How to use Calendar and Timeline View

Overview | Tutorial | Use Cases | Things to Note | Terms and explanations

Overview

The calendar view allows you to view RDF Calendar data.

Tutorial

The examples in this tutorial should be done in the order they are listed.

1. Viewing data in calendar and timeline view
2. Navigating
3. Choosing number of event summaries to display per day
4. Viewing all event summaries in a given day
5. Viewing details of an event in outliner view

Viewing data in calendar and timeline view

1. Expand the node The tabulator project, the top node in the outline view. screenshot
2. Click on the blue circle next to Semantic Web Coordination Group plan includes calendar info. Once the blue circle turns green (possible transitioning to a yellow circle before it does), expand the Semantic Web Coordination Group plan includes calendar info node. screenshot1, screenshot2
3. In the expanded Semantic Web Coordination Group plan includes calendar info node, one of the field names should be mentionsClass, and the field value corresponding to that field name should be VCALENDAR.
   (If you do not see that field name or field value, expand and collapse Semantic Web Coordination Group plan includes calendar info a few times (mentionsClass is an inferred, not explicit) until you do see them.)
4. Expand the VCALENDAR field. screenshot
5. Let "FV" be the field value of is type of. FV is a blank node of type VCALENDAR.
   Expand FV. screenshot
6. In the expanded FV, there is a field name component. The field value contains components of Vcalendar FV. The predicate/field name component is relevant to calendar view. You'll note that there is a little clock icon by the component predicate.
   Select the component field name by clicking on it once. The field name should turn green. screenshot
7. For Calendar View: Select the Calendar tab in the tabbed container. You should see an empty calendar of the current month. screenshot
   For Timeline View: Select the Timeline tab in the tabbed container. You should see an empty timeline centered on the current month. screenshot
8. Click the "View and Save Current Query" button below the outliner view (above the tabbed container). In both calendar and timeline view, if there are no events in the current month and year, you'll need to navigate to another month in the calendar to view the events. Continue to example 2, Navigating. Calendar View screenshot, Timeline View screenshot.

Navigating

For Calendar View:


a. Click on the blue left arrow (previous month) or the blue right arrow (next month) until you are at November 2006.

OR

b. Navigate with the "goto" button. Click on "( show Calendar Navigation Form )", along the top of the Calendar View. Input "2006" (without the quotes) in the text field that is after the text "Year:". Then select November from the combo box after the text "Month:". screenshot Click the "goto" button to go to November 2006. Continue to example 3 of the tutorial.

c. << first event, < previous event month, (month with most events), next event month >, last event >> take you only to months with events in them. Try clicking (month with most events) and see if it takes you to November 2006, which may be the month with the most events. Click < previous event month or next event month > until you are at November 2006.

For Timeline View:

Pan the timeline by dragging it horizontally. For more information about timeline view, see also Simile.

Choosing number of event summaries to display per day

For Calendar View:
1. Select a value that is 2 or greater from the combo box. (The combo box is in the form that can be accessed by clicking on "( show Calendar Navigation Form )", along the top of the Calendar View.) You should see all the event summaries for the month of November 2006, and there are no collapse icons anywhere in the calendar view. screenshot
2. Click on the combo box in front of the text 'events per day'. Select "0" from the values that drop down. You can see that there are events from 2006-11-04 to 2006-11-10. There are two events each on 2006-11-05 and 2006-11-06. The calendar month view should show no event summaries. screenshot (Continue)

Viewing all event summaries in a given day

For Calendar View:
1. Click on 2 more events on day 2006-11-05. You should see 2 event summaries for that day. screenshot
2. Click on the "Display All Events" link on the top of the calendar view. You should be able to see all the event summaries in this month. screenshot
3. Click on the "Collapse All Events" link. The calendar month view should once more show no event summaries. screenshot

Viewing details of an event in outliner view

For Calendar View:
1. Expand 2006-11-05 to display all event summaries by clicking on 2 more events.
2. Double-click on the event summary "ISWC 2006".
3. ISWC 2006 is a blank node, and it should now be refocussed in the Tabulator outliner view. screenshot1 , screenshot2

Use Cases

1. Viewing data in calendar view
2. Navigating
3. Choosing number of event summaries to display per day
4. Viewing all event summaries in a given day
5. Viewing details of an event in outliner view

Viewing data in calendar view

Example

1. Find one instance of the property you are looking for and select it by clicking on the field name (not the field value). To select or deselect multiple field names, hold down the Alt key. Field names are also known as predicates.

The method for selecting information to view in the calendar view is similar to that of the Tabulator table view. However, not all predicates are relevant to calendar view. Below is a list of predicates that are relevant to calendar view.

• component of Vcalendar
• Vevent
• dtstart
• dtend
• any date predicate with ISO 8601 format
Predicates relevant to calendar view are marked by a clock icon:

2. Select the Calendar tab in the tabbed container and click "View and Save Current Query". A calendar view of the current month should appear below the button.

Navigating

Example

You can navigate with any of the following methods:

a. Navigating with left and right blue arrow buttons. Clicking on the left arrow button takes you to the previous month. Clicking on the right arrow button takes you to the next month.

b. Navigating with "goto" button. Click on "( show Calendar Navigation Form )", along the top of the Calendar View. This will show a form with options for navigating the calendar and choosing how many event summaries to show on each day. Input the year you want to go to in the text field after the text "Year:". The Year text field only accepts positive integers of up to 6 digits. Then select the month you want to go to from the combo box after the text "Month:". Click the "goto" button.

c. << first event, < previous event month, (month with most events), next event month >, last event >> take you only to months with events in them.

Choosing number of event summaries to display per day

Example

Each cell of the calendar month view may contain any number of events. If every event summary of the current month were expanded in the calendar, the calendar view can be very cluttered; therefore, only a limited number of event summaries are shown in each cell of the calendar month view.

To adjust the number of event summaries shown per day, click on the combo box in front of the text 'events per day'. Select the number you want from the values that drop down. Upon selecting, the current calendar month view will update to reflect your changes. Your changes will hold when you navigate to another month.

Viewing all event summaries in a given day

Example

The number of event summaries to display per day is set by the "event per day" combo box. If not all of the summaries of events in a given day are displayed, there will be a link below the currently displayed event summaries with the text "n more events", where n is a positive integer.

Clicking on the "n more events" link will display all the event summaries on that day, and add a new link with the icon for "collapse" above the displayed summaries. Clicking on the "collapse" link will "collapse" the event summaries such that not all of them are displayed (only the earliest few events of the day are displayed).

At the top of the calendar view, there are two links: "Collapse All Events" and "Display All Events". When "Collapse All Events" is clicked, the event summaries in each day of the current month in view will be collapsed. When "Display All Events" is clicked, every event summary in all the days of the current month in view will be visible.

Viewing details of an event in outliner view

Example

Double-click an event summary in the calendar view to refocus on that event in the outliner view

Things to Note

• The events in a given day are ordered by their starting time (dtstart or whatever date data they have). Events that do not specify a starting time (they only have a starting date) will be ordered as if they started at the very beginning of the day.
• The events in the calendar view are filtered for duplicates. (If you try to view multiple calendars that contain overlapping events, there will not be multiple copies of the event in the calendar view.)
• Events are loaded into the calendar view dynamically. When a new event is loaded into a day cell, the day cell is updated so that it is in the collapsed state (see Viewing all event summaries in a given day for more information on "collapse")
• If an event (VEVENT) does not have a start time (DTSTART), the event is not added to the calendar view.
• If an event has multiple start (DTSTART) or end (DTEND) times, only one start time and end time will be used. The start time or end time used is not guaranteed to be the first or last time; the first time found when querying will be used.

Terms and explanations