User:DukeAnt/EasyTimeline
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常言道：一图胜千言。对图形年表而言，这是千真万确的。 表格形式的事件和日期清单能给读者提供了大量的细节，但可能无法提供概述、提供一个宏观的视角。
2004年6月1日起，有了Wiki的方式来脱机撰写图形时间图表。
语法描述见Help:EasyTimeline语法。
你可以在test.wikipedia.org试用EasyTimeline。
在维基百科外您也可以使用此工具，参见EasyTimeline项目网站；或在其他MediaWiki的安装上激活EasyTimeline，参见激活EasyTimeline。
无障碍性
为了给无法看到图像的人们提供无障碍性访问，请确保文章的文字也能表达所有相关的信息，或者链接到一篇能表达所有信息的文章。参见WP:ACCESS。
图表示例
这里有两个简单的例子。对于更深入的例子，参见第二次世界大战的太平洋战场、计算机年表以及环法自行车赛冠军
另一个很好的例子（它压根就不是时间线）是声乐和器乐音高范围。
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Code example
Just to show you that the script syntax is reasonably intuitive: here is the script for the image to the left: Soviet Leaders.
# All measures are in pixels ImageSize = width:160 height:550 PlotArea = left:50 right:0 bottom:10 top:10 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1919 till:1991 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1920 # there is no automatic collision detection, # so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of bar PlotData= bar:Leaders color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S from:start till:1922 shift:($dx,15) text:Vladimir~Ilyich~[[Lenin]] from:1922 till:1953 shift:($dx,5) text:[[Stalin|Josef~Stalin]] from:1953 till:1964 shift:($dx,5) text:Nikita~[[Khrushchev]] from:1964 till:1982 shift:($dx,5) text:Leonid~[[Brezhnev]] from:1982 till:1984 shift:($dx,-12) text:Yuri~[[Andropov]] from:1984 till:1985 shift:($dx,4) text:Konstantin~[[Chernenko]] fontsize:XS from:1985 till:end shift:($dx,10) text:Mikhail~[[Gorbachev]]
Double and single brackets can be used like on wikipedia, language prefix is possible, e.g. [[de:foo|more about foo]]. Single brackets for external links are also supported.
Great Timelines Elsewhere
Here are two great sites that may serve as inspiration, it would be very easy to recreate most of those timelines verbatim and with roughly similar layout with EasyTimeline (not yet with images but that may change), but I'm afraid that would be 'not done'.
- Hyperhistory (e.g. click on button 'people' left, then on 'special lifelines', right.
- I hope we will have a set like [1] in a years time (click on full size image for any map), possibly even with images. The main effort will be to gather all info without snatching everything from here (most of these maps are based exclusively on data from Brittanica).
Unicode
EasyTimeline does not yet support Unicode. This will be added later. So better not use it on Unicode enabled Wikipedias yet.
Aug 2004: Minimal UTF-8 support has been added, meaning that EasyTimeline now recognizes UTF-8 encoded characters. However only extended ASCII accented characters can be shown and not even all of them (rendering package Ploticus has an incomplete ASCII set in its internal font). So full Unicode support will have to wait until external font support has been added (planned late in 2004, other Wikipedia projects take priority right now).
Tips
For first time users EasyTimeline may not seem that easy at all. As with all script languages it takes some getting used to. Also the syntax description may be a bit bewildering due to its sheer size. Fortunately many elements of the script language are optional.
The 'Easy' in EasyTimeline conveys the message that once a timeline exists it is not so hard to understand, enhance or correct. Also translating for use on another wikipedia it is pretty straightforward.
Tips:
- What most editors did so far: find a timeline that is similar to what you want to accomplish and use this as a model. This will get you started.
- Put each timeline on a separate Template page: this makes it easier to edit, faster to preview, possible to include it in several pages
- Feel free to ask Erik Zachte (the author of EasyTime) for help or advice.