Extension talk:EasyTimeline/syntax

Tabs do not work in PlotData
"^ (caret) in texts means: tab" does not work, as seen. Den fjättrade ankan 03:15, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC) at:1719 shift:($dx,0)   text:^^ Interregnum

Reply: Tabs are only used in TextData, see.

In PlotData you can shift texts to the right by adding spaces (put double quotes around text).

at:1719 shift:($dx,0)   text:"                  Interregnum "

But a better way is to add a shift value,

at:1719 shift:(130,0) text: Interregnum

As far as the layout is concerned, this makes the picture much wider, why not use a linebreak and shift the text slighty upwards? Erik Zachte 11:55, Jun 19, 2004 (UTC) from:start till:1720 shift:($dx,5)  text:" Ulrika Eleonora ~ Interregnum "

Answer to remarks on sv:Användardiskussion:Den fjättrade ankan
I find it quite easy to use the EasyTimeline Syntax. But there is a few things that does not work:
 * The character å does not work, as seen at sv:Sveriges historia: Tidsaxel, for example at 1974: 1974 års regeringform.
 * > I use Ploticus for the actual rendering. It has a built in font with an unusual set of characters. See the table at, bottom of page. Unfortunately no å. Ploticus does support unicode and user defined fonts, and I certainly want to support that as well, but that may take some time, I can't test it myself, no Linux here (it works with freetype, which is not part of the Windows build of Ploticus which with I can test offline). So I will have to ask someone to help with this.
 * >In the meantime you might use an alternate for display without the å like alternate text


 * The id: for colors= does only work sometimes. I have tried to set id:Krig (=war) and color:Krig with red color at sv:Mall:Tidsaxel stormaktstiden, but it only works at one place from, 1632-1648, althuogh I had set it to 1630-1648... At other times (1611-1613), (1675-1979) and (1700-1718) it does not work.
 * > Look again, you have defined overlapping periods. For example:

from:1611 till:1613  color:Krig text:.. from:1611 till:1632  color:Vasa text:.. So the last bar overwrites the first. Den fjättrade ankan 01:36, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * It would be nice to have DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy work from at least 1500, not only from 1800.
 * > I am afraid this is not possible. Ploticus uses an internal date/time format in which 01/01/1800 is zero. Many programming languages have a similar internal representation. Of course this could have been implemented otherwise, but I assume in the seven years Ploticus exists noone used it for historical timelines, it is often used for scientific plots. Maybe I can ask Steve Grubb to look at, but even if he wants to modify this it will not be soon, new releases are some half year apart. Erik Zachte 03:46, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

Example of define
the given example Define $broad      = width:10 Define $narrow     = width:30 Define $bardefaults = $broad fontsize:S is not intuitive. Why is the value of $broad defined as 10, but $narrow is set much bigger. Is this a joke or am I misunderstanding how "width:" works? --141.53.194.251 08:45, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Oops. I'll correct this. Erik Zachte 19:51, Jul 2, 2004 (UTC)