TIMELINE. Ordering of events

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I notice that events in the displayed time line do not necessarily follow
the order of the event in the XML files, and the wiki seems to confirm that
(http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/How_to_Create_Event_Source_Files "the order of
these [events] is unimportant.")

It would be great, if it could be possible to have control of events
appearance in the XML file. For example, if in the XML file I have:
<data ...>
   <event title="WP - 1" start="2006/07/03" end="2007/12/31"
isDuration="true"/>
   <event title="SWP - 1.1" start="2006/07/03" end="2007/12/31"
isDuration="true"/>
...
</data>

I would like to have a kind of attribute "order" on data element to said I
would like to see event "WP -1" display before "SWP - 1.1" in the timeline.

Hugues

[Submitted by hugues caubel on simile.mit.edu]

Original issue reported on code.google.com by GabrielR...@googlemail.com on 7 Apr 2009 at 2:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi,

I too have the similar requirement.
I am trying from past 3 days to have control in displaying the events in 
timeline 
band.
I am trying to display the events one by one in particular order based on date 
of 
event.
Example: I have some events like 

<data ...>
   <event title="SummaryTask" start="2009/05/03" end="2009/12/31"
isDuration="true"/>
   <event title="Task1" start="2009/05/03" end="2009/05/31"
isDuration="true"/>
   <event title="Task2" start="2009/06/01" end="2009/07/31"
isDuration="true"/>
   <event title="Task3" start="2009/07/01" end="2009/08/31"
isDuration="true"/>
   <event title="Task4" start="2009/08/01" end="2009/09/31"
isDuration="true"/>
...
</data>

the summary of above data is: Event "SummaryTask" consists of "Task1, Task2, 
Task3 
and Task4"....
In this situation.. i want to display "SummaryTask" as TapeBar first and then I 
want 
to display "Task1, Task2, Task3 and Task4" in date order one below each other...

Will it be possible with present TimeLine version to take control of displaying 
events on Band.. If it is possible. please let me know how can I do it?

Thanks very much in Advance,
Shyam.

Original comment by kothash...@gmail.com on 18 May 2009 at 7:24

[GoogleCodeExporter]

You can control which "track" an event is placed on by using the "trackNum" 
event
attribute. But that means that you will need to manually layout the events by
specifying their tracks.

A big advantages of the current event layout heuristic is that it is automatic. 
There
are no current plans to modify the heuristic. 

The reason is that it is a hard problem since the heuristic focuses on 
minimizing the
number of tracks that a set of events uses.

But you can write your own heuristic....and use it to automatically calculate 
your
events' trackNum attributes.

Original comment by larryklu...@gmail.com on 18 May 2009 at 5:14

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