Scott Hanselman

I've been exploring recently the amazing Timeline Javascript library from the SIMILE folks over at MIT.

What a joy to work with! I've not historically been a fan, by any means, of JavaScript. Of course, debugging it can be a hassle and the development process always feels very unstructured to me. Heh, probably a side-effect of the language, right?

Anyway, the API for the SIMILE Timeline is very well thought-out. It's very JavaScripty, to be clear, but it is even easier to pick up than the Google Maps API.

So easy, in fact, that I was able to add Timeline support to DasBlog over my lunch hour. Check it out at http://www.hanselman.com/blog/timeline.aspx. Try typing in the Highlight boxes, as shown in the screenshot above. Notice the highlighting in both bands of the timeline. I've checked the server-side TimelineHandler that creates the XML that Timelines consume into the head of the DasBlog tree.

Also, take a look at their "Exhibit" project. Maybe Web 2.0 will turn out something useful after all! :)

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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