Messages

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General Software Discussion / Re: Collaborative timelines & timing plans - discussion

« on: May 21, 2010, 02:54 AM »

Hi, thanks for your response,

Ah yes, the old …time, it is a big subject.
And oddly enough that is one of the major headaches we have had to deal with when developing a generic time mapping application – how to ensure it works well over potential huge time periods and well as just a few days or even a couple of hours.
This is also a marketing problem too, how to market a generic application, without making it seem a ‘jack of all trades and a master of none’.

This is the main reason for not being overly enthusiastic about family history is there are many seemingly good bespoke applications in this sector. Will a generic product ever ‘cut the mustard’ against bespoke products?

In terms of marketing we are trying to find our niche, one which plays to our strengths…but this quest may not be helped by difficulty in finding pricing detail…D’oh

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General Software Discussion / Collaborative timelines & timing plans - discussion

« on: May 20, 2010, 09:26 AM »

Dear members,

I'm currently designing the conceptual spec of a new feature for my time planning and time logging software application -  collaborative authoring and editing of a common time project.
I'm interest in any real world 'Wants and Needs' people may have for this type of application.

Here's a couple of examples to give you an idea of how the feature could work.

Project manager of a large construction project maybe a hospital wing.
As the overall project manager you will have a number of timing plans (MS Project format) for each sub contractor, groundwork, builders, plumbers, electrical etc.
These separate plans are imported into a common file. This allows the whole project to be summarise with a simple hi level summary, maybe all milestones and critical path.  The individual plans can also be viewed in detailed in individual Views.

As a Historian I want to make a timeline of the major events in the second world war.
This topic is too big for one author so I want to break the topic into a number of chunks, War in Europe, War in Far East, War in Middle East, Nautical war etc.
Each author researches and creates a timeline of their subject. These are then imported into a common file, and can again be summarised in one View with drill down detail for the individual sectors.

Any thoughts and ideas on this style of collaborative authoring?

Thanks

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General Software Discussion / Re: Timeline Software

« on: August 26, 2009, 04:41 AM »

Primary function of timeline software
As a author of a timeline creation application the ‘Primary function for timeline software’ is broad; from my understanding of users of my products they range from archaeology students using it for their studies right through to a project manager of oil rig manufactures keeping a project long snag log.
 
I do know of a number of my users doing family history projects, if this is your area of interest.

One of the biggest problem with timeline software as a whole is that time is a big subject (to say the least!!!) and the potential timelines which users want to create will be incredibly diverse. Meaning you could end up using a genetic tool for a bespoke application.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Timeline Software

« on: August 14, 2009, 11:32 AM »

Ampa,

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I’m the Author of the Timeline Studio’s timeline software as mentioned by Hefty Hippie.
Although this was not our primary goal when we developed our software, it does make a pretty good job of the type of documentation you’ve described.
There is a example of Barack Obama’s lifeline on our website it might be worth a look and / or downloading the example file.
The file is much richer in terms of content than the web images. (You will also need the software as we do use proprietary file formats).

http://www.timelinestudio.co.uk

The main advantage of using our software for this type of task is that you can create a multi-layered timeline with different Views for the different aspects of your life, e.g., you can have a overall summary and then in-depth views of education, career, family, holidays etc

I hope this has been of help and not too much of a sale push.