These basic timeline controls are the same for all ShowCase timelines.

Use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out of time

Zooming in and out will change the amount of time visible on the screen. Hover your mouse over the period of time you want to zoom into.

Click and Drag to scroll through time

Move through time by clicking and dragging any blank area on the timeline window. To move quickly try zooming out, and zooming back in again.

Zoom in to uncover hidden events (grey markers on the timeline)

Grey markers on the timeline show you where the hidden events are, zoom in to reveal them.

These controls are just for this timelines.

Reading Mode

Open the reading window and display the Wikipedia article for the selected event. Use the arrows to move between events when the reading window is open . The Wikipedia article will update as you jump to the next / prev event.

  Jump to next / previous event

The and arrows will select the next and previous president on the timeline. The arrows can be used to switch events when the reading window is open, automatically updating the Wikipedia article. If you use the arrows to jump to an event that is off the screen the timeline will scroll to move the event into view.

  Colour code and filter

The default colour code and filter for this timeline is by the political party of the president during thier time in office

To see the colour code and filter the timeline click the button to open the filter panel button. Select one or more political parties to only show presidents from those parties on the timeline.

  Open the Wikipedia article a new window.

If you prefer reading your Wikipedia articles on Wikipedia itself and not in a little window this button will open the article on Wikipedia for the selected president.

  Open the Wikidata item (also in a new window).

See the source of all the magic and open the Wikidata item for selected president.

Unless otherwise stated the ShowCase timelines are published under the same CC BY-SA 3.0 license as the rest of the timelines on Histropedia. If you are interested in using the Histropedia engine to make your own custom timeline please visit the HistropediaJS home page

Just like the main Histropedia site this timeline is built using Wikidata data, the difference here is that we are using an advanced SPARQL query to create custom types of events relating to specific period or event in a person life. For this timeline that period is their time in office as president.

Along with the dates for each presidency we also retrieve the image and the president’s name (used on the event card and the main title). The query also provides us with the information required to build the description for each president and the external links to Wikipedia and Wikidata (including of course the mobile version of Wikipedia displayed in the reading window). The final piece of data we retrieved with our query was the political party of each of the presidents, this was used to colour code the events on the timeline.

These basic timeline controls are the same for all ShowCase timelines.

Use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out of time

Zooming in and out will change the amount of time visible on the screen. Hover your mouse over the period of time you want to zoom into.

Click and Drag to scroll through time

Move through time by clicking and dragging any blank area on the timeline window. To move quickly try zooming out, and zooming back in again.

Zoom in to uncover hidden events (grey markers on the timeline)

Grey markers on the timeline show you where the hidden events are, zoom in to reveal them.

These instructions presume you are familiar with creating Wikidata SPARQL queries, but you can visit this page to learn how it works: Wikidata Query help page

Quick start

1. Go to the query input page
2. Enter a query into the input box
3. Click "GENERATE TIMELINE"

Tip: It's much easier to build and test your query using the Wikidata Query Service, so best to do it there and paste it into the input box when you're done.

This quick start method will auto detect which variables in your query should be used to render the timeline. For more advanced control, the query input page also has a section for Mapping Variables.

Mapping variables

This section allows you to manually select which variables should be used for the basic timeline data. It also allows you to add colour coding and filtering options to the resulting timeline.

An outline of the mapping options is shown below, but each option is described in more detail from the icons next to the input boxes

URL:

Set a variable for the URL that will open when you double click the event

Title (required):

Set the variable to be used as the event title

Start date (required):

Choose the variable to be used as the event start date

Start date precision:

Choose the variable that defines the precision of the Start Date (defaults to day)

End date:

Choose the variable to be used as the event end date

End date precision:

Choose the variable that defines the precision of the Start Date (defaults to day)

Image:

Choose the variable with the image url for displaying an image on the event card

Rank:

Choose the variable to define the rank of the event

Colour code:

Choose the variable that will be used to group and colour code the events

Colour group threshold:

Choose the minimum number of events for each colour code group. All events that don't meet the threshold will go into the "miscellaneous" group.

Filter Group:  new

Choose the variable to use as a filter group. This option also accepts multiple variables separated by commas, allowing you to create any desired number of filter options.

These controls are only for the Wikidata query viewer ShowCase viewer timeline.

  Return to the Query Input Page

Return to the query input page to adjust your variables or update your query.

  Generate a URL to share the timeline and query

We will add a URL shortener soon, in the meantime there is a link from the share pop-up to Tiny URL where you can shorten the link before sharing.

The link will open on the timeline page, but you can use the icon to view the original query and mapped variables.

  Open colour code and filter panel

If you have added a variable to the colour code field you will see them listed (with the number of events in each group) listed in the pop-up. Select any of the groups to filter the timeline. Deselect all groups to show all.

  Open Linked URL

If a URL has been included in the mapped fields double clicking on any event will open the linked URL

  Add a new filter  new

Add new filters from the selected Filter Group variable set on the Query Input Page. Adding multiple filters will refine the results.

 Fit events to screen height new

Adjust row spacing to fit all events within height of screen