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is a tool created for reporters by Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg of Flowing Media Inc. that manages chronologies and timelines. It was envisioned as a way to: Keep notes on long-running stories, such as court cases, bankruptcies or police investigations that often require reminding readers and viewers of the events so far or the history of the case. Compile disparate material for projects in a way that might help see relationships and events in a new light. Organize information for narratives and reconstructions of events.
The key features include the ability to zoom in and out on any period of time, to filter and color code events, and to edit your notes in-place or import them from a spreadsheet. It wont automate your data entry, but it should help you organize and visualize the notes youre taking anyway.
Getting
started
Take
a
look
at
the
installation
instructions
on
the
TimeFlow
github
wiki
at
http://wiki.github.com/FlowingMedia/TimeFlo w/download-and-install-timeflow
.
You
can
install
this
into
your
own
documents
folder
or
onto
a
flash
drive.
Your list will be sorted chronologically no matter what order they were entered in.
this three ways: drag your mouse around the points you want to see in the large window
If you zoomed in too far, you can zoom out a little or all the way using the Zoom control. Here you can also choose how your timeline is displayed. Diagonal is good for small timelines like these, since it shows as much text as possible like a set of stairs:
...or narrow the band on the small navigation pane on the bottom of the timeline by clicking and dragging its edge: Finally, you can double-click in an area of the main timeline window to zoom in on that period. (It doesnt work well until you start narrowing in on a period of interest.) You can scroll through your timeline by dragging the yellow area in the navigation pane at the bottom.
For larger timelines, this view sometimes makes you think a pattern exists when it doesnt. Then, a loose view might be better:
Controls
in
a
timeline
There
are
two
areas
of
controls
in
the
timeline
view.
In
one,
you
control
how
the
view
is
displayed.
In
the
other,
you
control
the
labels,
colors
and
groupings.
Look
for
the
most
basic
controls
in
the
upper
left
panel.
It
changes
with
each
view
of
your
data
(calendar,
timeline
or
graph):
For
a
very
large
timeline,
you
might
use
the
graph
view
to
help
you
navigate
to
areas
with
a
lot
of
entries.
The
lower
left
section
of
the
controls
stay
the
same
no
matter
what
view
you
have
of
your
data:
the first point in your timeline, in this case the 1990 law holding oil companies responsible for spills. Scroll down to a more interesting time:
(Dot size is reserved for data that has number values in it, such as campaign contributions. In this case, if we had the size of the oil slick, we might choose to use it.) Try playing around with it, envisioning various stories. In this view, all of the groups have been removed and weve selected the red BP actor to see, in context, what BP had done during the spill: The calendar keeps the settings you made on the timeline, so it is highlighting the BP actions. Days in which there are no events are grayed out. Notice how the options on the upper left of your screen have changed. For large timelines, this view of the dots will show you the most. But for small ones like this, you might want to see the labels.
All of the points are still visible, but the ones not selected are grayed out to highlight your story.
Sometimes youll see half a dot, or a dot with more than one color. That means its got more than one category chosen:
Calendar
view
Sometimes
looking
at
a
calendar
is
easier
than
a
large
timeline.
When
you
click
on
Calendar
on
the
top
navigation
menu,
it
always
takes
you
to
This timeline opens up to a slice of the first 100 days, visible on the bottom navigation view:
Zoom out to 100% and take a look at the global controls on the left to get yourself oriented. You may not have noticed it, but there is another indicator on the left menu:
This tells you that all of the items in the dataset are being shown there is no active filter. Right now, the data is being shown by the place of the event the White House, D.C. or somewhere else. The most frequent places are listed first on the list. To get a different view of the data, try switching to a view that shows tags with no groupings, then highlight stimulus:
Filtering
Once
a
timeline
grows
to
more
than
a
few
dozen
events,
there
is
simply
too
much
to
digest
in
one
sitting.
That
is
when
the
tools
filtering
options
come
into
play.
For
this
example,
well
use
a
different
example
dataset:
the
Obama-First
100
Days:
1
Note: In early releases of the software, there was an error in the sample data showing Obama in the Gulf Coast on Apr. 28. That date is really May 28, which was corrected in later releases.
Now you have a list of items you can choose from in the left hand column: The color map reminds you how to read your timeline. While there is still way too much to look at, it becomes easier to see the patterns of the stimulus bill, which he signed on Feb. 17. Switch to the Filter view using the tab on the top left: These tags were made up as the data was being typed in. They are not mutually exclusive an entry could both be a reversal from previous policy AND an energy action. Lets first look at how quickly Obama reversed policies of the Bush administration, and what those first actions were:
At first, all you see is an empty search box. But you can add in any of your categories from the dataset under the menu item Filters: (If your example looks different, flip back to the display view and switch it to Diagonal on the upper left panel.) i Add tags, who and entry type and location to the filter list by checking them off on this menu: (You may still have a color highlight shown. If you do, flip back to the timeline and clear all of those selections by clicking on them again.) Its pretty simple now to look through the events that marked a reversal. Now try looking at the stimulus program:
This is much bigger and might need more filtering. Lets look just at trips taken to promote the stimulus:
Editing
a
timeline
There
are
several
ways
to
edit
your
timeline.
The
easiest
way
is
on
the
timeline
itself.
To
follow
this
example,
clear
all
of
your
filters
on
the
Obama
first
100
days
example
from
either
the
Display
or
Filter
view:
(Note: the counts you see next to each item are unfiltered counts. In the example above, there are 22 entries for all trips, not just those for the stimulus.) This narrows your view to just nine items:
Ive also turned off the grouping and colors to get a clean view of the timeline, and narrowed my view to late January: To edit, right-click on a point in the timeline:
You can see that the better you tag your data, the easier it will be to use later on. Finally, you can do the equivalent of a full-text search for keywords or phrases:
Regular expressions (not case sensitive) are also available, but not documented, in the search box. In this case, it searches for Michelle, Sasha or Malia.
You can delete the event, edit it, or add another on the same day. (If you didnt select an existing
event, youd just have the opportunity to add one.) If you choose Edit, youll get a form to fill out:
Add fields the kinds of information you want to enter, such as a label for the timeline, a long description or tags, under Edit, Add field. Add records an entry in the timeline in the same way, or directly on the timeline or calendar itself.
Importing
Right
now,
importing
from
a
spreadsheet
replaces
all
of
the
existing
data
there
isnt
a
way
currently
to
add
to
your
dataset.
Importing
from
a
spreadsheet
is
done
two
ways:
by
copying
and
pasting,
or
by
saving
as
a
text
(TSV
or
CSV)
file.
Most
often,
youll
just
copy
and
paste.
Adding
a
lot
of
events
is
probably
easier
from
the
calendar
view:
One
trick
in
using
spreadsheets
as
your
data
entry
is
to
define
your
date
fields
as
text
rather
than
General
types.
The
reason
is
that
TimeFlow
is
more
forgiving
than
Excel
in
its
date
formats
and
the
precision
it
expects,
so
it
can
handle
information
that
cant
be
well
sorted
or
represented
on
a
spreadsheet:
The
advantage
of
using
these
views
over
the
List
and
Table
views
is
that
TimeFlow
keeps
your
place
as
you
edit.
On
the
other
views,
you
will
have
to
scroll
back
to
where
you
left
off.
In this case, we might want to add people to this National Prayer service. (If youve defined your data field as a list, the way this one is, separate items with a comma.)
Creating
a
timeline
If
you
havent
already
typed
your
information
into
a
spreadsheet,
one
way
to
create
a
timeline
is
to
start
from
scratch.
In
the
menu,
choose
File,
New
from
Template,
to
choose
some
existing
setups.
You
will
probably
use
the
template
Events
with
start
and
end
dates
as
your
model.
To get the data into TimeFlow, select all of your cells and copy. This data will replace whatever you already have open, so consider starting a new timeline to make sure you dont lose any other work.
Do the same thing with the tags field. Select the text in the import box, then paste: This data also has a column for the direct link to stories that acted as the source for the information. TimeFlow correctly guessed it was a URL field, but it might not have.
Best
practices
There
are
also
a
few
best
practices
for
reporting
with
timelines
built
into
this
data.
First,
there
is
a
source
for
each
row.
This
dataset
was
built
from
news
reports,
so
it
simply
records
which
news
source
and
then
the
link
to
the
story.
There
is
also
a
field
called
work
status,
which
says
whether
or
not
the
data
has
been
fact- checked
enough
for
publication.
That
way,
you
can
filter
for
only
information
you
need
to
check,
or
alternatively
only
information
you
feel
comfortable
publishing.
It
also
has
an
ID
row
number,
which
helps
when
you
want
to
sort
in
the
order
you
entered
the
data.
For
instance,
you
may
have
accumulated
many
points
from
a
single
document
spread
over
a
long
period
of
time.
This
will
help
you
get
back
to
the
way
you
saw
it
originally
if
you
have
to
fact-check.
Well
want
to
change
those
guesses
in
some
of
these
cases.
The
actors
are
used
as
tags
for
filtering
each
row
has
a
list
of
actors
in
the
event,
and
we
want
them
to
be
split
up
when
they
are
imported.
Change
text
to
list
when
you
want
TimeFlow
to
treat
it
that
way:
Once
youre
happy
with
your
decisions,
click
the
import
this
button.
You
may
still
have
to
check
some
default
settings.
In
this
case,
the
data
had
fields
that
were
named
start
and
end,
which
TimeFlow
recognizes
as
the
key
date
fields
in
your
data.
These
are
the
ones
that
will
be
used
to
place
the
points
on
the
timeline.
But
you
might
have
Once you import, TimeFlow will guess what kinds of fields youve imported and give you some basic statistics about them:
other names, and you might have multiple date fields. The fields used for your timeline are determined under Edit, Set date fields menu:
In this case, we need to add the end date to use as the ending period of a span of time:
In this case, TimeFlow didnt understand the Sept abbreviation for Sept. 14, 2009. You can just fix it in the List view: Once its fixed, you can erase the entry in the unparsed fields so that you only see the ones that are still problems. You can check to make sure none of the dates are missing by checking the Summary tab at the top right:
Notice, too, that there is at least one record that didnt have a good date: it shows that 97 percent of the start dates were defined. This is a good way to check to make sure your data was complete: One of the easiest ways to check your data is to go to the filters, then add the new, Unparsed fields field to your list.
You can select all of the non-missing UNPARSED FIELDS to look at the bad data on the list view:
Exporting
Right
now,
there
is
no
way
to
print
a
timeline
or
its
entries.
To
get
a
simple
list,
use
the
File,
Export
HTML
to
get
a
full
listing
that
can
be
printed
in
Word
or
another
text
editor.
Export
a
TSV
to
import
into
Excel
or
another
spreadsheet
program.
(This
stands
for
tab- separated
values,
and
will
be
imported
as
a
text
file
in
your
spreadsheet
or
database
program.)
FAQ
Q:
My
timeline
doesnt
show
up.
The
dates
seem
to
all
be
there,
but
the
entries
are
in
1969.
A:
Check
the
menu
item
Set
date
fields
to
make
sure
it
understands
which
columns
you
want
to
use
as
your
dates.
It
should
guess,
but
sometimes
it
doesnt.
Q:
Not
all
of
my
data
got
imported.
There
are
several
rows
missing.
A:
One
type
of
entry
is
particularly
difficult
to
parse:
those
with
long
narratives
that
end
with
a
quotation
mark.
Go
back
to
your
original
data
and
add
a
space
after
the
end
of
the
entry.
Q:
My
list
fields
didnt
separate
out.
They
are
still
being
shown
as
one
long
piece
of
text.
A:
Check
your
delimiter.
It
will
separate
based
on
commas.