Hello everyone,
I’m currently working on incorporating various (BCE) events into a timeline, but I’m struggling to get the dates to display at the bottom. I feel like I might be overlooking something simple. Does anyone have any suggestions or insights?
Many thanks in advance!
Quico.
Bottom of where?
To make a note appear in the bottom timeline band, simply make sure its $TimelineBand is set to the correct number.
Bands number up from zero. Let’s assume you are using 3 bands, i.e. $TimelineBand values of 0, 1 or 2. The first band plots at the top. So to make an event plot in the bottom band, set its $TimelineBand to 2.
If this isn’t the problem could you post a screen grab or better a small TBX file that shows the problem you are seeing. Don’t forget to describe in the file or in the forum post what you see vs. what you expect to see.
Could you post a small sample file illustrating the problem timeline?
Thanks everyone—I attach a screenshot and a TBX. I would expect the dates to show up at the bottom of the timeline.
Greece.tbx (2.2 MB)
Ah, I see now. The ‘band’ you’ve been referring too isn’t a Timeline band, but the date ‘scale’† at the bottom of the view. Something is amiss, but looking at your TBX (thanks!) the time—date—scale at bottom should label for the entire period, noting you have set both $TimelineStart and/or $TimelineEnd.
By altering $TimelineEnd to 1000 CE the scale bar for the timeline is not labelled before the BCE/CE boundary. This is a glitch and I’m afraid there is no workaround at present—it will need an update to the app.
Note: Part of the issue here is Apple’s ongoing dumbification of System Prefs and the users ability to display dates as needed. IOW, the underlying value is correct (as it’s actually just a pos/neg large number from the Unix epoch) but the ability to display correctly in calendar from is being eroded. Since inception, Tinderbox has used OS date formats and this worked fine. Clearly the macOS can’t be relied on any more (in this context) so the fix will need some re-coding in the app rather than the user merely changing some settings. The move to turn macOS into iOS is not helpful to those doing real work on computers.
[pinging @eastgate FYI]
†. Frustratingly, I don’t think the ‘scale’ at the bottom has ever been formally given a discrete name, which adds to the confusion (not your fault!). Hmm, it seems this view could do with a formal naming of the parts so we’ve unambiguous labels.
Dates BC/BCE will require an overhaul of Tinderbox’s date parsing. As Mark Anderson observes, Apple quietly broke BCE date entry in Sonoma.
The fix won’t make it into the very next release, but I will try to see to it soon.
