]
SELECT * FROM INNER JOIN ON(.term_id = .term_id) WHERE .taxonomy = ‘category’ “
Hey Tim! thanks for the update – I’d kind of written it off. Although I don’t have time to try it out right now, I will soon. In the meantime you can have a look at http://vis.ionary.org/?action=history to see my first crack at the simile timeline + exhibit.
cheers from weimar germany
daniel
Hi,
This looks like being a great plugin, but after installing it I’m having a small difficulty. Under the “Options” tab in WordPress I have a “SIMILE Timeline” tab, but when I click it I get a blank page. If I do “View Source” there’s nothing there.
I’m pretty sure I followed the installation instructions correctly — I’m no expert but I’ve installed a few WP plugins before. It looks to me as if options-timeline.php is invalid, or failed to execute for some reason — when I view source I see literally nothing under the line of tabs. The PHP file is executable by the server and I haven’t modified any of the files. I’m running WP 2.2.3.
Am I missing something obvious here? I’m hoping to use this as a jumping-off point for building a major feature for our site so any help would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Rich
Anyone get this working on WordPress 2.3.3 – the admin page works, but when the timeline is put into a post firebug gives the error:
tl has no properties
… /wp-content/plugins/simile-timeline/timeline.js.php
Line 90
Works fine for me in WP 2.3. I’d like to add it to the dashboard of the admin though, so my writers have a quick glance of where things are at. Anyone know how to do that?
I’ve installed the timeline but it shows up blank. Any ideas on what could be wrong?
http://yruustar.org/rye/?page_id=13
I also had a blank timeline initially and took a while to understand I needed to clear my cache.
The problem now is that the links in my timeline pop-ups only work for posts, and not pages. Any ideas on how to change this?
It would be great to offer something like to be able to display a specific timeline instead of using the generic one everytime.
That way you can place multiple timelines throughout your site
Excerpts still don’t show in WP 2.3 – any update coming for that
Hi there, LOVE your work. Well done. I have implemented it here: http://thorpes.org/blog/?page_id=1305 … My suggestion would be .. can I change the size of the labels, and can we have previews in the bubbles which pop out of the timeline, or just the text from the post? I am going to use this for my family history in future, I think.
I’m having problems with either php or wordpress, i can’t tell which…. i’m getting an error…
Fatal error: Call to undefined function stl_output_options_for_band() in C:\wamp\www\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\simile-timeline\options\options-timeline.php on line 177
looks like it can’t find the function that’s listed below in the rest of the script.
can someone verify what may be happening here? give me someting to check on, perhaps i have some option turned off in my php.ini settings file.
the timeline draws on the page i’ve got it set to work on, it’s just the options page in wordpress admin that won’t work and is where this error is coming from.
thanks
alex
The plugin is pulling WordPress Pages into the Timeline. I thought it’s only supposed to pull Posts, and only those of the selected categories. Is this a bug? It would be great to have this fixed, or to have the option of including/excluding Pages. Thanks!
Hey, there, something seems a bit amiss with the category choice. I have three categories, but only two are showing up in the plugin settings screen — the one that’s missing happens to be the one I need for the timeline! Any thoughts?
I think I’ve solved one of my issues. I’d had a situation with another WP site where Pages were somehow being selected along with Posts in a situation where only Posts should have been selected. It turned out that WordPress seemed to be assigning the Default Posts Category to not just Posts but Pages as well, even though there is no official assignment of Categories to Pages and even though there seemed no way to change the information after the fact. When I unselected that particular Caetgory for the timeline, the Pages disappeared — so this seems to support my guess that this is what was going on, that the Default Category gets assigned to Pages and then those Pages get pulled when the timeline has that particular Category enabled. Thought I’d share this here for posterity.
Me again :) Came up with a new question. For posts for which I’ve added an Event End Date, I’d like to be able to display that date in the post itself to turn the post date into a date range. I know how to do an “if” statement in PHP, but I’ve perused all the timeline plugin code, and I can’t figure out how to refer to that Event End Date field. Ideally, I’d love to be able to add something like:
if Event End Date has been entered then “to [Event End Date]”
Could you advise? If I could figure this out and the issue I’m having with that missing category, I think I’d be in absolutely brilliant shape with this plugin! Thanks so much for your help.
Mark,
there is in fact a function to get exactly that date.
It’s defined in simile-timeline/options/timeline-db.php, Line 141
To use it, call <?php echo stl_get_end_time(); ?>
in your WordPress loop, whereas the function can get a date format as parameter – sth. like stl_get_end_time(‘Y-m-d’). If the parameter is left empty it uses the time format set in the WordPress options.
1) I am able to show the Event End Date using that function you mentioned, thanks. Having two bits of trouble, though.
First is that I’m unable to get proper syntax on an if-then-else to get ” to ” to display between start and end dates only in cases where an end date is present, e.g., 10/10/2001 to 12/12/2001. I’ve checked and rechecked my PHP and I don’t see anything wrong. Is it improper to use your stl_get_end_time() function inside an is_null or is_empty after an “if” statement? Is there some other way I should check the end date to see if it has a value?
Second is that, when I just do a straight display of the end date field without any if/then syntax, an end date appears for every single post, even the majority of posts for which I didn’t edit/enter an end date at all! Does this mean that, for posts with no duration, one has to actively enter an end date that matches the start/post date?
2) I did some troubleshooting on the missing Category:
No matter how many times I add new Categories, the Timeline plugin does not see them. The only Categories it ever sees are the two that had already existed at the time I installed the plugin.
I was able to reassign my Posts to one of those two original Categories, and I was able to select that Category in the plugin Settings screen and have all the material show up on the Timeline.
However, this results in the issue I noted above, where some Pages are accidentally finding their way into the Timeline. Because at various times each of those two original Categories was set as the Default Posts Category, there are some Pages “in” each of those two original Categories (meaning, Pages aren’t suppose to be put into Categories, this seems a WordPress bug).
It seems to me that one way to solve this would be to delete all the Pages “in” the Category that I want to use for the Timeline, then make sure to set the Default Posts Category to the other Category I’m leaving out of the Timeline, and then I’d recreate all those Pages. This way, they’d be set to be “in” the non-Timeline Category.
However, I like to keep my database as clean as possible and I already regret the multiple extra Categories additions/deletions I’ve done as troubleshooting. I’d hate to delete and then re-add Pages unless it was absolutely necessary.
If there was a way to eliminate the “Categorizing” of the Pages, that would be the best solution, but this seems an issue with core WordPress code, beyond anything you could do.
If it was possible to make the plugin restrict itself to only Posts instead of Posts and Pages, that seems the next best solution.
A third best solution would be to get the plugin to be able to see new Categories as they are added, in which case I could create a new Category, move all my Timeline Posts into it, enable that Category in the Timeline, and then I’d only have to delete the one original Category as cleanup.
Only if none of these other solutions were possible would I want to take the option of deleting and recreating all the Pages.
Thoughts?
Hey, I need help! The timeline admin section does not list all of my categories.
I also really want to use this for posts that have not yet arrived so I can use it to show upcoming events!
I try to add a post, to a category, with an end date. It goes up at the published time.. but just a dot, with no end time.
It shows all of the revisions too! I see multiple entries, same name.. :(
I suggest putting future posts on the timeline
I suggest another adjustment for scale of timeline. I want 2 days but showing time to the minute, that way I can see just the two days really big.
My summit has about thirty events, I want to show details for each one, but it is not working for my install.. WP 2.6.1
please, please, please, bitte
thanks for plugin
Hi, is this plugin still in development?
I’d be interested in using it, but there is nothing about WP 2.6 compatibility. etc.
Hi,
vielen Dank für das tolle Plugin!!!! Ich plane gerade meinen Blog und es funktioniert toll für Events in der Vergangenheit.
Ich möchte Events in der Zukunft eintragen, aber sie werden nicht angezeigt. Ich verwende WordPress 2.6.2 und weiß, dass das Plugin dafür nicht optimiert ist. Habt ihr vielleicht trotzedem einen hint für mich, wie ich das lösen könnte?
Vielen Dank für eine Antwort
Anne
Hi I’d really like to use this plugin for my blog. I am able to show a blank timeline on any page but when I go to the admin menu to add timeline categories, that section is blank.
I looked in my database and it looks like the stl entries are not being created. stl_timeline_event_end is created under the wp_posts table but I don’t see any other stl_* tables.
Do you know why this would be happening or what could be causing this issue?
Thanks in advance,
Alan
hi. Thanks for plugin
perfect.
Regards
Thank you for this plugin. I appreciate all the work you are doing on this.
I was just wondering what has changed in the version 0.35a.
I was also hoping to put in a feature request. I was wondering if it would be possible to define a different event link as opposed to using the post link. Maybe using the custom fields to define a new link to use instead of the default one.
Hi all,
just wanted to mention that there is a new version online in the plugin directory: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/.
This new version allows a more precise configuration for the timeline. You can define the resolution (year, month, week, day) and the interval width for each band.
Alan: The changelog can now be found under the “Other notes” tab on the plugin’s homepage in the directory at wordpress.org. It’s all sourced out now ;)
Your request for defining a custom link for the title in the bubble makes sense. I’ll try to build that into the next revision.
As you’re speaking of links I’d like to mention that I’m working on including the WordPress link categories. Entries can then be retrieved via RSS, so you can build your own lifestream.
The same at my wordpress 2.6.2 installation like Rich’s prob:
Under the “Options” tab in WordPress I have a “SIMILE Timeline” tab, but when I click it I get a blank page. If I do “View Source” the Source ends with an opening DIV-Tag.
Hi Tim,
Thank you for listening to your users needs and actually implementing some feature requests. Not to mention all the nice progress that you’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks.
So I installed the latest version .38a to use the timeline_link feature and it doesn’t appear to work. I wanted to see if I was using it incorrectly so I started look at the source and grepped for “timeline_link” but nothing came up except for the readme.txt file.
Was the a wrong source file accidentally included in the latest plugin version?
Alan, you’re absolutely right – I must have forgotten to take that function from my local test version, sorry for that. I fixed the file timeline.xml.php in the latest repository version – you can simply replace that file as this is still v 0.38a.
The link for the title inside the bubble should then be taken from the custom field.
I love this plugin! But, its got some serious problems that I wanted to point out in hopes you can fix some of them.
Most importantly, it fails for categories that are also tags; the term stuff seems to confuse it greatly (I think it fails to find results, but I’m not sure, don’t have time to test now).
I’m also seeing the “fails to add new categories” bug others are seeing.
But, with some careful phpMySQLAdmin work and some recategorizing, I got it doing what I wanted.
So thanks very much for a cool plugin! – Bob
Hi,
This seems to be a great plugin and exactly what I need for my blog. Unfortunately I can’t install it correctly. When activating the plugin the first time, I get this error message:
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare stl_timeline_init_plugin() (previously declared in /customers/mydomain.com/mydomain.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/timeline.php:47) in /customers/mydomain.com/mydomain.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/timeline.php on line 50
When inactivating and activating the plugin again it seems to work but the timeline is empty and the page shows a javaScript error that function doesn’t exist. line 120.
If I disable the plugin and delete all entries in the database and activate the plugin again, the same error is shown again.
The wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/timeline.xml.php page returns correct xml with the posts that should be there, so I think I have all other settings correctly set.
wp 2.6.2
SIMILE timeline 0.39a
Thanks for any help!
As mentioned in my comment above it seemed as I failed installing the timeline. However, it works perfectly well in Firefox, Safari and Chrome. In IE7 I get a javaScript error: ‘Event’ is undefined, line 112
Any suggestions?
Jaho, the new version 0.4.0 fixes the installation error you’re mentioning. The IE7 JavaScript error occurs because it’s the only browser that doesn’t like my conditional check for an installed prototype library. I’ll try to find a workaround for that.
I installed 0.4.0 and yes, the installation now seems to work.
One question. According to the “screenshot-1.png” image, there should bee a “Blogging behavior” setting, but after my installation, that option doesn’t appear. Is this an old feature that was removed?
Hope you can fix the IE7 problem. Thanks!
Good observation, Jaho. Yes, the “Blogging behavior” option was replaced by the additional fields for interval width and Resolution in a recent version.
In the old version the options only held 3 presets to control the resolution of the timeline. The options provided now allow you to control the size of the timeline intervals with much more flexibility.
Somehow I couldn’t get this to work! I added the [similetimeline] into a page; in timeline admin screen I selected one or two categories and went on to preview the “drafted” page.
I use WP 2.7-beta? Any issues with this?
Also is it possible for us to get anything into timeline that hasn’t been blogged? Like important notes?
But still a very nice plugin…
Hi, Quick question – Can the timeline accept feeds from Youtube, flickr or let’s say last.fm? – thanks for your help in advance, regards Leigh
@Rajesh: The plugin hasn’t been tested with WP 2.7-beta yet. I will start testing it soon, but it would be more efficient to finally adapt the plugin to the WP 2.7 API changes when there’s a release candidate for 2.7.
Regarding your “notes” question I assume you want to display content inside the timeline that’s not inside your blog archives? My suggestion is to use a “hidden” category for such purpose. There are plugins that can exclude certain categories from your normal blog archive, then you could exclusively use this category for the timeline.
@Leigh: Yes, the latest version also supports parsing links with RSS URLs from the link categories into the timeline. I’d recommend to add a link category e.g. “timeline” and add a new link with the specific feed URL. The plugin uses WordPress’ built in RSS-parser to output the feed inside the timeline data file.
Remember that you have to define the RSS address under the “Advanced” section in the “Add Link”-panel, not the Web address as feed URL.
Tim, Thanks for such a quick response – excellent I will give that a try – also – can the link category be headed with an image rather than the coloured bullet?
Again, thanks for your help on this, Leigh
Yes, this is possible. For example you can set the image address for a link entry to the site’s favicon URL which is then displayed in the timeline. However, a per-entry image like it’s possible with the custom field option for blog posts is not implemented yet. It’s on top of the plugins’ ToDo-list now ;)
Tim, That’s exactly what is needed. Thanks for all your help on this and keep up the excellent work… I will post a link to the completed site once live. Kind regards, Leigh
Hi Tim, very nice work. I installed the plugin and it worked fine, but now the timeline doesn’t load anymore. The background is shown, but it hangs while loading. Any suggestion?
hi i am using the timeline plugin, but after installing the plugin i am not getting the timeline in my post. It just shows a rectangle box. thats about it. i am not gettin the timeline. Can anyone please help me. Urgent
Hi,
When I try to setup the timeline options, I get this error message:
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare stl_update_options() (previously declared in /mnt/156/sdb/f/a/cletondal/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/options/options-timeline.php:30) in /mnt/156/sdb/f/a/cletondal/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/options/options-timeline.php on line 29
I get this when I try to go to the “admin page” suggested from the plugin list page (options-general.php?page=wp-simile-timeline/options/options-timeline.php).
Thanks in advance,
Catherine
any update on getting this to show up in ie7?
It looks like the plugin installed properly but the timeline doesn’t show a label for the post I have created. I have the labels set to show and the post has the appropriate category selected. I also customized the band colors but the changes don’t show. My page for the timeline is: http://press.hamera.com/projects/category/geo-project/roadmap/.
any update use this
Fantastic Job!!!
here in Italy, we are working on a timeline solution to grant schools to document their projects with the Simile timeline.
Now we have developed a beta release of a web app that permit schools to insert events whith a wysiwyg editor and a script process data and make the source xmal file for the timeline.
Now we can use wordpress with all his functions.
I only wan to know if we an implement a multisite wordpress installation and deliver this plugin in all the sub blogs. If this is possible we can make a portal for “doctime” (documentation over time) for all the italian schools (obviously free access, free use).
Thank for the support and for the great job
hi tim, GREAT WORK!!!
i install plugin and post 2 or 3 things just to try this…
i will design blog-timeline after configure all, but now
I dont know why this is not working at safari browser…
can you help me with this?
http://ustedes.net/timeline/es/
best!
me again… as i can see, it is working quite good only at firefox in my macintosh. sometimes the timeline did not respect colors of categories…
best!
Is any development going on here? Right now the plugin seems to be broken in all browsers. It used to work in all browsers except IE.
Will the timeline work in WordPress 2.7?
hi tim, i wonder to know if you will continue working in this plugin…
i ll appreciate your answer
Yes, the plugin is still under development and it works fine with a plain installation of WordPress 2.7. I’ve noticed the errors you’ve all mentioned and I’m already working on an updated version.
thanks a lot tim!
im using WP 2.7 and works fine…
by the way i could not create custom field with timeline_icon for some events… can you help me with that?
thanks again
hi tim
custom fields:
- timeline_icon
- timeline_image
doesnt work
-timeline_link works fine.
in first two cases the timeline opens without anything inside and a browser pop up says: “Caught exception: TypeError: v1 is null”
thanks for your work tim!!!
y Sincerely
felipe
thanks tim for 0.4.1
now timeline_icon works fine!!!
best,
felipe
hola tim…
if i make a custom field with timeline_icon with 0.4.1 pluggin a “>” appear in the bubble before the text and the line: “*timeline_icon=[icon url]” appear in the post after the text.
best,
felipe
(sorry for my english)
Hi, great plugin!
2 feature requests:
1) I would really like to use it to create a historical timeline of events and people. To do this, I’d like to be able to put some kind of html comment at the top of my post that gives either a single date, or start and end dates.
2) I’d also like to be able to create a number of different timelines, that use different categories to update themselves.
Any of this possible?
Yes, the first feature is already implemented: The plugin provides an option for defining an end date (at the bottom of the write panel), whereas the standard published date will be used as start date. The entry in the timeline will then be visualized as a bar.
The second feature you’ve mentioned is still work in progress. I’m planning to provide the template function
stl_simile_timeline($cats, $id);for these purposes. More on this when it’s ready.Hi Tim,
Yes, thanks for pointing me to that. Though if you could extend that feature to allow me to set a start date, rather than the date of the post, that would allow me to do what I want to.
To be more specific: I’m putting together a timeline of events and people from the Reformation, which started in the 16th century. I’m not even sure if it’s possible to back-date my posts to the 1500s! But even if I could, I wouldn’t want my actual posts to be given a different “published” date to when they were actually published.
Hello,
I would like to ask for the same feature. Would it be difficult to implement? I’m working on a similar ‘historical’ blog, where the posts I’m writing are not in the chronological order of the events. It would be very useful to show an alternate view of the posts in the order of the events on the timeline. Thanks in advance :)
Same here
I’ve noticed you implemented the very much welcome “start date” feature.
But somehow it does not show in the db. Read: no equivalent to “stl_timeline_event_end” like say: “stl_timeline_event_start”. Any Idea?
Then I guess you replaced the plugin files manually? Because the function that updates the database is only called on plugin-activation (which is triggered automatically after updating by WP 2.7). If you deactivate and activate the plugin the plugin should properly upgrade its database table.
I think I’ll also put this in the FAQ while working on a better solution. Thanks for pointing out this issue, DeeMo.
Bingo!..most likely. Yes I updated manually (working on a local WP). But cannot verify to the fullest, as I went and created the missing column on the db myself. And now it’s working! Thanks for the update!
On another note: I’m trying to create a WP based historical project, working on events circa 1989 to 1992. Right now the timeline places itself on TODAY after loading (very logical for normal blog usage). BUT..my focus is more 1989-1992. So the user sees no events, unless he scrolls all the way back. Despite my knowledge of js being close to zero, I’ve seen in the docs that its indeed possible to give a “focus” to the SIMILE TIMELINE.
I wonder if such a feature it could be implemented.
Also, it could be interesting to use the Timeline as navigation (I’ll do my best to look into this option)
In this case, on page load the timeline should always center itself on the start date of the current post viewed. I know you can command the timeline position too with js links…like in the religion example.
Keep up the great work and thanks again.
Hi, Am having the same problem as Catherine, ie “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare stl_update_options() …” Any clues on how to fix this? Thanks.
i find that the simile timeline javascript and css is loading in the header of my document even though it is not the “archives” page
anyone know a way to ensure that the script/css only loads when the [similetimeline] is included in the page?
thanks
and i forgot to mention i am using /%postname%/ as the permalink structure instead of the “?p=123″ style, and i think this has something to do with it
The reason that no timeline is displayed (in IE) is due to the fact that the
plugin is using incorrect data format in timeline.xml.php
line 74/78/134: get_the_time(‘m d Y H:i:s’) . ” GMT” . date(‘O’) ….
Should be: get_the_time(‘r’);
More info:
http://code.google.com/p/simile-widgets/wiki/Timeline_EventSources ,
section ‘Programming tips for proper date time formats’
Awesome, simply awesome.
Thank you, Tim, for enabling me to set a start date – you’ve turned Word Press into a historians dream.
Though… now I’m trying to get the timeline to display! I’m using Firefox 3… but it’s just the box, right shape and size, put just a plane old box. I see there’s a suggestion for why the problem might happen in IE – but has anybody had this bug with Firefox?
(Oh, and I’m using Linux.)
I should probably give you a link to my timeline. Here is it in it’s context… for me using Firefox 3, it’s just a blank rectangle – does it work for you?
http://www.metepyers.com/reformation/
Ok, I’ve been doing some debugging.
For some reason the link to the timeline.js.php is coming up as 404 – everything is where it should and in good order, the timeline stuff in in my header file – any idea why this is happening?
It seems that more than just this file return a 404 error. Whereas the CSS file seems available and loads fine.
Did you install the plugin manually or within the WordPress plugin manager? I’d recommend to replace the whole plugin folder by hand.
I did so with the WP plugin manager.
Wierdly the .txt file loads too – I simply have no idea why all the .php returns 404… but still words from the admin page.
How do I replace it all by hand? Download the plugin and then upload with ftp?
Ok, all .php files in subdirectories return 404, but php are fine in the root directory. I’m thinking it must be a WP thing, because I can’t find anything that would be causing this in the .htaccess
Any suggestions?
hola tim !!!
——————
now timeline seems to works fine in Firefox, Safari, Opera, SeaMonkey, Flock, Shiira and Camino (all macosX) Thanks!!!
——————
Now i wonder to know if…
1… it is possible to edit info inside bubbles? for example:
1.1 bubble ignores return as line break…
1.2 it is possible to show only an exerpt of post? -not all the content of post-
i found something about customizing bubbles but i could not understand how to… http://simile.mit.edu/mail/ReadMsg?listId=10&msgId=10303
2… it is possible to change the colour of the background of certain periods of time (like ‘screenshot-2.png’ inside pluggin folder) ???
3. and if it is possible to show some events -but not all- if we click on a legend/reference link outside timeline… did you understand??
thanks!!!
hi tim…
i forgot another thing
4. i wonder to know if it is possible to make a third time line to show there only post for an especific category?
GRACIAS!!!
1. For now the only way to do this is by changing line 120 of timeline.xml.php to
$the_content = $post->post_excerpt;. There’s also some filtering done after that, so you could also adapt those functions to your needs.2. Those are called Decorators and they are not yet implemented in the plugin.
3. Yes, there is a kind of external filtering and highlighting API. I’d have to read through the code first.
4. I assume you mean mutiple bands inside one timeline? This is possible from SIMILE side but not yet implemented in the plugin.
As I wrote in the article, the API from SIMILE has lots of great functions but the documentation has inconsistencies. I’m also curious about pushing the plugin further but please understand that I can’t build in all advanced functions within the next versions.
thanks tim.
i will try the first thing you suggest me and i will wait for your GREAT work for other stuff :-)
by the way the timeline im working on is my portfolio:
http://ustesdes.net/timeline.es
there you can see WP and Firefox logo in top right, and i can add freshlabs one if you want. (16x16px as favicon…)
best wishes,
felipe
5. i forgot to remember you, that if you add an icon in a one day event by timeline_icon custom field
“>” appears before the content in the bubble.
best
felipe
hi tim
did you see the “>” problem inside bubbles when you change the timeline_icon?
and sometimes the timeline did not recognice colors of categories and uses a custom one (light blue)…
—
i really apreciate your work
thanks a lot
felipe
Tim,
Got my problem sorted – it was a server error, nothing to do with Timeline.
One more feature request, if I may – for us historical bloggers. The ability to set the date and year the Timeline sits on when it first opens.
Thanks so much, this is most definitely my favourite WordPress plugin.
Pete
And, to add to the feature requests (if you’d like me to go through the comments and draw up a list of unimplemented feature requests, I’d be happy to do that):
I’d like to have more than one timeline on the blog, each using different categories, each automatically set to display a different year.
Over the weekend, do you mind if I poke around in your code and see if I can implement some solutions for some of the stuff I’d like? Would you take patches? If so, what kind of format?
A possible easy solution:
Would it be possible to expose some of the basic functionality of your plugin with php functions that would enable me to build my own timelines by using php to produce the javascript?
Basically, php functions to return the event data from the plugin, and functions to return the options from the plugin too.
I don’t imagine that should be too hard? That way, the full features of simile are exposed, so I can customise my timeline however I want – but your plugin is my interface between my timeline and the blog containing the event data.
Does this make sense? Would it be too much work?
An idea to center the timeline for historical bloggers.
The param is “date” right?
So if I hardcode in your timeline.js.php something like:
echo ‘ date: “Nov 10 1988 00:00:00 GMT”,’ . “\n”;
the timeline centers itself around that date. Good, but not dynamic.
Now I’m thinking about an option wich could be easy enough to understand in the control panel, and in my opinion would do the job for most of us.
The option would read “Alway center the timeline with the start date of currently viewed post”. This way the timeline would always make sense with the post and could actually be used as navigation.
The code to be produced:
echo ‘ date: “code-that-echoes-the-start-date-of-the-current-post”,’ . “\n”;
plus the option selection in the plugin settingsl.
What you guys think?
Really big bug,
Hi Tim, dates before 1970 don’t work. I think this is because you’re storing the start and end dates as MySQL dates, and I think (but haven’t been able to verify this), you’re using php dates.
For us historical bloggers, the dates would need to be stored as a set of integers in the database, and never go near a built in date function or data format (all of which count from the 1970 epoch).
I think I can write some functions for you that can be used as a basic api to allow people to write their own code for the simile timeline, but use your plugin to handle the data. But I can’t test any of them, because none of my posts are working, as they’re all suffering from this bug (all of them being dates from the 1500s)
Thanks for pointing this out as it would render the plugins’ functionality useless for your purposes. I already found the solution as I will implement the ADOdb Date and Time Library. This supports dates outside the unix epoch.
Thanks for your offer to contribute, though. If you got something going and your code is well documented, I’d be looking forward to having a look at it. But please don’t post code that exceeds 2 lines here in the comment section! I’d suggest using pastebin to post diffs or additional functions for now.
Tim,
Thanks, that’s great news! I don’t yet have the functions ironed out – because I’ve been unable to test them without publishing things on my blog specifically for testing.
But the code would be pretty simple. The crucial function would be one that returns an array of all the events that need to go on the timeline. With that alone, I could hard code my own timeline, and then just use that function to populate it. With that alone, the plugin becomes infinitely more useful, in my opinion.
Thanks again Tim – this is a great plugin.
You know, “all the events that go on the timeline” are “posts from specific WordPress categories”.
I am not really sure what your proposed function should return in comparison to great query functions from the WP core such as
query_postsandWP_Query. My plugin only uses these, too.From my perspective, all the posts will have extra dates annexed to them – building a historical timeline, I’m not using the post published dates.
Your plugin manages these dates (i.e. allows you to set the dates for posts by putting the gui stuff there, manages how they’re stored on the mysql database, etc.).
So, a function to return the dates stored for the posts (in the way I had described), makes it then far easier to build more timelines on my site, without replicating the stuff you’ve already done.
has anybody had trouble getting the posts to turn up in safari?
the xml file containing the posts is in tact, and the info in the source code is the same between firefox and safari, however the posts only show in firefox.
i have cleared the cache and gone through the suggested steps…
i am using the new 2.7 version released on 2009-1-7
any suggestions out there?
Hi Tim
I can see the option for defining an end date when I create a post, but I cant find it when I want to create a page (Im using WordPress 2.7)
can you help me with this?
The additional date option is only available for “post”-posts. Since pages are not subject to the typical chronological WordPress archive and cannot be categorized, this function is not implemented.
Tim,
Ok, some of the functions I’d been working on are here:
http://pastebin.com/m481b74b7
The functions are more generic than the ones currently in your plugin. This would allow me/others to build a very customised timeline, but use your plugin to handle the data (i.e. create the necessary xml, and manage the start and end dates we’re now able to set for posts).
All I’d need from your end is some kind of option to turn off the default settings in your plugin. This would allow me to still use your shortcut to output the code for the timeline, but it would only automatically output a minimal amount of JS (like the “addEvent” function for e.g.), so that I can customise the JS for whatever I’m doing. Customising the JS won’t take too much effort since the functions I’ve written are basically php macros for the Timeline JS.
What do you think? This would make the plugin far more customisable for those who’d want to use it like that, but, still very simple for those who just want a simple timeline of posts.
Very cool! I like it. With these functions the JavaScript part gets more object-orientated and better to maintain. I’ll test the implementation by tomorrow and will definitely extend the plugin by your proposed functions, if you agree.
Thanks for your contribution and for using proper function names and code formatting! :)
That’s fine, please stick it all in.
I’ll paste bin some more functions over the weekend. Sorry that I didn’t keep the code style as consistent with yours as it could be.
It is consistent. That’s why I mentioned it ;). Really, I appreciate it.
:) lol, thanks.
I once tried to submit patches to the Wine project. I got some spaces in the wrong place (minor spacing issues, we’re not talking about tab indenting instead of 4 spaces or anything like that)… only certain types of functions could have spaces inside brackets, others couldn’t.
One of my patches was rejected for that reason(!) I learnt a lesson there about trying to be consistent with coding styles. To be fair, the Wine project is so complex, consistency can be a major readability issue.
Tim,
I’ve written a new function to create a timeline theme. I’ve also made some changes to the header of the createBandInfo function (but this currently won’t work, I’ve left a comment explaining).
http://pastebin.com/m10c45d5b
I think all of the functions now use your plugin’s settings as their default behaviour. I also think I’ve written the minimum necessary to build your own timelines using your plugin… by basically passing categories to the api.
Two things still need to be done:
a) You need to implement an option in your plugin to only output the minimum JS necessary, so that it’s possible to build your own timeline using these functions.
b) I’m now considering changing the parameters to the functions so that they can be passed as parameter lists – at the moment you have to pass parameters in a particular order. This would make it even more flexible.
Great, thanks! Just what I thought of. That completely outsources the JavaScript generation to PHP.
One small error, though:
mytheme.event.markerhas to bemytheme.event.interval.marker. But I’ve already taken care of this.a) Yes, I’m on it. I will commit it to the repository as soon as I tested everything. You could then grab the Developer Version first.
b) I’ve also taken care of this using
extract()andwp_parse_args().Updates will follow next week.
Awesome, thanks Tim,
I tell you what then, I’ll wait for the update, and take a look at your edited version of the code before I do anything else.
@ Tim and Pete: I’ve been following the thread and checking Pete code. I’m no programmer, but I can read it to some extent ;) Last pastebin looks very powerful, but it’s implementation is beyond my knowledge so I’m waiting to see it happen. Meanwhile I’ve been doing some intuitive attempt at that “date” parameter, to echo the stl_timeline_event_start of the currently viewed post. No success, but you can check the attempt here:http://pastebin.com/m6431879e
Again, its probably trivial, but very useful to use the timeline as navigation.
A simple selection in the settings: “Center the timeline on the current post start date.” Of course, if no start date is set…”publish date” would do.
Just an option for the historical timelines.
Well, thanks for that! I did implement something similar last night. You can grab the Development version – deactivate, upload, activate – and setting a focus date for the timeline should be possible on the options page.
Tim,
I keep spotting potential bug fixes & optimisations I need to do for my code.
Any big changes (like new functions, etc.) I’ll run by you here, but could you set up some kind of repo (preferably svn) so that I just patch my own stuff with little tweaks? That way I wouldn’t need to bother you with every stupid little change.
Pete
hi Tim, I tested the dev and tried the new options: “in the middle” would do for an easy focus solution. Here’s my stl-mytimeline reads:
- Current date: works. Date parameter is set to the current date + time.
- Start date of first post: Not working. Date is set to the publishing date.
- End date of last post: Not working. Date is set to the publishing date.
- In the middle: Interesting…date is set inbetween the start date of first post, and the publishing date of the last (my guess here)
Testing conditions: wpdb has three “unique events” with start dates and no end date. All set around 1988. I erased all revisions for testing purposes.
Hope this helps.
A idea I had: I can have the timeline follow navigation using a js function like centerTimeline(date) in my template etc etc et.
Also ( I almost forgot)…seems like on a fresh install of wp, the timeline includes the last six posts from wp developers blog, placing them around 1971!! Today I found out that by erasing the blogroll, those unwanted posts disappear from timeline. Check it yourself.
DeeMo,
Quick gremlin buster – when you’re entering the start and end dates for the posts… are you remembering to click the “edit timestamp” checkbox for both the start and end dates?
It’s quite easy to forget to do so… meaning that the date you’ve entered doesn’t get recorded
My experience is: if don’t touch the “end” I am able to achieve a unique event. If I touch it, I am no longer able to submit the “end” as 00-00-00 00:00:00. At that point, even I submit the same time for “start” and “end”, it’s no longer considered a unique event.
Mind you: I’m keeping these values in the db “clean” and coherent by editing the cells in phpmyadmin. So the dates in db should be good to go. They should give proper results.
Ok, so you just need a button that wipes the end date from the database?
If Tim’s ok with it, I’d be very happy to code that for him, once I have svn access (which is in the pipeline).
The “end” now defaults to current date, on the options menu. I’m thinking about the most straightforward option possible. Like…to me that would be:
1) Only if I opt to change the start date, the plug *automatically* sets an end date 0000-00-00 00:00:00 for the post and writes my start_date and his default end_date to the db.
2) ONLY if I opt to change the end date too, the plug writes the new end_date in the db, instead of its default 0000-00-00 00:00:00
3) Somehow changing just the end date is not allowed if you didn’t change the start date in the first place.
This would run smooth, no extra buttons, no extra thinking.
Just my two cents.
D
Hi Tim, thanks for this plugin, so usefull!
I have a question for you: it is possible to open a post directly from “the_title_rss” timeline, instead of the bubble?
If you could help me, you’ll save my life :)
Thanks in advance.
Yes, this is possible with the CustomEventClickHandler from the SIMILE API itself. The second code snippet on the page does exactly what you want.
Edit: (Note to self) Implement this as an admin option in the plugin.
Thanks Tim for your tip, it worked like a charm…
:D
I let you know when I release this proyect, for you to see what you have helped to build…
Thanks again.
Cheers from Chile
Hi Tim,
Thank you for the plugin.
But when i want to install the latest version in wordpress 2.7.1 following error appears:
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare stl_timeline_init_plugin() (previously declared in /var/www/vhosts/ul-chaos.de/httpdocs/wp/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/timeline.php:48) in /var/www/vhosts/ul-chaos.de/httpdocs/wp/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/timeline.php on line 52
The option link is integrated but clicking on it shows empty page.
What could be wrong?
I Found it myself: The php include_path was not correct.
When will this plugin start working in IE? Cool plugin but useless if it doesn’t support IE.
In both the current release and dev version, I’m getting an error whenever I view the timeline, a message box will pop up with
Caught Exception: ReferenceError: console is not defined
is there a way I can debug the plugin to see why it’s doing this? Thanks for your help
Hm, usually an alert error is thrown when the XML content is invalid. But as the message states console is not defined there must be a JavaScript call to
console.log()somewhere that your browser doesn’t understand. Since I don’t have anything like that implemented in the plugin it has to be in the SIMILE code. I found a similar thread in the Google Group for SIMILE Widgets.What platform and browser are you using?
I primarily use WinXP SP3 and FF3.0.7
IE7 says “Done, but with Errors on the page” (Line: 31, Char: 1, Error: ‘Event’ is undefined, Code: 0). It won’t load either part of the timeline
Google Chrome says “Caught exception: TypeError: Cannot read property ‘style’ of undefined”. It will then only load the top portion of the timeline.
Opera 9.64 gives the most verbose error message with the following:
Caught exception: [Error:
name: ReferenceError
message: Statement on line 3795: Undefined variable: console
Backtrace:
Line 3795 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
console.log(evt);
Line 3832 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
createDurationDiv(evt,startPixel,endPixel,streamOffset+"em",
Line 3848 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
createEventDiv(evt,highlightMatcher(evt));
Line 860 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
this._eventPainter.paint();
Line 829 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
this._paintEvents();
Line 403 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
function(){b._onAddMany();}
... Line 4127 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
listener[handlerName].apply(listener,args);
Line 3961 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
this._fire(“onAddMany”,[]);
Line 92 of linked script http://life.norelid.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/data/timeline.js.php?v=20090117&id=stl-mytimeline
eventSource.loadXML(xml, url);
Line 134 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
f(xml,url);
Line 2250 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
fDone(xmlhttp);
Line 2333 of linked script http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/bundle.js
Timeline.XmlHttp._onReadyStateChange(xmlhttp,fError,fDone);
…
]
hope that all helps
I’m using FF3 on WinXP.
Using IE7, the timeline doesn’t load, and it gives me a different error: Line 31, Char 1, Error: ‘Event is undefined’, Code:0
Chrome gives me: Caught Exception: TypeError: Cannot read property ‘style’ of undefined
I’ve installed Simile Timeline successfully on a local test site using MAMP, but can’t get it to work when I install it on the server for the live site. I’ve tried removing it, reinstalling, clearing cache, etc.
The xml file is there (though not where you specify in your FAQ–/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/timeline.xml.php; instead it is in /wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/DATA/timeline.xml.php).
In Firefox, the Timeline rectangle appears, empty; Error Console message is “loadSimileTimeline is not defined”
In Safara the Timeline itself appears with this error message: Failed to load data xml from http://www.davidherman.net/connie/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/data/timeline.xml.php?cat=7
Page url is http://www.davidherman.net/connie/index.php/connie-converse-timeline/
I’d appreciate any suggestions!
hi, firstly, thanks for a great plugin – ground btreaking, i shall be able to do lots with it. :)
i’m running the simile timeline plugin (l;atest for wp 2.7) on a wpMu 2.7(1) system.
i got the following error when trying to save timeline plugin settings (options) from back end admin:
‘Error! Options page not found.’
– returned from http://mysite.co.uk/wp-admin/options.php
however, after refreshing blog options (doing a dummy update), though the admin problem persisted, the timeline insert did appear ok on my pages.
i suspected it was the new ‘nonce’ parm required in the admin form submit url, so i checked and tested the following change:
done: fixed: file:: :: plugins/wp_simile_timeline/options-timeline.php – about line 92
–
<form name=”stl-options” method=”post” action=” “>
–
note’ ive commented out old code rather than just replacing it, for clarity.
it now works fine, front end and back (it seems), on wmMu 2.7.
just thought this might me helpful to others with the same need.
thanks again for making this possible :)
regards
rob cain
Rob, it would help me if you could use pastebin to show that change you made for it to work on WPMU. Thanks!
..sorrry, that last code fragment, got mangled-out – it should have been
[code]
--
<form name="stl-options" method="post" action=" ">
--
[/code]
note: ive also inserted ‘-’ characters in the php tags just to try and make this appear – if not the line in question, line 92 should have
action= …wp_nonce_url(‘options.php’)…
so that passes/synchronises the none properly…i think.
… my last response still mangled i’m afraid – hope you get the jist anyway.
@rob: you can use Pastebin. That will do the trick.
one more problem just discovered –
i cant get timeine to display on IE 7 under vista – though its fine under Morzilla FF 3.1 Beta. havent cheched Safari Mac yet.
anyone out there experience the same/discover a fix?
thanks
HI Joss, Demo
1)
Thanks for the suggestion re pastebin. here is a link to the code snippet (line 92 of file plugins/wp-simile-timeline/options-timeline.php ) to get it working under wpMu 2.7.
http://pastebin.com/f7cd76c4d
the trick is to use the ‘nonced’ url for form action url, wp_nonce_url(options.php), rather than just options.php.
2)
as well as the first prob i reported/fixed above, i also experienced a separate problem getting it to work under IE 7 Vista (though it was fine under FF). timeline just came out completely blank.
i discoverd the problem around line 30 of plugins/wp-simile-timeline/inc/onload.js. it only works (for bo th browser types) )using addEvent(… ) not Event.observe(..) method. (the null value test breaks js parse).
heres my crude workaround (+ several commented out tests that didnt work)
http://pastebin.com/f55ce72b5
it now works for me ok on IE7 vista and FF3.1. (havent tested safari yet but i will)
hope this helps someone.
(if you know of a way of pasting code here, that would help, thanks)
I love this plugin…thank you for taking the time to develop it. I’m having an issue with the post titles. Some do not stay inside the event band but are displayed outside to the right of the end of the event. These posts are no different for the others. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
john
John, it might happen that CSS rules from your theme also effect the visual appearance of elements inside the timeline. I’d recommend to inspect the title element with Firebug or sth. similar to check if attributes like
line-height,paddingorfontare inherited for elements inside the timeline container. Hope that makes sense ;)Tim,
I appreciate the advice. I’m confused though since the CSS would affect all of the timeline events equally. And with this it is only affecting 2 of the 6 events and I cannot find anything different with the event posts other than the fact that they are separate posts.
I also just started to get this message on my blog.
Thank you for using SIMILE Timeline. However, your page is referencing an old version of Timeline at a location soon to be deprecated. Please upgrade to the latest version at the latest location at http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/.
Is there a newer version of the plugin? I’m using 0.4.5.
Thanks!
John
Thanks for the hint, John. 0.4.5 is the current plugin version. But the guys at SIMILE labs are indeed hosting the plugin at a different location now and changed some functions in the API; they must have changed it in the last 3 days.
I’m going to adapt the plugin asap.
Hi,
following notification appeared in my browser window (right hand top corner, like in yellow sticker) on the site where I use Simile timeline plugin.
“This web page is referencing an old version of the SIMILE Timeline API but does not make use of it. This reference is taxing our bandwidth unnecessarily. Please remove it (and this message will go away). Thank you for your cooperation.”
What does it mean?
Plugin now produces the following error:
This web page is referencing an old version of the SIMILE Timeline API but does not make use of it. This reference is taxing our bandwidth unnecessarily. Please remove it (and this message will go away). Thank you for your cooperation.
Thank you for using SIMILE Timeline. However, your page is referencing an old version of Timeline at a location soon to be deprecated. Please upgrade to the latest version at the latest location at http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/
I installed SIMILE timeline api on local offline jetty server. It works great showing all included examples.
Is it posible to use it with your ‘SIMILE Timeline Plugin’? Any tips for beginning user?
Thanx
Hey guys. I just want to inform you that an updated version of the plugin is on it’s way to the WordPress servers. So you should soon be able to perform the update which includes the updated API script and removes the warning box. The notice was inserted by the SIMILE script, not something the plugin did.
The bad news is that SIMILE changed a few things in their new version, which renders very few options of the plugin obsolete (those can be fixed).
The good news is that timeline themes can now completely be defined via CSS, which makes it even possible to switch themes or highlight things via DOM-scripting.
The color settings on the plugin’s options page are processed by a “dynamic-theme” for now, so you don’t have to manually adapt your exisiting customisations.
Have fun!
THANKS TIM
best
felipe
Tim.
Thanks for the quick correction!
However, after the update the timeline settings were reset and actual timeline is totally empty. Tried to set the settings again, but can see nothing.
Any advice on how to debug what’s the problem?
I’m running latest WP.
@Arik:
Go inside settings: Simile timeline. If you see no colors and no hexadecimal color values, and your timeline doesn’t show up, you probably have the same problem I had.
Somehow fixed it by: 1) deactivating the plugin 2) inside the db I erased “wp_stl_timeline_terms” and any stl related stuff inside “wp_options”. 3) reactivated. 4) re-applied all my settings, colors etc.
By reactivating, the plugin writes a brand new start for itself in the db. ( pardon my far from technical language)
PS: Maybe you updatel the plugin by manually draggin the folder inside the plugin directory, like I do?
@Tim: I hope what I described here might help you writing some kind of verification that prevents this problems with db. If thats the case.
Keep up the great work. Ps: did you check the compact event painter? Nice!
@DeeMo: Thanks, that did the trick!
Options name in db starts with “stl_timeline” (not “wp_stl_”). Deleted all records and plugin set up defaults, which gave me a nice base to start tweaking the options.
Hi Tim,
I intended to visit the site today, not to report the very same issue, but to thank you instead for such a rapid fix — which I was pleasantly notified via the “Plugin Central” addon.
Reading over the various response threads here, I’m truly impressed with the kind of community support and courteous mentorship that’s very rarely seen.
I’m incredibly pleased to be using your work in conjunction with my own site, and thank you for your wonderful diligence.
Warmest regards,
Faisal
Problems:
1. Doesn’t display on Internet explorer 7 (‘Event’ is undefined at onload.js)
2. Auto-install using WordPress 2.7.1 doesn’t work (manual install works)
3. Timeline Categories doesn’t display all categories, only the ones used until the current date. Very bad specially if you want to Display Future Posts. (workaround: 1. put a old post in all categories 2.select the categories in the Timeline Categories 2. remove old post from categories)
It has a few more but these are the worst.
I use it anyway but i spend more time than i should dealing with it.
More bugs:
1. Version 0.4.5.1 doesn’t work in IE
Development version doesn’t work in Firefox and Chrome :S
2. Bars aquire designated color of the category, Dots do not (always blue)
3. Fixed container height = 350px (would be nice to adjust height)
4. In config panel says height % but the values are interpreted as px.
5. When you click and drag to move the timeline, if you pass the mouse over a link and off, scrolling blocks.
Strange behaviour also happens when you drag off the timeline container.
6. When scrolling the timeline, sometimes the bars jump up and down (try putting a long bar and a few dot events at the beginning, then start moving the timeline forward till theres only the bar, see what happens)
7. Still trying to find what makes the timeline settings disappear from time to time.
Well, i needed to fix the Firefox/IE issue so i kind of “fixed” it :P (development version)
It shouldn’t stay like this but for now it works.
At onload.js:
// use cool onload observer if prototype.js is installed
//if(typeof(Event) != “undefined”){
// Event.observe(window, “load”, loadSimileTimeline);
// Event.observe(window, “resize”, resizeSimileTimeline);
//}
// otherwise fall back to non-standard addEvent
//else{
addEvent(window, “load”, loadSimileTimeline);
addEvent(window, “resize”, resizeSimileTimeline);
//}
Great that it works for you now. I indeed commited the same fix for onload.js last night. Using the prototype event handler just creates a redundancy there.
Also please note that most of the bugs you posted in the latter case are related to the SIMILE API itself. So I can’t really fix some of the glitches.
Since the new API was introduced, you can control almost every visual feature of the timeline with CSS. The timeline.css file in the plugin root folder shows a sample “theme”. The container height e.g. is defined in the
.stl-timelinerule, but you could also add a custom rule for the DOM-Id of specific timeline containers (#my-timelinefor example).hi tim,
i wonder to know what i have to do to display the timeline again…
since last update i can not see anything, and i do not understand all technical info other users post here… can you help me?
and again, thank you very much!
best,
felipe
Works great, thank you
hi tim,
i can not see timeline yet (4.5.2)
can you help me a little…
best and thanks!
felipe
ah,
and i wonder to know if i uninstall pluggin with the pluggin option i will erase all post i wrote.
thanks tim,
since 4.5 i can not see the timeline !!!
thanks!
felipe
hi tim,
ok i erase all, start again, and i could see timeline!!!
+++
BUT!
+++
1. i do not know how to define bubble size
(the first time it open quite small, so you have to scroll to see post,
but if you try a second time you can see the bubble in a adequate size for content (sorry for my english :)
2. some categories did not show the colour i set up… and they appear in orange. ???
(and i never choose orange for any category)
3. some icons and bands did not shows their titles… ???
4. there is too less space between events (vertically) if i use “lower band” with “Year” “resolution”
5. i do not know how to highlight with css and if its possible to use a link inside page and outside timeline for filtering the timeline… something like references…
you could see: http://ustedes.net/timeline/es/
6. if you want i can ask here to translate “timeline options” to spanish :-)
I think I have to learn a lot of CSS !!!
THANKS A LOT TIM
Dear tim,
is it possible o change the files, that i can use custom date fields which are in meta post fields?
Could you please point me into the right direction? i think has something to do with the timeline-xml.php?
i do not want the post date as a publishing field .
Marc
Marc, you are right: The file to edit is data/timeline.xml.php.
You might want to change line 84 from
echo 'start="' . get_the_time('r') . '"';
to
echo 'start="' . get_post_meta($post->ID, 'marcs-custom-post-key', true) . '"';
This will fetch the value for the event date from the custom field ‘marcs-custom-post-key’ and hopefully output what you want.
Thanks for the feedback, felipe.
1.)The size of the bubble should adjust its size automatically depending on the content length. There is an option in the SIMILE API to define a fixed size, but it’s not implemented in the plugin, yet.
3.) Furthermore I’m not sure why there are some events without titles in the main view on your site. The XML content seems valid. I’ll check that in detail later on.
5.) I’m also curious about implementing filtering options for the timeline entries. Expect this to be included as a new template tag within one of the next major updates.
6.) Spanish translation? Yes, but please make use of the *.mo file.
Your issues I’ve not mentioned here are now on the list of things to check&fix.
thanks tim!
3. i can not understand why… http://ustedes.net/timeline
6.ok. where i can send *.mo file?
and thanks again
hi tim…
here en_us.mo file opened in text edit and translated to spanish (uruguay)
best!
felipe
Edit by Tim: You didn’t just post the whole file content in plain text here?
spanish *.mo file is here:
http://ustedes.net/timeline/es/wp-content/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/locale/es_UY.mo
best!
felipe
Great. Thanks. That was quick!
Do you also have to source *.po file? I have to admit that I actually meant the po-format because it’s the source from which the *.mo is compiled. And you usually would use a real gettext catalog editor like poedit to create a new language file.
eeeee do you now some editor for macosx?
best
felipe
Yes, poedit.
http://www.poedit.net/download.php#osx. ;)
But beware: The interface is quite buggy and you have to tinker with the tool to know how to actually translate something.
I’d like to thank all readers and visitors for their constructive and useful feedback on the plugin’s bugs and features. But due to the growing number of comments there is an exponential growth in complexity of finding an actual answer for new users of the plugin.
Regarding this I have closed the comments for this article and would like to invite everyone to join discussions on the freshly created Google Group ‘wp-simile-timeline’.