07-15-2024, 06:25 AM
Yeah, it's preferable to generate the timeline from the article records I actually thought it was done that way, but it's long enough ago that apparently I dreamed that. Instead, it's a separately editable list of items that link articles to the timeline with the addition of extra timeline specific information like ranges, a cutdown description to fit in the timeline, some style commands (this roughly corresponds to the article's category). Being separate from the list of articles, though, means that we can have things on the time line that aren't full articles, such as structuring elements.
I would probably want to do it by moving all of the relevant metadata into the article records, and establishing some conventions on how we use existing fields. Articles already have short descriptions that could take the place of the description, the dates and stuff are easy extra fields, and the category could be generated automatically. You'd still need some other way of handling structuring elements, but while the current system supports them, I don't think they're really used, so they could be set aside for now.
The other problem with the existing timeline is that it was built using what is now a very old set of Javascript librarys, and could definitely be improved using more recent (JS graphics libraries have come a long, long way since then).
I would probably want to do it by moving all of the relevant metadata into the article records, and establishing some conventions on how we use existing fields. Articles already have short descriptions that could take the place of the description, the dates and stuff are easy extra fields, and the category could be generated automatically. You'd still need some other way of handling structuring elements, but while the current system supports them, I don't think they're really used, so they could be set aside for now.
The other problem with the existing timeline is that it was built using what is now a very old set of Javascript librarys, and could definitely be improved using more recent (JS graphics libraries have come a long, long way since then).