Timelines and Temporal Information
Simile Timeline
Ajax (dhtml) timeline code.
http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/
Primary data provision format is json but there are parsers for a couple of other formats such as RDF. Details of basic experimentation experience by RP at:
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-help/2007-October/000037.html
Timeline + Geo
Tools that integrate the (simultaneous) display of geographical and temporal information.
Simile Timeline + js map
See this (very) recent thread:
which references this example:
http://www.oe-files.de/gmaps/usgseq.html
Timemap
(Feb 2008) TimeMap? is a Javascript library to facilitate using Google Maps with a SIMILE timeline. The library allows you to load one or more datasets in JSON or KML onto both a map and a timeline simultaneously. By default, only items in the visible range of the timeline are displayed on the map.
http://code.google.com/p/timemap/
Mapping
Various well-known js maps (google, yahoo etc) but most of these are proprietary. Would much to prefer to use a fully open system. One option is to code against an abstracted api such as http://mapstraction.com/
Open Providers of JS Map
- Open Layers: http://www.openlayers.org/
Features and Editing in Open Layers
We need a nice js-based feature editor. Unfortunately nothing yet seems quite right. As of 2009-07 there are these demos:
- http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/draw-feature.html
- http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/modify-feature.html
- http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/drag-feature.html
However while these allow for easy creation and moving of feature they don't allow for full editing (e.g. modifying an existing feature by adding vertices etc etc). Further work seems to be in progress but not yet in stable (see http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/Future/AdvancedEditing). That said the basic ability to create points etc by clicking would be useful.
Use examples:
- http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/click.html - get lon/lat from view port click directly!
- http://openlayers.org/dev/examples/editingtoolbar-outside.html
General Presentation
Exhibit
http://code.google.com/p/simile-widgets/
Exhibit has some similarities to what we wish to do (at least on the presentation side of things). After specifying lists of similar items in a lightweight (and fairly unconstrained) json-based data format you can display the data using their js code and an html file in the following ways (see original docs for more info):
- List/Table
- Timeline (using the simile timeline)
- On a map (using google maps)
We should aim to be reusing Exhibit and the rest of the simile-toolset as much as possible. Our aim is to spur reuse plus integration from outside.
