I wonder if there is an argument to have more specific "date" fields to make support of features easier, and move the logic into the metadata work. As has come up in discussions with "archival date" vs iso.
For example, one approach could be "date" field is always just a sort of free form field, the template does NOT try to parse it. To get the timeline to generate you will need to add a "date_iso" column with properly formatted iso dates (or even just "date_year"). This way the template wouldn't have to worry about parsing multiple date formats and sanitizing issues to avoid breakage.
I wonder if there is an argument to have more specific "date" fields to make support of features easier, and move the logic into the metadata work. As has come up in discussions with "archival date" vs iso.
For example, one approach could be "date" field is always just a sort of free form field, the template does NOT try to parse it. To get the timeline to generate you will need to add a "date_iso" column with properly formatted iso dates (or even just "date_year"). This way the template wouldn't have to worry about parsing multiple date formats and sanitizing issues to avoid breakage.