Timeline not working

derinliktutkunu

Hey folks

I am having issues with the timeline function. It shows only a few items while I had thousands of entries. I am getting the following error in error console . I suspect it is related to a java script issue. I am using latest stand alone Zotero 5.0.82 in a Win 10 system

How can I fix this issue? Where to start?

Any help wouyd be really apreicated

Thanks

dstillman

Can you take a screenshot, upload it somewhere (e.g., Dropbox), and provide a link here?

derinliktutkunu

Thank you for prompt help. Here goes the SS. In left pane some of my 2020 entires are visible. In timeline none of them are shown. A few unrelated entries are visible although. In both panes u can see added date : "eklendiği tarih".

Screen shot:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ivnmmql2qpzqq6/2020-01-22 (5).png?dl=0

error messages:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pf21jr4kpzxu01j/java console.png?dl=0

dstillman

OK, so I think this is just a misunderstanding. There are three bands, in increasing time units. The bottom band shows multiple decades, and you can see all the vertical lines showing all your items. You can scroll the separate bands to move through the timeline. The top band is just a single year, so you'll only see items with Date values from the year that's in view.

(It's supposed to be possible to adjust the bands with the drop-down menus, but that's broken in the current version.)

derinliktutkunu

Thank you again. But I think there is an issue however. I am very familiar with simile timeline which I believe is under the hoods. I have a few hundred items added in 2020. In the timeline I see only one. I narrowed down the problem to a publication date formatting. If the publication date is like "2019-12-24" or 2020 it is displayed. But if it is formatted like or 2020-12 or 24.12.2020 it does not work. So far for the publication date.

The real usefull feature for me would be to use the fields "date added" or the "date changed" values. This would show me the timeline as a diary. And this would tremendously help with my work as a continuity log. Unfortunately they are filled by Zotero and I can not change their formatting nor their values. They are all of the type 21.12.2020. They dont work.

I suspect that timeline ignore some time formats or localisation settings.

dstillman

No, that's not right. Both "12.2020" and "24.12.2020" work fine as dates. If you enter "24.12.2020" in the Date field and hover over it, you should see "d m y" next to it to indicate the interpreted order, and if you hover over it you should see it in YYYY-MM-DD format, which will be "2020-12-24". The parsed value is used for the timeline, so that's all that matters. An item with a Date of "24.12.2020" should appear normally in the timeline, but you'll have to scroll forward, since that's a date in the future. Same for "12.2020", which parses as "2020-12-00". Again, you need to scroll forward from the default position to see that.

Similarly, for Date Added, "21.12.2020" is just the localized display date for your locale. Under the hood it's formatted as YYYY-MM-DD, and as such it would show up in the timeline. The reason it doesn't now is that, as I say, the drop-downs are currently broken, so you can't change anything from its default mode. In the case of Date Type, that means it currently only uses Date Published (i.e., the item's Date field). This is a regression from 5.0.78 that we'll fix soon.

derinliktutkunu

Dstillman, many thanks for your attention. All is clear now. Hope drop-down case will be fixed soon. Keep the good work doing.

dstillman

The drop-downs in the timeline are fixed in Zotero 5.0.83, available now via Help → Check for Updates.