Introduction

This package integrates the Verite TimelineJS application into Plone, providing a beautiful, customizable timeline view for folders and collections.

It adds a view timeline-view for Folders, new-style Collections, and old-style Collections (ATTopic).

In addition, it adds a Dexterity behavior for setting timeline dates on content and a schema extender that applies to all Archetypes content (except ATEvent, for which the normal date fields are used).

If the content has a remoteUrl (i.e. an ATLink), that link will be used to generate the thumbnail for the page. Special handling is built in for Youtube, Twitter, Wikipedia and Flickr links, among others. Otherwise, the page url is used to generate the thumbnail.

Customizations

The default adapters for Archetypes and Dexterity content should handle most use cases. However, you may customize the timeline metadata for specific content types by registering adapters to the ITimelineContent and/or ITimelineSupplement interfaces.

For example if I wanted to change the asset url for my IFoo content type I would simply add the following to a grokked package:

from five import grok
from collective.timelines.interfaces import ITimelineSupplement

class FooTimelineSupplement(grok.Adapter):
    grok.name('foo')
    grok.context(IFoo)
    grok.provides(ITimelineSupplement)

    def update(self, data):
        data['asset']['media'] = self.context.my_url
        return data

There is an example of a timeline supplement provided in the map_support module, which uses metadata from Products.Maps enabled content to display a map in the timeline.

To override the date calculation to use a custom date, or to completely change the base data, you can override the ITimelineContent adapter:

from five import grok
from DateTime import DateTime
from collective.timelines.interfaces import ITimelineContent
from collective.timelines.dexterity_content import TimeLineContent

class FooTimelineContent(TimelineContent):
    grok.provides(ITimelineContent)
    grok.context(IFoo)

    def date(self):
        date = self.context.my_date
        return DateTime(date.year, date.month, date.day)

    def data(self):
        # Calculate custom dictionary for timeline date entry

There is an example of a custom ITimelineContent data provider in the at_content module, which handles ATEvent content by automatically using the start and end dates.

Credits

• Alec Mitchell
• Carlos de la Guardia
• Jazkarta, Inc.
• With support and funding from Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington DC