What's New in yaap!

A running list of changes to yaap!, written for the people who use it. Newest changes are at the top. Each version is a release codename — one or more pope names followed by the version number in Roman numerals.

Dionysius XXXVII

New Highlights

• Share a public timeline with a link of its own.
• "Add many" can now also add what the search finds without a date.

New

• Box-shaped bars can now have a dashed or dotted border.
• A public timeline now has a web address of its own, to share with whoever you like. Set a timeline to public and save it, and its settings show you a link to copy. Setting it back to private pauses the link; make it public again and the same link works again.
• The "add many" dialog has a new option to also add what the search finds without a date. Those entries are listed by name in a sub-group of their own.
• The background of a group or sub-group title can now run across the whole width of the page.

Improved

• Typing a label — of an entry, a group or a sub-group — or a reference no longer redraws the whole timeline with every keystroke.
• The "add many" dialog's time range can now be set by hand.
• The reference box now opens over the side panel instead of behind it.
• Adding only birth and death from a search result now shows the lifespan to the month and day.
• Drawings now lie over the timeline by default and connections behind it; single ones can still be sent the other way.
• The reference box now carries a Wikipedia and a Wikidata symbol linking to the entry.
• The time measure is now a drawn bracket.
• The save button of the timeline settings says "Saved" for a moment after saving.
• When you move a group, a sub-group or an entry to the top or bottom edge of the window, the page now keeps scrolling.
• Branch-connection drawing improvements.
• Some more little things.

Fixed

• Opening the dialog "add many" on a date and choosing that date as the subject now searches for everything carrying the same property around that time, which simply did nothing before.
• Deleting the last entry on a row that still holds other entries no longer stops half-way; the entry that is left shows its label.
• Deleting an entry, an empty line, a sub-group or a group no longer passes its "bring to front" or "send to back" setting on to whatever moves up into its place.
• Connections leading to a deleted entry are now deleted with it. Before, they stayed in the timeline unseen and could not be removed.

Removed

• The two bar designs marked "Firefox only" are no longer offered, neither in the default style nor when styling a single entry, group or selection. Bars that already use them are still drawn as before.
• Time measures made before this release are no longer shown. It now is a bracket.

Julius XXXV

New

• Group and sub-group titles can now be styled.
• References can be loaded from Wikidata for a whole selection at once.
• Ctrl-click now picks drawn marks and connections as well as entries: the panel then holds a foldable section for each kind, and Delete removes everything picked.
• Press Key “+” to add a new date entry.
• Linking manually an entry to Wikidata has now a search function.
• Copy and paste with Ctrl C and Ctrl V.
• Export: pick the timeline's current width, or type a width of your own.

Improved

• Dropping one thing onto another to combine them now opens what it was dropped on.
• Enter now presses the button a window is there for.
• The date window takes the whole date in one field instead of three.
• A detail search now asks Wikidata only for the stretch of time it is about.
• “Add entry” no longer opens on a “--Please Choose--” line.
• Dragging one entry to another row now moves that entry alone, not the whole line.
• In a chart the values no longer sit on top of one another, on the lines or on the datapoints.
• The chart toggle is now also in the menu of a single value, so a chart can be folded back from any of its values.
• An exported picture writes its own texts — licence, author, source, picture credits, legend, time distances — in the timeline's language instead of the language of the buttons.
• Adding an item Wikidata knows no dates for now puts it on the timeline as an empty group, instead of leaving the timeline unchanged with nothing to say why. It carries the item's name and is there to be worked with: give it dates by hand, or drag entries onto it.
• Styling a whole group or sub-group in a multiple selection now reaches every time entry inside it.
• With several entries picked you can now set a date on all of them at once — the start, the end or the point in time. A picked group or sub-group sets it on every entry inside it.
• The Delete key removes what is selected.
• On wide screens the panel on the right now always stays open, so the timeline keeps its width.
• The small “G”, “g” and “L” at the left edge are easier to hit, especially on a touchscreen.
• Sections, buttons and tools now carry a symbol showing what they are about.
• Approximate dates are now marked “ca.” by default instead of “c.”. You can still put whatever you like in its place in the settings.
• On the timeline itself, the ‡ at the end of a label now shows the reference/comment when you rest on it — and a press holds it open, for touch.

Fixed

• The “ca.” of an entry a branch runs into is no longer printed over the entry the branch comes out of: it is set beside the start of the branch, in the nearest place clear of that entry.
• Two entries beginning at the same date are now joined edge to edge, the branch running smoothly into the side of the second one, instead of having nowhere to run.
• A branch drawn as a line takes the colour and thickness of the entry it leads into, instead of coming out black.
• Scrolling while moving items down works again.
• Entries that fade out no longer lay a white block over a drawing behind them.
• Pictures of entries at the very right no longer stick out over the edge of the timeline.
• Dropping a handful of picked entries onto the row of one of them now gathers them all onto that row. The row they were dropped on was travelling with the rest, so it was poured into itself and then cleared away with the others — and the entries were gone.
• Spaces at the beginning of a label are kept instead of being swallowed, so a label can be indented.
• A search that finds nothing now says so.
• Emptying the search field clears the hits of the word that was there before, instead of leaving them standing and adding another “no data” line each time.
• Logged out, “Add entry” showed two padlocks instead of one.
• An entry made by dragging two dates together carries the Wikidata statement of both of them, and looking up its reference now loads the sources of both instead of only the first one.
• Folding the general “Default style” section away in the settings no longer folds the style section of every entry away with it. The two are separate sections and are remembered separately now.
• Saving a timeline lets the selection go instead of keeping it picked.
• Dragging an entry onto an existing line works now even when the labels are switched off.
• Dates without a precision are no longer marked “circa” if set to do so.
• Deleting a time distance no longer leaves an empty group behind.

John Paul XXXIV

Highlights

• Dates can now have a precision, also loaded if available from Wikidata (for example year instead of day).
• Subgropus with at least 3 numerical values get ploted as chart
• Dates can now be marked as “circa” (approximate), just like in Wikidata, and shown that way on the timeline.
• References from Wikidata can now be loaded into the matching item.
• Pictures are now part of the export.

New

• Changelog: you can now see what’s new and what has changed in yaap!
• New setting (off by default): “also found in” can be optionally added (off becasue of performance issues)
• Sorting options in “My Timelines” to help you find a timeline faster.
• “What happened between” can now suggest:
  • Geography
    • Settlements and cities
  • Science
    • Astronomical events: solar and lunar eclipses, and notable comet appearances.
    • Inventions and discoveries.
  • Politics
    • Treaties signed.
    • Elections held.
    • Coronations that took place.
    • Assassinations that took place.
  • Economy
    • Companies founded.
  • Nature & disasters
    • Natural disasters (earthquakes, eruptions, floods, storms)
  • Culture and Art
    • Paintings and sculptures created.
    • Video games released.
    • Movies and TV series whose story is set in the timeline’s period.
• Setting “Indicate: has comment/reference” (off by default): shows a double-dagger/double-cross symbol at the end of an entry’s label when it has a reference or comment.
• Setting to choose a default date precision (minimum precision) and, if you like, add a “circa” label automatically for less precise dates.
• Setting what your circa lable shall be.
• Setting (on by default): when several birth or death dates exist, the timeline automatically keeps only the most likely one.
• Fields to describe your timelines and items: add tags and geo-tags, and record a source, an author, and a license.

Improved

• Manage an entry’s Wikidata links right in the edit dialog: every linked item and property is shown as a link, you can remove and if an entry has no link yet you can set a Wikidata key.
• Move items to combine them instead of overwriting: drop a group or subgroup onto an entry, drop a group onto a subgroup, or merge two single dates into one start–end entry. In every case both keep their own Wikidata links and pictures and take on the other’s — nothing is lost, and everything is shown together.
• More control when exporting a timeline: you can now include the references, and choose whether to show the author, the timeline source, the license, and the legend. Also change number of time-ticks.
• Number of ticks on the time axis — in the now step in doublings.
• Dragging one entry onto another to combine them now works with every kind of date.
• Adding an entry does no longer always initialise with “please choose”.
• The switch for showing the “circa” label is now also in the settings.
• Setting dates remembers last set date now

Fixed

• Item images now line up with their label on the timeline.
• When registering, a mistyped e-mail address is now pointed out right away.
• A new timeline no longer keeps the style of the previous one.
• Clicking a team or a match in the football tournaments (UEFA Euro 2024, FIFA World Cup 2026) adds it to the timeline again — nothing happened before.

Francis XXXIII

• Major improvements to retrieving data from Wikidata.
• Better calculation of timedistances

Martin XXXII

• Easier item moving: drop items onto lines, or merge two points in time into a single start–end entry.

Gregory Benedict John XXXI

• Improvements to selecting multiple items.
• New intro videos added where helpful.

Alexander XXIX

• Select multiple items at once.

Clement XXVI

• Reworked the styling feature.

Leo XXIV

• Export timelines as images.

IV to XXIII: The Dark Ages

• Lots of work happened here, but it was never really written down.

Peter III

• Alpha release with a proof of concept: fetch date-related data from Wikidata and show it on an SVG timeline.