Show HN: Create a beautiful timeline with TimeKiwi

by mihar • 15 years ago

145 48 15 years ago

mihar11• 15 years ago

This was a weekend project and started as a proof of concept that a timeline can be created completely on the client side. That's why don't get fooled by the occasional choking of our kiwi squeezer, it's just the APIs that are unstable.

Depending on the feedback we'll receive, we also have a business version in the works.

bprater• 15 years ago

Would be nice to see a full page sample of what it looks like!

mihar11• 15 years ago

Agreed, it's really simple to create your own though.

mistermann• 15 years ago

Perhaps, I have no way of knowing without trying it, and I've been disappointed too many times before so I'll just pass.

Having a pre-existing demo would have been so easy for you, but I'm sure you knew that already.

mihar11• 15 years ago

I just added examples of companies and individuals on the front page. Good tip.

garry• 15 years ago

Wow, honored to be on your homepage! Thanks. Can I claim my account? =)

tadruj4• 15 years ago

garry: no accounts, everything in a link, fully client side. But we'd be curious to see your Instagram connected, which only you can do.

davidu• 15 years ago

Nice UI -- The application doesn't move the needle for me, but it's certainly a nice looking service.

As an aside, I think one of the things people like about Facebook's timeline is the intelligence involved in deciding what to show and what not to show (and how it evolves over time).

mihar11• 15 years ago

It's true, but as this was a simple client-side only experiment I couldn't go into those depths. In the future, when the paid version is server-side we'll probably implement more intelligent aggregation, grouping and other stuff.

mieses2• 15 years ago

do you see any difference between a chronological log and a timeline?

tadruj4• 15 years ago

log being all things and timeline being important things ?

mieses2• 15 years ago

There is more to the time dimension than just chronology. The amount of time between events, the frequency of events, etc?

monkeygus• 15 years ago

pretty cool. nice ui , but it does react strangely when you hit the back button in the browser

mihar11• 15 years ago

Yep, it's one of those kinks we'll iron out as this goes into more serious use.

yogrish2• 15 years ago

Very neat UI. Love the feature of "Rotate" to view timline in both ways.. ..Does this app show data of prev 1 month. If so Period selection would be awesome. My fav.time line till now: http://37signals.com/about

drac• 15 years ago

I really like the idea and UI, thanks for sharing.

Minor typo: Let it be investors, founders, owners or just jourself should be "yourself".

Shenglong• 15 years ago

Really awesome idea, it's gorgeous too.

dbz• 15 years ago

It looks like they liked the new Facebook timeline and put it on Twitter

user-id• 15 years ago

No kidding. This however has a lot more potential thanks to support for multiple sources. That said, I can see Facebook adding support to Timeline for content aggregation using other online services.

tadruj4• 15 years ago

We liked the Facebook timeline, but it felt a little claustrophobic.

mihar11• 15 years ago

Just shipped Posterous support.

navs• 15 years ago

I'm curious. Why the 'Kiwi' in TimeKiwi? Are you based in New Zealand?

tadruj4• 15 years ago

Low or non-existing SEO and a thing that everybody knows. No New Zealand, but we'd like to go there :)

zb• 15 years ago

Nobody from New Zealand would ever refer to a kiwifruit as a Kiwi ;)

alphakappa• 15 years ago

This is probably awesome, but it might be nice to show a few example timelines. I don't really want to fill out a bunch of fields before I understand what this is all about. Not just because I'm lazy, but also because it's in your interest to show me (and others) what this is about. Always assume that your visitors are itching to hit the 'back' button.

gokhan• 15 years ago

Check the bottom of the page for "Examples of People", "Examples of Companies".

Here's one:

http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#orientation=vertical,twitt...,

LeandroLovisolo• 15 years ago

Minor typo: "Timekiwi fetches activities from tiwtter".

pyrtsa• 15 years ago

Hmm, I think the months menu [1] that opens when you take the mouse to the bottom right corner should have months listed in the opposite order. It feels more logical to get the most recent months down, closest to the mouse cursor, and the least recent furthest up.

[1] http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#posterous=garry.posterous....

Edit: Ok, it might not feel that natural anymore with the scrolling behavior, since the timeline itself has time pointing upwards. How about moving the menu to the top?

mihar11• 15 years ago

Yep, also we were also thinking about the order in the horizontal version [1] to be reversed. What are your thoughts on that?

[1] http://timekiwi.com/timeline.html#orientation=horizontal,pos...,

epaga• 15 years ago

Nice! I'm curious - do you guys plan an API or something? Why I ask is I'm one of the devs of LineTime, an iPad/iPhone app which displays world history as a zoomable timeline. I could envision an app where people can view or download their own custom timelines using your data and our timeline visualization...

Anyhow, here's a demo video of LineTime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW__WZ6pxJ8 Shoot me an email if you're interested: john @ linetimeapp com

Edit: Just noticed the timeline stuff is created client-side only, so maybe it isn't as good a fit as I thought. Are you planning on enabling clients to store timeline info on a server and create their own timelines?

cedlimed• 15 years ago

sweet ui, would have loved a clickable scroller on both ends of the horizontal timeline though

mihar11• 15 years ago

Good tip, I was pretty struggling with providing some logical navigation in the horizontal mode.

I settled with some vertical-scroll translation to horizontal-scroll in order to facilitate people with mice with scroll-wheels...

alexkearns• 15 years ago

For a second, I thought you were referencing our app - http://www.tiki-toki.com !

chanux• 15 years ago

Yours is a neat app too. Kudos!

ordinathorreur• 15 years ago

Another timeline HN guy checking in here! I built http://www.timetoast.com a couple of years ago and I love seeing new timeline apps pop up. Good luck guys, they both look great :)

geekytenny• 15 years ago

It is nice.

swah• 15 years ago

Perhaps you guys could try auto-converting some Wiki articles (or a category page, like US Presidents) to generate content?

listic• 15 years ago

Interesting idea, beautiful timelines.

But I can't figure what goes on the left and what on the right. Vertical line implies those are two distinct types of information.

mihar11• 15 years ago

Hmm, vertical line was planned to be just a node, from out of which events in time grow out. That being said, there's no difference between left and right.

swiecki• 15 years ago

You jerks! Don't you dare tell me not to try it now. I saw that and thought, "Dammit I'm trying this immediately!"

graemem• 15 years ago

Your page says "Don't try it now", so I didn't.

freejack• 15 years ago

I would have tried to buy "timelime.com" - or maybe they did and had to settle for timekiwi.com

Either way, great looking app. Good luck.

itsnotvalid• 15 years ago

Can I put my facebook profile to this too? (the one in facebook seems to be broken)

mihar11• 15 years ago

Facebook connect is in the works, but it will likely require the server-side version.

kilian• 15 years ago

You can make those timelines instantly more cool by using oEmbeds, for example via http://embed.ly/ ;)

yogrish2• 15 years ago

what is the stack/web technologies you have used?

mihar11• 15 years ago

So as this was an experiment in client-side scripting and to see if I can create something viable just with that:

- HTML5 - CSS3 - JavaScript

Ok, I have to admit, I used a server-side proxy to convert RSS to JSONP. :) That one's a sinatra app.

kra• 15 years ago

Add support for more feeds, ideally a plain default for RSS/Atom, and I'll be excited to try it. I'm currently using http://memolane.com/.

Show HN: Create a beautiful timeline with TimeKiwi

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