- "eras", displayed in yellow below the timeline in boxes
- "background items" that are grey and stretch over all the canvas in height
- normal items, which get displayed as stacked orange bars
namespace eval timeliner { variable "" array set "" {-zoom 1 -from 0 -to 2000} } proc timeliner::create {w args} { variable "" array set "" $args #-- draw time scale for {set x [expr ($(-from)/50)*50]} {$x<=$(-to)} {incr x 10} { if {$x%50 == 0} { $w create line $x 8 $x 0 $w create text $x 8 -text $x -anchor n } else { $w create line $x 5 $x 0 } } # bind $w <Motion> {wm title . [expr int([%W canvasx %x]/$::timeliner::(-zoom))]} bind $w <Motion> {timeliner::title %W %x ; timeliner::movehair %W %x} bind $w <1> {timeliner::zoom %W %x 1.25} bind $w <2> {timeliner::hair %W %x} bind $w <3> {timeliner::zoom %W %x 0.8} } proc timeliner::movehair {w x} { variable "" if {[llength [$w find withtag hair]]} { set x [$w canvasx $x] $w move hair [expr {$x - $(x)}] 0 set (x) $x } } proc timeliner::hair {w x} { variable "" if {[llength [$w find withtag hair]]} { $w delete hair } else { set (x) [$w canvasx $x] $w create line $(x) 0 $(x) [$w cget -height] \ -tags hair -width 1 -fill red } } proc timeliner::title {w x} { variable "" wm title . [expr int([$w canvasx $x]/$(-zoom))] } proc timeliner::zoom {w x factor} { variable "" $w scale all 0 0 $factor 1 set (-zoom) [expr {$(-zoom)*$factor}] $w config -scrollregion [$w bbox all] if {[llength [$w find withtag hair]]} { $w delete hair set (x) [$w canvasx $x] $w create line $(x) 0 $(x) [$w cget -height] \ -tags hair -width 1 -fill red } }This command adds an object to the canvas. The code for "item" took me some effort, as it had to locate a free "slot" on the canvas, searching top-down:
proc timeliner::add {w type name time args} { variable "" regexp {(\d+)(-(\d+))?} $time -> from - to if {$to eq ""} {set to $from} set x0 [expr {$from*$(-zoom)}] set x1 [expr {$to*$(-zoom)}] switch -- $type { era {set fill yellow; set outline black; set y0 20; set y1 40} bgitem {set fill gray; set outline {}; set y0 40; set y1 1024} item { set fill orange set outline yellow for {set y0 60} {$y0<400} {incr y0 20} { set y1 [expr {$y0+18}] if {[$w find overlap [expr $x0-5] $y0 $x1 $y1] eq ""} break } } } set id [$w create rect $x0 $y0 $x1 $y1 -fill $fill -outline $outline] if {$type eq "bgitem"} {$w lower $id} set tid [$w create text [expr {$x0+5}] [expr {$y0+2}] -text $name -anchor nw] foreach arg $args { if {$arg eq "!"} { # modified by buchs $w itemconfig $tid -font "[$w itemcget $tid -font] bold" # appropriately handles return of TkDefaultFont set fontused [font actual [$w itemcget $tid -font]] set fontbold [regsub -- {-weight [^ ]*} $fontused {-weight bold}] $w itemconfig $tid -font "$fontbold" } } $w config -scrollregion [$w bbox all] }Here's a sample application, featuring a concise history of music in terms of composers:
scrollbar .x -ori hori -command {.c xview} pack .x -side bottom -fill x canvas .c -bg white -width 600 -height 300 -xscrollcommand {.x set} pack .c -fill both -expand 1 timeliner::create .c -from 1400 -to 2000These nifty shorthands for adding items make data specification a breeze - compare the original call, and the shorthand:
timeliner::add .c item Purcell 1659-1695 - Purcell 1659-1695With an additional "!" argument you can make the text of an item bold:
foreach {shorthand type} {* era x bgitem - item} { interp alias {} $shorthand {} timeliner::add .c $type } #-- Now for the data to display (written pretty readably): * {Middle Ages} 1400-1450 - Dufay 1400-1474 * Renaissance 1450-1600 - Desprez 1440-1521 - Luther 1483-1546 - {Columbus discovers America} 1492 - Palestrina 1525-1594 ! - Lasso 1532-1594 - Byrd 1543-1623 * Baroque 1600-1750 - Dowland 1563-1626 - Monteverdi 1567-1643 - Schütz 1585-1672 - Purcell 1659-1695 - Telemann 1681-1767 - Rameau 1683-1764 - Bach,J.S. 1685-1750 ! - Händel 1685-1759 x {30-years war} 1618-1648 * {Classic era} 1750-1810 - Haydn 1732-1809 ! - Boccherini 1743-1805 - Mozart 1756-1791 ! - Beethoven 1770-1828 ! * {Romantic era} 1810-1914 - {Mendelssohn Bartholdy} 1809-1847 - Chopin 1810-1849 - Liszt 1811-1886 - Verdi 1813-1901 x {French revolution} 1789-1800 * {Modern era} 1914-2000 - Ravel 1875-1937 ! - Bartók 1881-1945 - Stravinskij 1882-1971 - Varèse 1883-1965 - Prokof'ev 1891-1953 - Milhaud 1892-1974 - Honegger 1892-1955 - Hindemith 1895-1963 - Britten 1913-1976 x WW1 1914-1918 x WW2 1938-1945 bind . <Escape> {exec wish $argv0 &; exit} bind . <F1> {console show}US Nice. I took the freedom to add a red hair. Toggle on/off with middle button.escargo - Note that not all user interfaces will provide three mouse buttons, like the laptop I'm using right now.RS: Thanks for your interest and comments. Testing the hair, I find that my mouse has a middle button, but Tk seems not to respond to it :( I noted however that someone changed references to the "anonymous array" "" into the namespace path ::timeliner:: . That is redundant and less convenient, should the name of the namespace change. So I changed back references like
$::timeliner::(-zoom)to the equivalent (as long as we're in the ::timeliner namespace)
$(-zoom)That's why I declare variable "", and that's what the anonymous array was created for - beautiful minimal syntax ... :)
Sep-4-2004 JM If you want to map events in minutes (like activities in a working day) you can see this very same code, with just a few lines modified timeliner (minutes instead of years)
AMG: Somebody munged the encoding, so I fixed it back using [encoding convertfrom utf-8]. Please be careful when editing pages.
Jan-28-2009 buchs: I added some code to the bolding section, to enable handling a return of TkDefaultFont.