Current mood: working
Current music: none
Entry tags: web2.0, timeline, mit, simile, xml
Web 2.0 Goodness
One of the groups I work for,
href="http://simile.mit.edu/">The Simile Group, released
a javascript program for visualizing temporal data. It's
called
href="http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/">Timeline. It
allows you to plot XML data on a graphic and then to click
and scroll that graphic (like Google Maps).
I have a list of patches I want to write for the program.
One itch is that it doesn't do a good job with layout when
events are non-concurrent but share start and end days.
Another is that it doesn't support the idea of events
happening as part of a larger event in concurrence with
events that are not part of that larger event with out
significant screen real estate consumption. You really need
700px's in height to see my Timeline and use it easily,
already. We'll see if I can find the time for the patches.
Overall, it's a cool app though. The API is well developed
and makes good use of the OO paradigm.
It would be worth while to play with. It would have been
nice to see on CNN.com during Sept. 11, for example. The
documentation and source code are available from the
href="http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/">Timeline page on
Simile's Website.