Timeline WordPress Plugin
This domain of mine has had stuff on it for a long, long time — before WordPress or MovableType or even Blogger. The original davidgagne.net is, sadly, lost forever. Some pieces of it have been kicking around on my various hard drives and FTP locations for a decade now.
One file that I could never seem to bring myself to delete was an ancient hand-coded HTML <TABLE> listing of a bunch of important events in my life. A few friends of mine actually built a company based on the idea. It was called “ShareTimelines.com”, had a magnificent interface, was all webbed up, and the site — last I checked — is completely dead. I wanted to have that timeline on this site again. I hadn’t updated it in years and years, and I would rather poke hot needles in my eyes than sit and hand-code a bunch of <td>s all day. “It should all be in a database, of course,” I said to myself. “And I should be able to edit it right in the WordPress Administrator, too. And seriously it should be written so that I can just give other people the ability to add timelines like that to their own sites.” ( I should stop talking to myself.)
There was really only one thing I could do. I wrote a plugin. You can see the results in the sidebar on the main page of this site. I am also using a timeline in this post (below) to track the updates I make to the plugin.
Make sure to view the README: Download v 1.332 (10/16/2006)
Timeline Plugin Updates
To Do:
- handle bug that happens when user is using rich text editor
- add rss feed for timeline events — requested by jcwinnie
- create import script — requested by Lorelle
- let timeline tag accept an optional “title” parameter
Feel free to digg this. :0)
October 10th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
I don’t see the timeline. Am I missing something??
October 11th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
What a cool plugin!
October 12th, 2006 at 6:45 am
woah! not bad, might be some use for personal recordings… keep up!
October 12th, 2006 at 7:24 am
I always first install on a local copy before uploading changes to my live site. It allowed me to edit the first entry, but every time I go to add a new entry I get the following error messages in lieu of the 2nd drop-down date menu:
Warning: strtotime() [function.strtotime]: Called with an empty time parameter. in G:\www\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\dgEvents\options-timeline.php on line 183
Warning: date() [function.date]: Windows does not support dates prior to midnight (00:00:00), January 1, 1970 in G:\www\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\dgEvents\options-timeline.php on line 183
Line 183 contains the following:
“ (without the backticks, of course)
Any assistance would be much appreciated.
October 12th, 2006 at 8:10 am
Very cool, although I won’t give up the rich text editor for it. Hopefully you can resolve that bug soon.
October 12th, 2006 at 8:19 am
I’ve uploaded, activated and created a new page for my timeline but when I insert the timeline code all I get is a blank page.
I’m no noob when it comes to plugins but am I missing something?
October 12th, 2006 at 10:33 am
It’s okay to talk oneself. The question, obviously, who is it that listens.
By the bye: Is the plugin XML-ish?
October 12th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Nothing. If I use the code marker from the readme, I get blank. If I use the code marker shown in the Options page (hint: It lacks the ! mark), I get… that code marker. I’m not seeing any errors. I’m not seeing anything.
I’d really, really like to use this plugin… and I don’t use the rich text editor.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
I’m very interested in adding this to my family history blog. I’d like to import the data from a gedcom or text file into the database so I don’t have to manually enter in hundreds of dates and bits of genealogy info. I know how to handle the import, but I’d like to work with you on developing the process so others could benefit from this. This could make the Plugin even more valuable. Thanks.
October 12th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
GreyDuck: Thanks for the tip about the missing exclamation point in the Options page. I fixed that.
October 12th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
can you alter this script to keep timelines of posts and no globaly? i mean everytime someone comment or the post being edited it makes a timeline entery?
October 13th, 2006 at 1:22 am
I am also trying this, but I see no timeline and can’t add any entries…
http://www.dreisechzig.net/wp/672/
October 15th, 2006 at 6:49 am
Thanks for correcting the issue I posted above. (He’s already included it in the latest download.) How about a delete button to easily remove an event? Keep up the great work!
October 15th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
…and…could a future version allow more than one post to be assigned to an event? This would be useful when an event covers a date range and there are more than 1 posts relating to it. For instance, I’m actually posting a weekly reading plan as a timeline and then I could assign all the posts to that week/portion of the reading plan. Or a date range might pertain to a confernce, vacation, etc. Not a “deal breaker” but would be a nice enhancement. Thanks again!
October 15th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
What is the trick to get this bad boy working???
The code marker does nothing.
Thanks
October 16th, 2006 at 4:12 am
could this have something to do with the date format..? the plugin is not working on my danish-language (and date format) blog, but ok on a test blog straight out of the box…
October 16th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
I’m gratified to read that I’m not alone in this. I’ve got my site using WP 2.0.4, and I installed this plugin and read the README several times. I create a new page containing the tag as shown in the readme; it’s a blank page when I open it.
No matter what combination of text I add to the page, or leave it completely blank, using NO rich text editor, and it remains stubbornly blank.
If I look at the HTML source for the page, the tag is visible in the code, with no replaced text at all. There is a new table in my SQL database, wp_dg_tblEvent, that has six fields and no records at all.
So, what magic extra step do I need to do that I’m not understanding?
October 16th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
I think I may have stumbled upon a possible solution to the mysterious “missing timeline” problem.
The timeline plugin looks for a page_id querystring variable to determine with which Page the timeline is associated.
If your timeline doesn’t exist on a URL that has a page_id querystring parameter, it won’t display.
My timeline here, for example, exists at index.php?page_id=6187 and the 6187 is the timeline plugin’s “key” to know which timeline to display.
I will do my best to update the timeline to work with people who are using different URL structures!
October 16th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
New version (1.331) released which should (hopefully!) fix the mysterious missing timeline bug.
October 16th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Note: Now that I have (hopefully) fixed the problem caused by my (stupid) use of the querystring page_id parameter instead of the (intelligent) $post class, I’m wondering if that will also solve the problem that I *thought* was caused by the rich text editor.
Is anyone successfully using the plugin with the rich text editor?
October 16th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
That is fantastic. The fix took care of the “no timeline” issue. New toys!
October 16th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Yes!! Problem solved. New version now works.
Thanks!
October 16th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
A few questions (and maybe a new bug) now that this cool plugin works…
Creating the first entry what should one enter for postID?
If left blank what should happen?
If you enter a number where your blog already has a post with same ID then the Timeline “read-more” links to that story. Hmm, that by design?
Should you always leave the postID blank? Unless perhaps you want to link it to a post/article.?
After creating entry, all the text displayed on the Timeline page but also the “read-more” link was present. There is nothing more to read.
Also the read-more link for me appends an extra /
http://www.mydomain.com/blog/2006/10/16//
which leads to a 404 error.
October 16th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Jason,
Yes, you only enter a PostID on the timeline edit / add screen if you want to link a particular event to a blog post.
I will look into the extra slash issue as soon as I can.
October 16th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
I get an error:
[You have an error in your SQL syntax near '' at line 8]insert into wp_dg_tblEvent(PostID, StartDate, EndDate, Event, TimeLineID) select 0, ‘2006-10-17′, ”, ‘Timeline Created’, 430
But now, at least I see something on the page!
October 17th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I get an error:
[You have an error in your SQL syntax near '' at line 8]
insert into wp_dg_tblEvent(PostID, StartDate, EndDate, Event, TimeLineID) select 0, ‘2006-10-17′, ”, ‘Timeline Created’, 430
But at least now something’s happening
October 17th, 2006 at 1:01 am
bingo..! it’s working - but some of my fellow dk-bloggers still seem to have various problems…
October 17th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
I just installed the timeline plugin and all is working fine, except when I try to set the date for an entry I can’t get it to display anything before December 31, 1969. Since I’m a living fossil from before that fateful year, and would like to display events that occurred in my life before then, what can I do to get the timeline to display these prehistoric dates? Hope it’s not too difficult a problem. Thanks!
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:17 am
For a nice example of timelines, take a look at: http://www.dandelife.com
November 2nd, 2006 at 6:09 pm
I installed the timeline plugin and I am also getting the error: WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax near '' at line 8]
November 11th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
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December 5th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Very useful plugin. I’m wondering if it is possible to create some additional code outside of the loop that creates the table to do some totaling of days, etc.
I would like to use the Time Line as a log for my Travels. How many days we have been travelling. If its possible to add extra fields, then how many miles we have travelled. Average daily travels, etc, etc.
Is this something that could be added in some future update?
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
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February 5th, 2007 at 9:02 am
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February 7th, 2007 at 9:22 am
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February 12th, 2007 at 9:26 am
For the record, NOTHING is lost forever.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.davidgagne.net
An example;
http://web.archive.org/web/20000816002939/http://www.davidgagne.net/
Enjoy the memories.
datter
February 18th, 2007 at 10:26 am
After upgrading to WordPress 2.1, I get the following error when trying to edit an event:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: the_quicktags() in /[...edited out...]/wp-content/plugins/dgEvents/options-timeline.php on line 216
February 18th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Same error appears when trying to add a new event, by the way…
March 1st, 2007 at 8:04 am
Looks like the plugin might not be WP 2.1 compatible…I have the same error as you m-alo on a new WP site I just created, but have not problems on my main personal timeline.
I’m itching to get the new timeline up and running, so whenever you get some time, David, to make it 2.1 compatible, please do.
By the way, I absolutely adore the plugin, and it’s the one of the best plugins out there, IMO. Quick question, though: can you have multiple timelines on the same WP install? I’d love to either have a few different timelines (such as one charting outings/vacations and one charting major life events), or even just an ability to categorize events within a single timeline.
August 11th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
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September 18th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Doesn’t work in Wordpress 2.2 and when “Timeline” is selected in “Options” it slowly loads the blog index file instead.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
hi scott
i have the same probemas the two mempbers above.
the plugin looks grest… woul love to get it working
thankyou for your time. my errois below
alto
Fatal error: Call to undefined function the_quicktags() in /home/worldpea/public_html/fab/wp-content/plugins/dgEvents/options-timeline.php on line 221
March 17th, 2008 at 3:25 am
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