* TimeLiner (my 1st week LUA experience)

For users to report plugin bugs and request plugin enhancements; and for authors to test new/new versions of plugins, and to discuss plugin development (in the Programming Technicalities sub-forum). If you want advice on choosing or using a plugin, please ask in General Usage or an appropriate sub-forum.
Post Reply
avatar
justone
Diamond
Posts: 82
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 14:42
Family Historian: None

TimeLiner (my 1st week LUA experience)

Post by justone »

Ok, first the link, since I know some might straight go for it, and a few % might consider to read on what it's all about.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=F ... 95C845!199

I think it points to the folder not the plugin itself which I wanted to be like that since that'll allow to add some description later on.

I'm using FH since 2.3.5 and always missed something like that, even bought Genelines and never use that since senseless. But some weeks ago I finally did remember Calico sent and email that v5 was launched. Had no time for it last year but upgraded a couple of weeks ago.
And since last week I felt that LUA might be interesting so I had a look at it.

I detected iup_pplot and thought well that might be something to play with, and the TimeLiner is the current result. (I must correct me, it wouldn't exist in it' current form if tatewise wouldn't have helped me out of situations where I got totally stuck. Thanks again Mike.

Purpose: if you have some handsfull of non-related individuals with identical surnames and given names of the same town, you might ask yourself which ones might be father or mother of a known person. So you concentrate on diggin into the right directions when collecting information from official sources or churches.
The task is easy since if there's an non-related indi which was dead before your known persons birthdate it can't be the faster. If one was aged 6 or 7 it's also unlikely the one you're looking for.
And as a sideeffect, you could also load your family (only up to 20 individuals possible right now) to see at which time most of your beloved were alive. The range where most bars are on top of each other.

Final words: I'm not a programmer at all, so don't expect me to implement everything which springs to mind. You're also entitled to modify the source to your needs since it was my learning to understand LUA plugin for FH. No more no less.


ID:6750
User avatar
Jane
Site Admin
Posts: 8507
Joined: 01 Nov 2002 15:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Somerset, England
Contact:

TimeLiner (my 1st week LUA experience)

Post by Jane »

Looking good.

There are a couple of things you might like to clean up

1. When you cancel the list you need to return rather than displaying a blank chart. It's worth making the table local as it will then show in the debugger by default.

Code: Select all

local tblIndi = fhPromptUserForRecordSel('INDI',iMaxSel)   -- table the used chooses indis from FH
if  #tblIndi < 1 then return end
2. Personally I would create a table for the data rather than lots of different variables, but it won't make any difference to performance.
Jane
My Family History : My Photography "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."
avatar
justone
Diamond
Posts: 82
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 14:42
Family Historian: None

TimeLiner (my 1st week LUA experience)

Post by justone »

Hi Jane, thanks for the comments.
Yes I already noted that every time I cancel inbetween the final blank pplot window appears. I'll correct that.

But acutally I'm more into looking for an alternative but pplot, since in fact apart from the automatically drawn timeline the whole rest of it is a real pain.

So don't expect an update just because of this one glitch rigth now. Though, since I posted the link of the folder, I might drop never versions in there from time to time.
User avatar
Jane
Site Admin
Posts: 8507
Joined: 01 Nov 2002 15:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Somerset, England
Contact:

TimeLiner (my 1st week LUA experience)

Post by Jane »

I ended up using a full javascript based time line (see the timeline plugin in the Plugin Store)
Jane
My Family History : My Photography "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."
avatar
justone
Diamond
Posts: 82
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 14:42
Family Historian: None

TimeLiner (my 1st week LUA experience)

Post by justone »

I'm ware of that (downloaded it 2 weeks ago I think).
I also do own Genelines since some years, most overrated software I ever bought.

At the moment I wait for something from Nigel Bufton (The Complete Genealogy Reporter), since he works on something like that since last year.

If would have a wish free at Calio, it would be a diagram similar to the current diagrams rotated by 90° which then draws boxes for the individials along a horinzotal timeline.
With the ablity to collape/hide treesections better said bars using tree expansion buttons.

Since not implemented I must see how far I get with my limited LUA knowledge. But as you see, and as mentioned earlier, link lines between related individuals can't be draw as long as I stick to iua_pplot.
Post Reply