Version: (using Devel) OS: Linux Installed from: Compiled sources If I switch to the timeline view no pictures are shown although a month with pictures is selected. Further, if one clicks on the bar representing the numbe rof pictures from a month those pictures are not displayed. One has to click on the tiny area with the month's letter below the bar. If I did not miss a feature, I see no reason why the user cannot use the bigger area to select the month whose pictures one wants to browse.
This file is invalid. Read my blog entry here for details, to use Timeline especially with multi-selection (discountinous). http://www.digikam.org/drupal/node/293 Gilles Caulier
If one has to read such a long blog post to understand how that tool works, then I think it's unintuitive and as a result would not be useful to a lot of people. Also, no offence, but the poor English in the post makes it quite confusing, at least for me.
After carefully re-reading the blog post I realized that the issue is that selection cannot be done by clicking on the green bars. It has to be done by clicking on the numbers _below_ the bars. The blog post doesn't directly explain why that is the case, but let me make a guess: Clicking on a green bar and moving the cursor to that location is only meant for getting the information about that particular time segment. I don't agree with this limitation and I think that clicking on the green bar and moving the cursor should affect the selection. My main reasons for this are intuitiveness and accuracy. As I mentioned earlier, it is not intuitive that clicking on the green bars or moving the cursor does not make the selection or even cause any images to be displayed. This was my first expectation when I saw the timeline tool, and I think other people would agree. Moreover, the size of the number boxes under the green bars is relatively small compared to the area above it (which includes the green bars). I personally find that clicking on a tiny (17x15) area requiring more accurate mouse movements than clicking on a taller area of the same width (~17x177). Maybe a mouse-over (the bars) event should be used to display the information instead of moving the cursor...
(In reply to comment #2) > If one has to read such a long blog post to understand how that tool works, > then I think it's unintuitive and as a result would not be useful to a lot of > people. I have to agree that it's functionality and purpose are not obvious. When I opened it, I thought is would, as primary function, show the pictures of the month I select. Thus I thought that clicking on the bar would show me what it represents, i.e. the photos of that month. Of course there might be a lot of extras to refine the simple and primary funtionality, but the above is what the UI mediated to me. > Also, no offence, but the poor English in the post makes it quite > confusing, at least for me. That's why there are manuals when an application is released. :)