Timeline Widget to place a timeline on any website (to better get our conservative message across)

http://wikitimelines.net ^ | 1/9/2013 | Foxpro

[FoxPro]

Website:

http://wikitimelines.net

Is in beta.

We announce it in beta here, as freepers are the smartest people in the world. And we also need better tools, than the other guys, to get our conservative message across.

Go to the website first, to get a brief sense of it, before reading the rest of this post. It will make much more sense if you do.

I believe we have come up with a useful tool to expand the use of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Simile Timeline to a much wider audience.

We now have a website widget that allows any web developer to place a timeline into any website, just by adding 2 lines of code.

We thought it would be very useful here at Freerepublic.com for very detailed posts with lots of dates. And we offer it free of charge to FR, when we get all the bugs swatted (if Jim Robinson will have us). I am Freerepublics biggest fan and have been an active member for over 10 years.

Many timeline examples are at the end of this post (most work as of this morning).

This technology is obviously very complex. The back-end database script comprises 11,324 lines of code, as of today. There are only a handful of people working on this project, mostly nites and weekends (I have been on this full-time for many months). We would like to add some more manpower to this effort (mostly javascript debugging/ideas) and add people to the team to potentially benefit if and when this tool becomes profitable, if we can achieve wide-spread adoption.

As of this writing, this widget runs on every major browser with good yet mixed results (IE is a little iffy).

A partial list of potential uses (besides a really cool add-on for Facebook) including:

1) Family histories and genealogy

2) Legal (indictments and trial exhibits)

3) Medical (patient histories and clinical trials)

4) History (teaching and study)

5) Project planning

6) Obituaries

7) Event planning

8) Blogs and cool sites like Freerepublic.com

9) A zillion other applications we haven't thought of.

The architecture is basically a database system that pumps out javascript from a server into a client browser. The list of technologies involved include the following:

1) HTML

2) JavaScript

3) jQuery

4) Foxpro (because of it's incredible, almost unbelievable speed)

5) Paragraph disambiguation (or boiler-plating, depending on who you talk to)

6) Sentence disambiguation

7) Cloud based computing (Amazon Web Services or AWS)

8) Very complex date parsing and conversion

9) Cryptographic hash utilization

10) Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

11) AJAX

What we are looking for:

1) Help testing

2) We need javascript help, in real time to form a more effective team

3) Ideas and suggestions

4) Moral support, lol

5) Website design

6) Graphics help

7) We dont need any help with the back-end database, as we have that under control.

For example, today I am confronted with the following 4 unresolved issues, as an example of the propeller headed stuff you have to deal with at the end stage of complex website development (the non-technical should skip the next four bullet points):

1) The widget works fine when the initial javascript is called via an IP address (184.72.244.64) but fails when called by domain name (http://wikitimelines.net/). This is not acceptable because it makes the application server specific (cant swap out servers for scaling).

2) We have incorporated a picture band which we know how to uniformly size pictures in. The problem is we have no idea how to obtain the picture file dates (date of the file on a remote server), to intelligently place the picture on the timeline, in the right place. We can get the height and width of the picture via javascript, but not its date. I believe this can be done via PHP, but we are apprehensive about adding another layer of technology.

3) We would like to make it so you can pass an external URL to the timeline widget, so, you could, for example, place a timeline of a Wikipedia article on any website, as in:

<script src="http://184.72.244.64/load1.js?url1=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln" type="text/javascript"></script>

We just cant figure out why we cant make this work.

4) The javascript engine takes 2 passes at the server to create a timeline. We need to re-factor this to make 1 pass, which will greatly increase the widgets speed. We need help to engineer this.

You are encouraged to post this message anywhere where there may be interest. And we hope you do.

Thank you for your time and we hope you have found this to be interesting.

Here is our test sites:

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis4.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis5.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis6.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis7.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis8.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis9.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis10.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis11.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis12.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis13.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis14.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis15.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis16.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis17.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis18.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis19.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis20.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis21.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis22.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis23.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis24.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis25.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis26.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis27.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis28.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis29.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis30.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis31.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis32.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis33.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis34.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis35.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis36.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis37.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis38.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/instawares/atestscriptdeletethis39.htm

[FoxPro]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[deoetdoctrinae]

This is harder than it looks.

Click the Pic

Support Free Republic

[Fast Moving Angel]

If it’s anything like Facebook’s timeline, which was touted as such an improvement ... no thanks. I hated scrolling back and forth — found it very user un-friendly. Eventually located a program that made my screen appear the “old” way. Just my 2¢, but please don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.

[FoxPro]

This is nothing like the Facebook timeline, which everybody seems to hate.

This is more like the goggle maps of time.

It is using the same technology as Google maps. At least into regards as its interface.

[Boogieman]

3) We would like to make it so you can pass an external URL to the timeline widget, so, you could, for example, place a timeline of a Wikipedia article on any website, as in:

...code...

We just cant figure out why we cant make this work.

---

Maybe I’m stating the obvious, but shouldn’t you need to use escape codes for some of those characters if you want to pass them in a URL? You can’t pass the colons and slashes literally or they are going to be parsed literally. You might be able to get away with it if you enclosed the entire string in quotes, but I’m not sure that would work in this case.

[FoxPro]

You might be able to get away with it if you enclosed the entire string in quotes,

Why didnt my javascript guy bring this up in our last meeting?

See, Freepers really are the smartest people in the world. lol

Thanks

[Boogieman]

Thanks. I usually have to debug all my own code, so I always check the simplest things first, because that is usually where the problem is!

About the image dates, there are two dates you could be trying to grab. Some image formats, like JPG, store the date created in EXIF data inside the file. This would be written when the picture is taken, by the digital camera. There are javascript libraries and jquery plugins that have the functions to read that data.

The other date is the file modified date on the local file system. I don’t think you can read that with javascript, because you won’t have permission to access the file properties using a script. You would probably have to download the image to your server, which would copy that data, and then you could read it from your own system. That is pretty hackish though.

There must be a better way, since, if you have permission to download the file, and the file modified date is sent along with the download, it is probably sent to your system BEFORE the file itself. So, I imagine you could write some code to initiate the download, and as soon as you get the file properties, cancel the download. I just don’t know exactly how you would code something like that in javascript :(

[FoxPro]

Maybe this needs to be explained a little differently, as their is nothing like this on the web.

It may be hard to grasp, because of this.

The widget takes the text off any website. Identifies where the dates are in the text and places the text on the timeline at the appropriate dates.

It does this by placing 2 lines of code on your website, no further action is required.

At its heart it is a date parser that presents text in a contemporaneous way.

We take your writing and show it over time.

It is so unique it is hard to explain...

[FoxPro]

I just don’t know exactly how you would code something like that in javascript :(

If I could get the image creation date, I would have a reference point to place the picture on a separate band on the timeline, in the appropriate place. That would make family history's almost completely auto-generating. Right now I am forcing users to input a date for every picture they would want to put on the timeline, not good.

I can get the length and width of the picture.

It would be great to solve this and you are getting me closer and for that I thank you.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks FoxPro.

We now have a website widget that allows any web developer to place a timeline into any website, just by adding 2 lines of code.

[FoxPro]

I am not sure what I am being thanked for.

And I am not sure I have explained what our widget does adequately.

It is such a unique concept...

And has so many possible applications.

I am basically taking your websites information and putting into a timeline.

And you can place the timeline, of your website, on your website, in about 60 seconds.

So you can see your website information over time, dictated by the information on your website.

It is so easy to implement, technically, yet I cant put together an “elevator pitch” where an average person will get this.

This is kind of frustrating.

[FoxPro]

You would think that ancestory.com would kill for something like this.

I just dont know anybody at ancestory.com

[SunkenCiv]

Generally I thank the person posting the topic, or whomever linked me to it.

I’ve viewed your page, and I got four empty boxes.

If you want anyone to figure out what you’re talking about, try some screenshots. It would take a lot of doing to convince me that adding Javascript to anything makes an improvement.

all:
http://184.72.244.64/index3.htm

[SunkenCiv]

I tried a test page. I still have no idea what this is supposed to do, I put in two dummy dates about 50 years apart, and a timeline appeared. The timeline made no sense at all, and the dummy dates didn’t appear on the timeline.

[FoxPro]

I’ve viewed your page, and I got four empty boxes.

I am getting 4 empty boxes about 1 in 10 times I go to the website. And I cant figure out why (but I will). We are in beta testing, so these things happen. I spent the day driving around Vegas, loading this up on various libraries and friends computers and it seemed to work 90% of the time.

Try clearing your "cache" and hitting the "refresh" and it usually fixes itself. These glitches are usually resolved over time.

You are giving me the feedback I need and I am more grateful for this than you can possibly know.

This is an incredibly complex system and all issues eventually get resolved. I have been doing this for 25 years and I know the system only fails when it really counts.

[FoxPro]

I just went to the following using Chrome:

http://wikitimelines.net/

And the 4 timelines came up perfectly.

Sunspots?

It is very tough to develop in this environment.

Basically, there is very little feedback as to why something dosent work.

But when it does work it is fantastic.

This is the rule:

It works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works, it works.

And then when you want to show it to somebody, it dose not work.

It is the story of our lives.