Template:Timeline/doc

Usage

This template works automatically. Simply place {{timeline}} on any year, date or century page. The template does the rest for you.

It is completely automatic, and has no user-definable parameters.

Ideally, the template should be the first thing on a page, and the page should have a lead paragraph.

Sample output

Because this template uses parser functions that manipulate the PAGENAME of pages on which it is placed, it is impossible to show sample output on this page (Template:Timeline/doc). If you wish to test it, just go to any timeline-related page and use it.

Special notes and limitations

• Years must be in proper date format for this template to work. Thus the template will work on 5000000000, but not on the (technically incorrect) 5,000,000,000. New pages on extremely far-future years should be created in proper date format only. The easier-to-read, comma-separated version should be a redirect only.
• As things stand on 11:14, April 1, 2010 (UTC), this template only works properly on century pages from the 11th to the 98th centuries AD. There are no immediate plans to make this template work on any century out of that range, as this wiki currently has (discounting redirects) no century page earlier than 15th century AD, and only two pages (101st century and 372nd century) beyond the upper limit.
• This is the second version of this template. The past version required users to specifically define several variables. Thus you may occasionally encounter pages where this template has defined parameters. These are harmless, and do not impinge upon the proper operation of this version of the template. To reiterate, however, they are not required, or even used, by this template. Thus, editors should refrain from trying to define parameters such as "next", "prev", "century" and "decade".

To do list

Though this template currently has basic functionality on all pages, there are some things that need to be tweaked:

• Graphic design — Initially, this version was implemented without full graphical design of the century and decade navigation boxes. This will be corrected by April 2010. Suggestions are welcome on the Template talk:Timeline/doc.
• 3-digit centuries — The template math does not current allow for anything other than 2-digit centuries (21st, 18th, etc.). At first it was thought that some solution would have to address the 1-digit centuries, but our earliest century page is in fact 15th century. Thus the concern is at the higher end of time. 101st century is the only non-2-digit century page on the wiki. Nevertheless a solution is possible, even if it isn't a particularly high priority.
• Categories — automatic category addition isn't yet implemented, but this is a high priority. It should shortly be possible to enter {{timeline}}, and have it not only automatically create a nav box, but also to have the page automatically sort into the right year, century or decade category.

Update 09:41, March 31, 2010 (UTC): Automatic category stamping for years has now been enabled. Simply by putting {{timeline}} on the page, a page will be placed into the category pertaining to the relevant decade and century. What this template will not do automatically is start a brand new category. Thus, if no category currently exists, a redlink will be created. The user will manually have to link the newly created category to its higher category. A good example as of this time stamp is 2107. {{timeline}} has successfully placed the year into Category:22nd century years and Category:2100s. Since Category 2100s does not yet exist, however, the user would need to, at a minimum, click on the redlink and place the resulting page in Category:22nd century decades. (If Category:22nd century decades didn't exist, the user would need to click on that category and put it into Category:Decades and Category:22nd century.) It might one day be possible to further automate the process to create these new categories, but for the moment, the automation ends at the point of putting the year into the right categories — whether they exist or not.

• Redlinks - A number of date-related pages are isolated, and it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be set in the next or previous year/decade/century. For instance, there's a little bit of stuff that happened in 292009, but it's doubtful we'll ever hear about 292008 or 292010. Somehow, the template should take care of this and be able to sense the next year/century/decade for which we have a page. This will eliminate a practice that has started to happen lately by which editors have been creating empty pages just to get a bluelink. If it is not possible to come up with a formula to find the mathematically "next" bluelink, then at the very least, the template will be changed to provide a message to consult "other years/decades/centuries" in this Category:decade/century/whatever.