Timeline

Put history in order. You enter the events and their dates; visitors put them in the right order - all at once, or one card at a time into a growing timeline - and the best go top of the leaderboard. Timeline is a Pro Tool, and can be gifted to a site.

What it does

• Events with dates. Each event is a card: a title and a date - just a year (1969), a month and year (July 1969) or a full date (20 July 1969). BC years work too (44 BC), as far back as you like (13,800,000,000 BC for the Big Bang).
• Words shown afterwards and a picture on each card, if you want them.
• Two ways to play:
  • Sort - every card is dealt at once. Players drag them into order and send it once.
  • Place - one card starts the timeline, then the rest come one at a time. Players put each card in a gap. A wrong place costs a life, and the card goes where it really belongs.
• A fresh deal every go. Each go draws a number of cards from all your events and shuffles them, so with more events than cards every go is different.
• Nobody can peek. The dates stay on the server. A card reaches the visitor's browser with its title and picture only; its date (and its words) arrive only when it is placed, or at the end if you allow it (see Show the dates) - not even the page's code gives them away.
• Timing kept by the server. A tie on points goes to the faster time.
• Leaderboards for today, this week, this month and all time, best go per name.
• Optional time limit, opening and closing times, and a limit on goes per name.
• Works with a mouse, a finger or the keyboard, and tells screen reader users every move.
• Personal best on the finished screen, which cards were right (or the whole answer, if you choose), and a Share button.

Getting started

1. Switch Timeline on in Tools.
2. Open Tools > Games > Timeline and choose New game.
3. Give it a title, then enter the events (see below). Ten to twenty events make a good game.
4. Press Test and play it yourself.
5. Set the status to Open and save.
6. Put it on any page:

[timeline-game id="space-race" /]

Entering the events

Each row is one event:

• Date - type it the way you would write it: 1969, July 1969, 20 July 1969, 1969-07-20, 20/07/1969, 44 BC, 15 March 44 BC, AD 79. Under the box the editor says what it read (= 20 July 1969), or what is wrong with it.
• Title - what happened. Keep it short enough to read at a glance.
• More opens two extras: a few words shown afterwards (a fact about the event, shown once the card is placed) and a picture from Media, with a description for players who use a screen reader.

Paste a list… adds many at once: one event a line, the date, a hyphen with a space either side, then the title:

1969 - The first Moon landing
July 1914 - The First World War starts
44 BC - Julius Caesar is killed

Columns copied from a spreadsheet work too (date, title, and the words shown afterwards). Lines it cannot read are listed so you can fix them.

Sort by date puts the rows in date order. The order of the rows does not matter to players: every go is shuffled.

Two rules keep every game fair:

• Every two events must be in a definite order. Two events in 1969 need a month each (or a full date), and "1969" and "July 1969" cannot both be in one game - nobody could say which came first. The editor tells you which two to change.
• No two events may have the same title.

A tip: a picture's address is not secret - anyone can read it. Call the file moon.jpg, not moon-landing-1969.jpg. The editor warns you when a picture's address has a number in it that looks like a year.

Settings for each game

The game

• Title, Short name (used in the shortcode; made from the title when empty), Status (Draft, Open or Closed), Introduction (shown before the game starts), Opens and Closes (optional).
• Only an Open game can be played on a page. It needs at least 4 events, and every picture must be in Media.

How it is played

• Mode - Sort or Place (above).
• Cards a go - how many events each go is dealt, 3 to 30, drawn at random from all of them.
• Lives - Place only: how many wrong places a player may make before the go ends. 0 means no lives: every card is played.
• Show the dates - what players see, and so what they could pass on (or learn under a made-up name and then play perfectly):
  • As each card is placed (the usual choice) - in Place, a card shows its date and words as soon as it is on the timeline, which helps with the next one; a card still in hand when the time runs out is not shown. In Sort, the finished screen shows the player's own order with each card marked right or wrong - no dates and not the right order. A perfect Sort go sees everything.
  • At the end - nothing while playing (a harder Place game), then the whole answer at the end: every card in its right place, with its date and words. Sort shows the right order to everyone who finishes, so anyone could learn the answer with one go - best for a game played for fun or for learning.
  • Never - no dates or words at all. A Sort go shows only the points.

Points

• Sort - one point for each card in its right place, plus one for each card in the longest run in the right order. Two neighbours swapped still earn a lot; a perfect order is two points a card.
• Place - one point for each card placed right.

Rules and leaderboard

• Time limit (minutes) - 0 for none. In Sort, when the time runs out the order is sent as it stands. In Place, the go ends and the cards placed so far count.
• Goes each (per name) - 0 for as many as they like.
• Leaderboard size and Leaderboard opens on (which period it shows first).
• Show a leaderboard - most points, then the fastest time.
• Animations - cards pop in, a right place pulses, a wrong one shakes. Visitors who have asked their device for less motion (or switched on the site's Reduce motion) see none of it.

Settings for the Tool

The cog at the top of Timeline sets what a new game starts with: the mode, cards a go, lives, when the dates show, the time limit, the leaderboard and animations. Each game keeps its own copy, so changing these never changes a game already made.

How players play

• Sort - drag a card up or down with the mouse or a finger. With the keyboard: Tab to a card, Space picks it up, the up and down arrows move it, Space puts it down (Escape puts it back). That's my order sends it.
• Place - drag the card into a gap on the timeline, or tap a gap's Put it here. With the keyboard: focus the card, Space picks it up, the arrows choose a gap, Space puts it there.

A reload carries on where the player was; the clock keeps running.

Testing a game

Test (in the editor, on each game in the list, and on its Plays screen) opens the game right there, exactly as your players see it.

• It plays the version you last saved. With unsaved changes the button says Save and test, and saves first.
• It works whatever the status.
• A test go is never saved to the leaderboard, is not in the Plays list, does not count towards goes per name and raises no notification. When you finish, it tells you where you would have come.

Shortcodes

[timeline-game id="space-race" /]

The game, with its leaderboard below it. (Plain [timeline]...[/timeline] with [event] inside is the site's own timeline display, not this game.)

[timeline-game id="space-race" board="hide" /]
[timeline-game id="space-race" board="only" /]

board="hide" leaves the leaderboard out; board="only" shows the leaderboard on its own.

[timeline-game-leaderboard id="space-race" period="week" limit="5" title="This week's best" /]

A leaderboard on its own. period is today, week, month or all (left out: the game's own setting); limit is how many rows; title is the heading.

Plays and leaderboards

Plays (on each game) lists every go, newest first, with its points and time. Hide takes a play off the leaderboard without deleting it; Show puts it back. Reset the leaderboard deletes every play of that game.

The Timeline entry in the sidebar shows how many goes were finished today.

Notifications

• Timeline new top scores (on by default) - someone has gone top of a game's leaderboard.
• Timeline perfect games (off by default) - someone put every card in the right place.

Switch them on or off in your notification settings.

Moving games between sites

Export a game from its menu in the list (right-click it, or the ⋮), or from the download button at the top of its editor. Export all puts every game in one file. The file holds the events and settings - never who played.

Pictures travel as references to Media, not as the picture files. Copy the pictures into the other site's Media too (same folders and names).

Import… at the top of the list adds the games in a file to this site:

• Each arrives as a draft with no plays, and every date is read again.
• A picture this site's Media does not have is named in the message and marked in the editor. Upload it to Media, or choose another, before opening the game.
• A game whose short name is taken gets one of its own (space-race-2), so check the shortcode.
• One that is not valid is skipped, and the message says which and why. Up to 50 games at a time.

Gifting

Timeline is a Pro Tool that can also be gifted to a site, for good or for a number of days.