[HN Gopher] Show HN: Markwhen: Markdown for Timelines
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Show HN: Markwhen: Markdown for Timelines
Author : koch
Score : 224 points
Date : 2022-06-20 14:39 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (markwhen.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (markwhen.com)
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| Good job! Would like to see it as an independent file format and
| tools like external editor support and cli compiler (to
| html/pdf/svg etc.)
| Zhyl wrote:
| Seconding this. I'd love to use this tool, but ideally I want
| to be editing in the text editor/IDE of my choice and then to
| be able to own the viewer offline. This would be especially
| important for actual project management as employers/clients
| don't tend to allow you to use online tools and that's what I'd
| most likely be using this for.
| trenchgun wrote:
| Thirding this.
|
| Ideally this would be an emacs package.
| captbaritone wrote:
| Looks similar to Mermaid-js's Gantt chart support:
| https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/gantt
|
| Once nice thing about Mermaid is it's built into [GitHub's
| markdown](https://github.blog/2022-02-14-include-diagrams-
| markdown-fil...) and has support in Notion
| prepend wrote:
| This looks neat. I wish it used iso8601 [0] dates. It's pretty
| convenient as the time periods uses the format YYYY-MM-DD/YYYY-
| MM-DD and I think is easier to mentally parse than MM/DD/YYYY-
| MM/DD/YYYY.
|
| Of course I didn't even know what a solidus ("/") was until using
| iso8601.
|
| Also, I usually find standards pretty much as overhead, but 8601
| seems pretty good as a universal standard.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
| koch wrote:
| Yeah, so long form 8601 are supported
|
| `2022-08-02T23:00:00.000Z - 2022-08-03T00:00:00.000Z: Event`
|
| but in general I do need to figure out a way to allow more
| customizable date parsing.[0]
|
| [0]https://github.com/kochrt/markwhen/issues/27
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I would definitely like to use YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD, ideally
| without any additional configuration required.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| > It's pretty convenient as the time periods uses the format
| YYYY-MM-DD/YYYY-MM-DD and I think is easier to mentally parse
| than MM/DD/YYYY-MM/DD/YYYY
|
| Especially for those outside the USA!
| thedougd wrote:
| In life I use the latter, but on computers I try to
| exclusively use the former. YYYY-MM-DD sorts the same
| lexicographically or chronologically.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| As someone who grew up in the US, it's still bizarre as a
| programmer to have a mixed-significance ordering (MM-DD-YYYY)
| instead of any consistently-endian ordering (DD-MM-YYYY or
| YYYY-MM-DD).
|
| Out of curiosity, in what order do Europeans _verbally_ say
| full dates with month names? Or does it vary by language?
| irrational wrote:
| These replies are fascinating. When saying a date I always
| say month day year. I hadn't considered that this might be
| cultural.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| As an American, same. I was wondering where the weird
| month-first came from and figured it might have been
| verbal first, then codified in writing.
| irrational wrote:
| At first I wondered if it had something to do with word
| order in English, but it sounds like other English
| speaking countries don't follow this pattern.
| frutiger wrote:
| I moved to the US from the UK a little over 10 years ago.
|
| The numeric month and day of my birthday happen to be the
| same. For this anecdote lets assume it's 01/01/1970.
|
| When medical staff ask me for my date of birth, I'll say
| "1st Jan 1970". They'll reply asking "Sorry, Jan 1st?"
| And I'll say "yeah". This blew my (programmer) mind.
|
| Over the years I've rewired my brain to say "Jan 1st
| 1970" and avoid the extra round trip.
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| Germanic (Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian)
| languages just say "10 october", they'd never say "October
| 10th". Before we get our 'english is so stupid!!!' hat on,
| in many of these (e.g. Dutch and German), the number '87'
| is pronounced 'seven-and-eighty' ('zevenentachtig' - 'zeven
| en tachtig' - seven and eighty), which is stupid. Languages
| are weird).
|
| Same for the romance ones: It's just "Quatorze juillet" -
| 14th of July (Bastille day).
|
| English is the weird one, but not that weird, "7th of
| october" is not much more complicated to say than "October
| 7th".
| codetrotter wrote:
| European here. When I state my date of birth I state it as
| "7th of October 1990".
|
| When a date is within the current year I state it as for
| example "27th of June".
|
| If weekday matters, and specific date is still relevant
| I'll say for example "Monday 27th of June".
|
| I might also simply say "Sunday last week", "Monday next
| week", "Monday at the end of next month", etc.
|
| Likewise I might say "a couple of weeks ago", "last week",
| "a few days ago", "in under two weeks", etc.
|
| Depends on context.
|
| When including a date in a file name I prefer YYYY-MM-DD
| for date.
|
| When using dates in a directory hierarchy I'll have years
| on the top level, with months within them and dates within
| those.
|
| Sometimes I might use a format like YYYY-mm-ddTHHMMz_s in a
| file name. For example
| "something_2022-06-20T1722+0000_1655745728_more_text.tbz"
| elromulous wrote:
| Where in Europe? I imagine this might vary by language /
| region. And could even differ in official use vs
| vernacular.
|
| And ofc, the mixed order is the inferior option.
| mtoddsmith wrote:
| YYYY-DD-MM as a folder / filename does not sort
| correctly. Not a fan.
|
| I much prefer YYYY-MM-DD for its sorting behavior.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Sorry, that was a typo. I meant to say YYYY-MM-DD. Edited
| now.
| garmain wrote:
| In German, Dutch I'll use "twenty June twenty-twentytwo".
| In English "twentieth of June twenty-twentytwo
| blowski wrote:
| There isn't a standard. Most individuals don't have a
| consistent standard, let alone languages.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| It varies by _context_ : sometimes I'll say "20th June",
| sometimes "June 20th". There's no rhyme or reason.
| lawn wrote:
| In Sweden we say 20th June, 2022 and we even use a "DD/MM
| -YY" shorthand when signing documents for instance,
| although YYYY-MM-DD is also common and "the more correct".
| ulkis wrote:
| Except on food where EU mandates DD-MM-YY(YY).
| kseistrup wrote:
| Denmark: The Nth $month $year. E.g., "Den 20. juni 2022"
| (lit.: the 20th June 2022).
| karencarits wrote:
| The same applies to Norway
| jiehong wrote:
| It does vary by language, but Roman languages (French,
| Spanish, Italian, etc.) say the 4th of July.
|
| Same in German.
|
| In Polish, it's the same, except for official matters since
| 2002, which now follows ISO8601.
|
| Even in the UK they commonly say the 5th of May, and not
| May, the 5th (but it does happen).
|
| I can't talk about other languages.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| > not May, the 5th (but it does happen)
|
| The only time I see this is in the UK is on movie
| posters/trailer, e.g. "In cinemas May 5th", which I
| assume is due to re-using the US material.
|
| PS: 5th of May is a degenerate example, since it's 05/05
| regardless of ordering
|
| PPS: 5th of May is also my birthday ;)
| cheeaun wrote:
| Really awesome to see this evolving to this stage :)
| koch wrote:
| I'm glad you're here to see it!
|
| So cheeaun here posted his life timeline project[0] 9 years ago
| (!) to hacker news[1] and I always thought it was pretty neat.
| I made a tool to make timelines like that and it has since
| evolved into markwhen.
|
| [0] https://github.com/cheeaun/life [1]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6833565
| trenchgun wrote:
| Fcuking hell, this looks good!
| EGreg wrote:
| How about a markdown for any hierarchical info?
|
| And diffing to know what changed on git etc.
| NathHorrigan wrote:
| This is very cool! Awesome job!
| jzig wrote:
| Very interesting. Why is there work inside of the education
| sections of the life timeline? In the project planning example, I
| could see it being useful to have something like $ref references
| from Swagger to e.g. reference a duration from a project group
| into the overall section.
| koch wrote:
| There are relative dates, so you can refer to previous events
| when defining new ones: https://markwhen.com/docs#relative-
| dates
| lootsauce wrote:
| This is awesome! I want to see other tools like this. I dream of
| a project management system that is text based and lives in your
| codebase seems we are pretty close with this. Planning (this),
| comments / descriptions (markdown), identity / people (??),
| tickets (??) Anyone know of something like this?
| aloisdg wrote:
| Nice. It is open source?
| koch wrote:
| https://github.com/kochrt/markwhen is about a month behind the
| live website.
|
| The upstream repo that the live site uses is available to
| sponsors.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| License says yes.
|
| https://github.com/kochrt/markwhen/blob/main/LICENSE
|
| > kochrt/markwhen is licensed under the GNU Affero General
| Public License v3.0
| Dangeranger wrote:
| Very cool! One suggestion, this is not Markdown, this is plain
| text for timelines.
|
| Don't be afraid to distinguish your tool from its inspirations.
| [deleted]
| yucelfaruksahan wrote:
| wow very cool, light mode can be also cool
| scrollaway wrote:
| Hat tip to a fellow follower of CGP Grey's yearly themes :)
| pxeger1 wrote:
| Clicking and dragging doesn't seem to work for me. Firefox
| 102.0b8, Linux
| pluc wrote:
| Someone at Microsoft please please buy/license/implement this for
| GitHub projects.
| darknavi wrote:
| Elsewhere someone said Mermaid is supported already by GitHub:
|
| https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/gantt
| renanwilliam wrote:
| I like it! very pretty and useful. I really needed for something
| like that for commercial proposals. Nice work
| Slix wrote:
| This is an excellent landing page that immediately draws my
| attention and shows why I'd want to use this. This is a great
| example of how a landing page can demonstrate a tool quickly.
| wortelefant wrote:
| This would enable a much appreciated Obsidian plugin, it seems a
| natural fit
| ytechie wrote:
| Obsidian supports Mermaid charts. I've used that for this type
| of chart before, to plan a trip.
| boomskats wrote:
| While the Gantt in Mermaid is decent, this would be far, far
| superior as a bidirectional plugin (i.e capable of both
| visualisation and editing the original markdown).
|
| I'd happily pay for this as an Obsidian plugin.
| bombledmonk wrote:
| Anyone ever run across anything like this with a simple syntax
| that can do a timeline with split AND merges? I've always wanted
| something like the linux timeline [1] as an interactive timeline
| that can both split and merge.
|
| [1]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Di..
| .
| zaep wrote:
| I'm working on an MIT-licensed time-tracking tool in my spare
| time and I'm hoping somebody (in a "this is not legal
| advice"-capacity at least) can enlighten me on licensing here:
|
| If I am understanding the AGPL-3.0 correctly (and assuming that
| the format is also under the license), I could NOT add an "export
| to Markwhen" feature to my project without then being forced to
| convert it to AGPL-3.0. Is this correct?
| koch wrote:
| In addition to what others have said, I personally would love
| to see people using the format, so please go ahead!
|
| I'd be interested to see what you're working on!
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| No, nobody can copyright a file format
| ethanwillis wrote:
| This, similarly you could copy(reimplement) the entire API
| for this software if you wish with some caveats.
| laurent123456 wrote:
| Can the renderer be used separately to embed in other editors?
| koch wrote:
| Not right now, but it's something I've been thinking about, in
| addition to separating the parser out
|
| https://github.com/kochrt/markwhen/issues/32
| koch wrote:
| I've been working on markwhen as a way to easily create timelines
| just from text.
|
| I've used it personally to help plan and coordinate my own
| wedding (https://markwhen.com/rob/wedding) and for keeping track
| of life events, and I've seen it used for event planning, project
| management, and to visualize historical events or periods of
| time.
|
| I personally like tools that let you immediately start using
| them, and I set out to do that here with markwhen.
|
| Let me know if you have any questions!
| mholt wrote:
| Very cool. Some great ideas here as I build a visualizer for
| Timeliner [0] (effectively its successor, Timelinize [1]) in my
| spare time!
|
| Did you build the timeline UI yourself? Can it be used as a
| library?
|
| [0]: https://github.com/mholt/timeliner
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/timelinize
| yawnxyz wrote:
| hope your dad recovered from his hospital visit!
| moasda wrote:
| Cool tool, thanks for sharing!
| majkinetor wrote:
| Fantastic. ISO8601 date is a must, otherwise, its delightful :)
| yashasolutions wrote:
| nice! i have been using a combination of org-mode / taskjuggler
| to produce gantt so far. Bit this looks nice and could be use for
| simpler use cases.
| account-5 wrote:
| I definitely can't use this, the date overhead is too much. I
| agree with the other commenter, YYYY-MM-DD is the way to go.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| If only this were a vertical timeline with a print-friendly
| format. Its great, but a guy can dream....
| koch wrote:
| Exporting to pdf/png does a good job of getting everything into
| view. Otherwise the 'doc' view (the third view option button in
| the bottom left corner) might be your best bet, it just
| displays a list
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Hey! Thanks for the workaround. Still, I second this feature
| request, and opened an issue in your repo.
|
| https://github.com/kochrt/markwhen/issues/35
|
| Awesome project. Thanks for sharing.
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(page generated 2022-06-20 23:00 UTC)