Single events not using post date, truncating labels, current category selectors, centering

[louise.in.tokyo]

Dear Tim,

Thank you for making it so easy to put SIMILE timeline into Wordpress
and integrating several features.


If you have time to look at the following questions I'd be very happy.

I'm trying to customize some elements of the plugin.

I would like the timeline to look something like this
http://tokyo-pencil.com/timeline.jpg

My timeline charts the people and events in a Japanese print movement
and has other events that contextualise those people.
Black should be the current post a reader is viewing, grey are other
posts in the same category, red is Japanese based events (a different
category), turquoise are world events (another different category)
((the dates are wrong its just an example))

I've managed to get this far with some !important CSS overrides... :S
http://tokyo-pencil.com/?p=4

Over and above these style hacks, I'm having issues trying to solve /
implement the following:

• creating single events that prompt the circle icon pngs, without
setting the post date to, say, 1923 in order to input a marker that
represents the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. (for long, continuing events,
like a person's life, the event start date and event end date work
very well – is there a way to add this feature for single events or do
I need to back-date-publish blog posts on dates that are pre internet
(^v^ )

• Is there a way to specify the image files for these markers on my
server instead of http://api.simile-widgets.org/timeline/2.3.1/images/...
so I can use my own icons?

• I used some extra css with negative margins to move the label inside
the timeline-event-tape (like in the jpg design above), is there a
more elegant way to do it and would it be possible to implement an
option to truncate article titles to a number of characters if they
don't fit into the space on the tape?

• One thing that I think would be extremely useful would be some extra
CSS selectors to indicate the current post being read, in the context
of the timeline. In the jpg example above, (which is intended to show
in a single post view), the printmaker that you are reading about
shows up as black on the timeline, while other printmakers (on other
pages) show up as grey. Something like class="timeline-event-tape
artist" for tape on the timeline that represents other pages on the
blog (under the category artists) and class="timeline-event-tape
artist current-post" on tape in the timeline that represents the
current page.

• Finally, if there is a more elegant way of changing the background
to no background than using !important, please let me know.



The functionality of SIMILE is just astounding and the integration
with wordpress makes it even more so but I don't know why the design
has to be so limiting. I see there have been several discussions about
separating js and CSS on the main SIMILE googlegroup, so please let me
know if some of the things I discuss are out of your hands. Is the
main SIMILE timeline still being developed or is this it now?

If you have a paypal donate to developer button somewhere I'd be glad
to put a little in... anyone else having similar issues perhaps you'd
like to do the same?

Thanks and kind regards
Louise

[Tim]

Hi Louise,

I'm glad to hear that you like my plugin and that you've managed to
customise the timeline design to fit your template. Looks good!

I'll try to answer your questions:

| creating single events that prompt the circle icon pngs

- Yes, that's possible. If you're setting the custom start and end
date option to just a start date, the event is handled as a single
event.

| Is there a way to specify the image files for these markers on my
server instead of http://api.simile-widgets.org/timeline/2.3.1/images/...
so I can use my own icons?

- Yes, but only with a temporary workaround. The icon URLs are defined
in inc/WPSimileTimelineAdmin.class.php around line 296.
You can put your own icon URLs in there, but every change will be
overwritten the next time you update the plugin. I'll see if there's a
better way to define custom icons.
Additionally, you could use WordPress' custom fields to define per-
post icons (also images for the tape-background). The following custom
field triggers are available: stl-icon, stl-image, stl-tapeImage, stl-
caption, stl-classname, stl-link

| I used some extra css [... ] is there a more elegant way to do it

- I'm afraid not. Lots of CSS rules are loaded from the SIMILE servers
and the only way to override those in custom CSS files depending on
the selector is via !important. Same goes for setting the background
of the timeline.

| would it be possible to implement an option to truncate article
titles

- I'm sure there's a setting for this in the SIMILE API. I'll look
into this.

• One thing that I think would be extremely useful would be some extra

CSS selectors [...]

- See above. You could use a per-post explicit classname that you can
define via the custom field "stl-classname".
As for the current post marker... I will also look into this and
probably set a "current-post" classname in case it's in a WordPress
single view

| If you have a paypal donate to developer button somewhere I'd be
glad to put a little in

- Oh, I'm flattered ;) Actually there's a donate-link on the right-
hand-side of plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-simile-timeline/

Hope this helps with most of your issues. Let me know if this works
for you or if I got something wrong.

Kind regards,
Tim

On Mar 19, 3:39 pm, "louise.in.tokyo" <louise.in.to...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Tim,
>
> Thank you for making it so easy to put SIMILE timeline into Wordpress
> and integrating several features.
>
> If you have time to look at the following questions I'd be very happy.
>
> I'm trying to customize some elements of the plugin.
>

> I would like the timeline to look something like thishttp://tokyo-pencil.com/timeline.jpg

>
> My timeline charts the people and events in a Japanese print movement
> and has other events that contextualise those people.
> Black should be the current post a reader is viewing, grey are other
> posts in the same category, red is Japanese based events (a different
> category), turquoise are world events (another different category)
> ((the dates are wrong its just an example))
>

> I've managed to get this far with some !important CSS overrides... :Shttp://tokyo-pencil.com/?p=4

>
> Over and above these style hacks, I'm having issues trying to solve /
> implement the following:
>
> • creating single events that prompt the circle icon pngs, without
> setting the post date to, say, 1923 in order to input a marker that
> represents the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. (for long, continuing events,
> like a person's life, the event start date and event end date work
> very well – is there a way to add this feature for single events or do
> I need to back-date-publish blog posts on dates that are pre internet
> (^v^ )
>
> • Is there a way to specify the image files for these markers on my

> server instead ofhttp://api.simile-widgets.org/timeline/2.3.1/images/...

[tru...@gmail.com]

Nice wish list!