Timeglider

Mar 30, 2014 in Date & Time 10095 views

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Introduction

Timeglider JS is a zooming, panning data-driven timeline widget written in Javascript. This widget is the core of our our timeline authoring and publishing app, and can be integrated into any HTML application environment.

Timelines can be zoomed by dragging the vertical slider at right: up for zooming in (less time shown) and down for zooming out (more time shown). The mousewheel also works as a zoom controller. Any white area on the "stage" of the timeline can be dragged left and right, as can the blue "ruler" which marks out different units of time. Clicking on an event brings up a small modal window with a description and links if any are provided in the data.

A few bullets:

Timeglider works well on iPads, but is not yet optimized for Android devices. We're working on a mobile list view for the phone-portrait experience.
Data is imported into the widget with a straightforward JSON format, but data can also come from JavaScript objects (that you can create) existing on the page already.
This code is not Open Source: Using the widget is free for non-commercial use; for commercial applications, we have a couple licensing options. If you plan to do a commercial implementation, you are welcome to experiment at locally or at test-scale.
We no longer have our code on Github, and are going to do our best to provide complete code reference here on our site.

Installation & Options

Step 1: jQuery UI and Timeglider CSS Files

At the top of your document, in the <head> of the document, you'll need to include at least three CSS files, one which goes hand-in-hand with jQuery UI (for the visual styling of the widget), the other for the application-dependent styling and positioning for Timeglider's elements.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/jquery-ui-1.10.3.custom.css" type="text/css" charset="utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="timeglider/Timeglider.css" type="text/css" charset="utf-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="timeglider/timeglider.datepicker.css" type="text/css" charset="utf-8">

Step 2: jQuery (1.9.1)

Timeglider is essentially a jQuery plugin (actually a "widget", but we'll keep things simple). The newest version of Timeglider requires at least jQuery 1.9.1. You can download jQuery here.

<script src='/your_js_folder/jquery.js' type='text/javascript'>

Step 3: jQuery UI (1.10.x)

jQuery UI is a suite of jQuery-based interactive tools and effects based on the jQuery library. jQuery UI can be customized to include specific components; at a minimum, your jQuery UI needs to include these:

all core modules
interactions: draggable, droppable & resizable
widgets: slider
no effects are necessary

You can go to the jQuery UI site and create a build that meets these requirements as well as others you may need.

Every build of jQuery UI is different, and versions change frequently. We keep things simple by naming our jQuery UI file just "jquery-ui.js", but yours might be named according to your download and/or version.

*IMPORTANT: jQuery UI's position() api has changed as of 1.9, wherein the offset option is ending and offset parameters will be wrapped into the my and at options. If you're going to use a newer jQuery UI (1.9+), you'll see positioning problems (with modals, images) until we make a fix in our next version. See this note on the jQuery UI site.

	<script src="js/jquery-ui.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>

Step 4: Other JS Libraries

Timeglider relies on about eight additional libraries — especially Underscore and Backbone. We're working on reducing complete dependency on the others here, but for the meantime, here is what you'll also need prior to Timeglider's JS code. (These files are included in our zip folder of code!)

Here is what these script tags look like:

	<script src="js/underscore-min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="js/backbone-min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
    <script src="js/json2.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="js/jquery.tmpl.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="js/ba-tinyPubSub.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="js/jquery.mousewheel.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="js/jquery.ui.ipad.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="js/globalize.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>	
	<script src="js/ba-debug.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>

Step 5 JS: Timeglider

Timeglider is made of six separate component-files, all of which are required. The overall pattern can be roughly understood as "model-view-mediator" (as opposed to model-view-controller). Backbone.js is used to structure Timeglider's main data models ("TG_Timeline" and "TG_Event"). Timeglider's "mediator" is a controller that keeps track of, and triggers events to effect, state changes using pub-sub. The view is where all DOM relations, html, and jQuery/JS related handlers are contained. TG_Org is a sub-library of the view that determines HTML of the self-organizing timeline-events, and TG_Date is where all the complex date-related functions are kept. Finally, the ...widget.js file is the interface for turning all the other logic into a jQuery plugin-like structure, and exposes public methods.

Here are the Timeglider-related script tags:

	<script src="timeglider/TG_Date.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="timeglider/TG_Org.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="timeglider/TG_Timeline.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="timeglider/TG_TimelineView.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="timeglider/TG_Mediator.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
	<script src="timeglider/timeglider.timeline.widget.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>

    <script src="timeglider/timeglider.datepicker.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>

Alternately, you can use the minified version of all of the above:

	<script src="timeglider-1.0.1.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>

Step 6: The plugin/widget code

If you've worked with jQuery plugins before, installing timeglider will feel familiar. The main difference is that, rather than being a "plugin", Timeglider uses jQuery's Widget Factory to create a "stateful" plugin. Among other things, the Widget Factory has a more comprehensive interface for exposing methods. Here's what the code from the demo looks like:

<!-- html: -->
   <div id='placement'></div>
    
<!-- js: -->
   $(document).ready(function () { 
      var tg1 = $("#placement").timeline({
         "data_source":"json_tests/js_history.json",
         "min_zoom":15,
         "max_zoom":60, 
     });
   });

Options

Options are the elements of the widget plugin Javascript highlighted above. They are name-value pair attributes provided in the object-type argument of the plugin. The only required option is "data_source".

data_source string

required, no default

A URL pointing to a JSON file with timeline data. Since we're still using JSON (rather than JSONP), data needs to be in the same domain as the widget. See the JSON page for more into on how to structure data.

Data can also be imported directly from an HTML table that's on the page, which will then be hidden, an opportunity for "progressive enhancement". See table.html to see how this is done.

timezone string

default: "00:00" (GMT)

The timezone offset (from GMT) of the viewer. Example: "-05:00" for U.S. Eastern Standard Time. This would be important if the events imported were also imported with a similar offset. See timeline JSON documentationfor how to import events with timezone offset. [Users will be able to set their own timezone in forthcoming user settings.]

min_zoom number

default: 1

The minimum zoon level. This can range from 1 to 100. See zoom levels info.

max_zoom number

default: 50

The maximum zoom level. It can range from 1 to 100. See this page about zoom levels.

initial_timeline_id string

default: see at right

If only one timeline is loaded, this is unnecessary; if more than one timeline is loaded, this field will indicate which one to show first.

icon_folder string

default: "js/timeglider/icons/"

A local file reference pointing to a folder in which icons (.png files) are referenced. See this page about icons and how to create them.

image_lane_height number

default: 32

By default, images are displayed in Timeglider's image lane, a horizontal band at the top of the display that is resizable by the user. The initial height of that lane (with images being smaller with margins taken into account) can be set smaller or larger with this option.

base_font_size number

default: 16

This is the font size used for events showing at the zoom level that matches their importance value. For example, an event with importance set to "40" will have this (default 16px) font size at zoom level 40, and will be smaller as the zoom level grows, or larger as one zooms in.

show_footer boolean

default: true

The footer (with list, settings & filter buttons etc) can be hidden. Set this to false if you want it removed.

show_centerline boolean

default: true

Set this at "false" to hide the vertical timeline centerline. (Or optionally use CSS.)

display_zoom_level boolean

default: true

The zoom level number is by default displayed under the zoom slider, but you can make it go away if you'd like. Keep in mind: showing the zoom level number is useful when you're building a timeline and want to know how to set importance values of events.

tick_top number

default: null (automatic)

By default, the "ticks" (or timeline ruler) are displayed at the bottom of the timeline's parent/container element. By using this option, one can set the ticks at the top of the container (using zero), or at another absolutely set level.

constrain_to_data boolean

default: true

Dragging a timeline left and right, by default, will stop at the left-most and right-most event (once they are centrally focused). You can set this option to "false" to allow the timeline to be dragged beyond the data that's been loaded.

minimum_timeline_bottom number

default: 24

Timelines in multi-timeline situations (where the array of loaded timeline objects > 1) can be independently dragged up and down. this represents the lowest point to which a timeline should be allowed to be dragged so that it doesn't impede other elements.

boost number

default: 0

Sometimes the importance values of a timeline are set too high or low. You can tweak these up or down globally using a negative or positive integer. For example, a "-4" boost will reduce all events' importance, as displayed, by 4, making them smaller (assuming size/importance is being used).

legend (type) object

default: {type:"default"}
or
{type:"checkboxes"}

By default, the legend has starts out with all icons in the legend selected, and corresponding events in the timeline displayed (however, the legend does not necessarily contain all timeline icons). Clicking on the first legend icon will remove all but the icon that was initially selected; one suddenly filters all others out. Clicking subsequent icons will bring them back into view. An alternative with type:"checkboxes" will do things a bit differently: All icons are initially selected AND ALL VISIBLE TIMELINE EVENTS WILL CORRELATE TO ICONS IN THE LEGEND. Clicking the first icon will "uncheck it" and remove only that icon. By unchecking all icons one at a time, one therefore ends up with an empty timeline. The "checkboxes" option requires that you add CSS for displaying (background-image based, rather than html input elements) checkboxes in two states. Click here to get the CSS kit for checkboxes.

mousewheel string

default: "zoom"

You can switch the mousewheel from (default) zooming to "pan" for panning or "none" to prevent any mousewheel response.

eventClick function

default: event description and title show in small modal

You can write your own on-click function for events that will either (by returning false) override the existing behavior, or (returning true) be called immediately before the default click (or touchstart) behavior. An object containing all the event's properties is passed into this function.

eventHover function

default: event shows date (according to date_display property) in small modal

You can write your own hover function for events that will either (by returning false) override the existing behavior, or (returning true) be called immediately before the default hover behavior. An object containing all the event's properties is passed into this function.

JS Tutorial

Timeglider

Introduction

Installation & Options

Step 1: jQuery UI and Timeglider CSS Files

Step 2: jQuery (1.9.1)

Step 3: jQuery UI (1.10.x)

Step 4: Other JS Libraries

Step 5 JS: Timeglider

Step 6: The plugin/widget code

Options

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