Hi all,
At long last, we’re delighted to announce you can now render sparql queries using the Histropedia timeline engine \o/
Histropedia WikidataQuery Viewer http://histropedia.com/showcase/wikidata-viewer.html
Unlike the main Histropedia site this tool renders timelines with data directly from live Wikidata queries. It lets you map query variables to values used to render the timeline. A few notable extra features compared with the built in timeline view on the Wikidata query service:
*Precision* - You can render each event according to the precision of the date (as long as you add date precision to your query). It will default to day precision if you leave this out.
*Rank *– The events on the timeline have a rank defined by the order of your sparql query results. You can also choose a query variable to use for rank, but it’s not really needed if you use ORDER BY in your query to control the order of results. Higher ranked events are placed more prominently on the timeline.
*URL* – You can choose whichever URL you like from your query results, which will be opened in a new tab when you double click on an event on the timeline.
*Automatic colour code / filter* – You can choose any variable in your sparql query to use for colour coding and filtering. From what I could tell from the preview, this seems to be the same as the new map layers feature that is close to launch on the Wikidata Query service (which looks awesome by the way!)
Also similar to the ‘group by property’ feature on Magnus’ Listeria tool, but using an arbitrary variable from the sparql results instead of a Wikidata property.
*Some cool examples:*
Note: click on the droplet icon (top right) to see the colour code key and filter options
- Discoveries about planetary systems, colour coded by type of object http://tinyurl.com/zlqupz9 (only items with an image and discoverer) - Who's birthday is today? colour coded by country of citizenship http://tinyurl.com/hla7nqb - Oil paintings at the Louvre, colour coded by creator http://tinyurl.com/zu7cygv - Descendants of Alfred the Great, colour coded by religion, in Japanese http://tinyurl.com/h75utbg – Note: select ‘no value’ in the filter panel for a fun edit list of people missing religion statement :)
More examples on a dropdown list from the query input page http://www.histropedia.com/showcase/wikidata-viewer.html in the tool.
The tool has been created by myself and fellow Histropedia co-founder Sean using our newly released JavaScript library. We are only just learning to code, and it’s a very early stage app so please let me know if anything breaks!
You can find more info on the JS library (called HistropediaJS) on this announcement from the Histropedia mailing list https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/histropedia-i/5_9_nBqvMx0
Cheers!
Navino
Neat! It's always exciting to see awesome things like this built on top of the Wikidata Query Service.
One small piece of feedback: the timelines look quite blurry https://i.imgur.com/k56aeFD.png on my computer. Should I file this as a bug report somewhere? :-)
Thanks, and keep up the great work!
Dan
On 10 August 2016 at 12:49, Navino Evans navino@histropedia.com wrote:
Hi all,
At long last, we’re delighted to announce you can now render sparql queries using the Histropedia timeline engine \o/
Histropedia WikidataQuery Viewer http://histropedia.com/showcase/wikidata-viewer.html
Unlike the main Histropedia site this tool renders timelines with data directly from live Wikidata queries. It lets you map query variables to values used to render the timeline. A few notable extra features compared with the built in timeline view on the Wikidata query service:
*Precision* - You can render each event according to the precision of the date (as long as you add date precision to your query). It will default to day precision if you leave this out.
*Rank *– The events on the timeline have a rank defined by the order of your sparql query results. You can also choose a query variable to use for rank, but it’s not really needed if you use ORDER BY in your query to control the order of results. Higher ranked events are placed more prominently on the timeline.
*URL* – You can choose whichever URL you like from your query results, which will be opened in a new tab when you double click on an event on the timeline.
*Automatic colour code / filter* – You can choose any variable in your sparql query to use for colour coding and filtering. From what I could tell from the preview, this seems to be the same as the new map layers feature that is close to launch on the Wikidata Query service (which looks awesome by the way!)
Also similar to the ‘group by property’ feature on Magnus’ Listeria tool, but using an arbitrary variable from the sparql results instead of a Wikidata property.
*Some cool examples:*
Note: click on the droplet icon (top right) to see the colour code key and filter options
- Discoveries about planetary systems, colour coded by type of object
http://tinyurl.com/zlqupz9 (only items with an image and discoverer)
- Who's birthday is today? colour coded by country of citizenship
- Oil paintings at the Louvre, colour coded by creator
- Descendants of Alfred the Great, colour coded by religion, in
Japanese http://tinyurl.com/h75utbg – Note: select ‘no value’ in the filter panel for a fun edit list of people missing religion statement :)
More examples on a dropdown list from the query input page http://www.histropedia.com/showcase/wikidata-viewer.html in the tool.
The tool has been created by myself and fellow Histropedia co-founder Sean using our newly released JavaScript library. We are only just learning to code, and it’s a very early stage app so please let me know if anything breaks!
You can find more info on the JS library (called HistropediaJS) on this announcement from the Histropedia mailing list https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/histropedia-i/5_9_nBqvMx0
Cheers!
Navino
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
Hi Navino!
Thank you for your awesome work!
Since this has caused some confusion again recently, I want to caution you about a major gotcha regarding dates in RDF and JSON: they use different conventions to represent years BCE. I just updated our JSON spec to reflect that reality, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/DataModel/JSON#time.
There is a lot of confusion about this issue throughout the linked data web, since the convention changed between XSL 1.0 (which uses -0044 to represent 44 BCE, and -0001 to represent 1 BCE) and XSL 1.1 (which uses -0043 to represent 44 BCE, and +0000 to represent 1 BCE). Our JSON uses the traditional numbering (1 BCE is -0001), while RDF uses the astronomical numbering (1 BCE is +0000).
Yay, fun.
Am 10.08.2016 um 21:49 schrieb Navino Evans:
Hi all,
At long last, we’re delighted to announce you can now render sparql queries using the Histropedia timeline engine \o/
Histropedia WikidataQuery Viewer http://histropedia.com/showcase/wikidata-viewer.html
Yay, fun indeed! I can see all of the BCE dates are out by one on the timeline, will get that fixed.
Thanks a lot for updating the JSON spec and filling me in on the details, that's cleared a few things up :-)
On 11 Aug 2016 12:40, "Daniel Kinzler" daniel.kinzler@wikimedia.de wrote:
Hi Navino!
Thank you for your awesome work!
Since this has caused some confusion again recently, I want to caution you about a major gotcha regarding dates in RDF and JSON: they use different conventions to represent years BCE. I just updated our JSON spec to reflect that reality, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/DataModel/JSON#time.
There is a lot of confusion about this issue throughout the linked data web, since the convention changed between XSL 1.0 (which uses -0044 to represent 44 BCE, and -0001 to represent 1 BCE) and XSL 1.1 (which uses -0043 to represent 44 BCE, and +0000 to represent 1 BCE). Our JSON uses the traditional numbering (1 BCE is -0001), while RDF uses the astronomical numbering (1 BCE is +0000).
Yay, fun.
Am 10.08.2016 um 21:49 schrieb Navino Evans:
Hi all,
At long last, we’re delighted to announce you can now render sparql
queries
using the Histropedia timeline engine \o/
Histropedia WikidataQuery Viewer http://histropedia.com/showcase/wikidata-viewer.html
-- Daniel Kinzler Senior Software Developer
Wikimedia Deutschland Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Wikidata mailing list Wikidata@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
On 11.08.2016 13:40, Daniel Kinzler wrote:
Hi Navino!
Thank you for your awesome work!
Since this has caused some confusion again recently, I want to caution you about a major gotcha regarding dates in RDF and JSON: they use different conventions to represent years BCE. I just updated our JSON spec to reflect that reality, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/DataModel/JSON#time.
There is a lot of confusion about this issue throughout the linked data web, since the convention changed between XSL 1.0 (which uses -0044 to represent 44 BCE, and -0001 to represent 1 BCE) and XSL 1.1 (which uses -0043 to represent 44 BCE, and +0000 to represent 1 BCE). Our JSON uses the traditional numbering (1 BCE is -0001), while RDF uses the astronomical numbering (1 BCE is +0000).
Is this still true? We have discussed this at length over a year ago [1] and there is really not much complication or "fun" about this. It is actually quite simple: the whole world has agreed on using +0000 to mean 1 BCE in technical contexts. It's just nicer to calculate with.
In particular, the JSON export is at odds with JavaScript itself (!), which also treats year +0000 as 1 BCE, or course:
http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/6.0/#sec-extended-years
Besides JavaScript, the exact same convention is used by ISO 8601, XML Schema, RDF, SPARQL, and in other programming languages that support BCE dates, such as Java (see SimpleDateFormat class).
Can we file a bug against the current JSON export to have this fixed? It would be very good if our JSON would agree with ISO, W3C, JavaScript, our own RDF export, and all astronomers ;-)
This would affect users of BCE dates, such as Histropedia, so it would be good if any users of such dates could comment on what they prefer.
Cheers,
Markus