Timeline Express: Common Issues
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In this thread I am going to mention some of the common issues that users run into, and post in the forums about.
You should use this guide as a way to help debug your issues before posting here in the forums, or reaching out to use via e-mail.
- I cant save dates prior to xxxx. Why?
This is a limitation with the PHP function
strtotime()
, which is used to store dates in the database, and then later for comparison when displaying your timeline.We have built out an add-on that re-writes the way dates are stored in the database, so historic a wide range of dates can be used, from the year 1000 to the year 9999.
- No HTML markup is working in my excerpts. How do I enable HTML markup in the excerpts?
In previous versions we were allowing HTML to be used in excerpts. This was possible through the use of a custom function we wrote to allow for this. Unfortunately, this was causing a number of issues for some users – and we’ve since had to remove it and fallback to the standard WordPress core way of generating excerpts – which do not allow for HTML markup.
If you need HTML markup in your excerpts, you can extend the plugin to enable an additional field on the announcements where you can enter your own custom excerpts, including HTML.
For a step by step on enabling custom/HTML excerpts, please see our knowledge base article: How do I enable HTML in my excerpts?
- My announcement containers are overlapping, how do I fix this?
Generally speaking, the announcement containers overlap because you have an announcement (or multiple announcements) with little, or no, content.
You’re two options are:
1) Set a min-height CSS declaration on the
.cd-timeline-content
, which would ensure that all of your announcements are the same height.2) Enable announcement container classes by adding the following php snippet to your functions.php file:
define( 'TIMELINE_EXPRESS_CONTAINER_CLASSES', true );
Once added, you can manually add classes to specific announcements from the add/edit announcement page.
(For an example, see “How can I add custom classes to the announcement container?“)
Once you add your classes to the overlapping containers, you’ll need to add custom CSS to your theme – which would add either a top or bottom margin to that specific announcement container. This can get tricky, especially on mobile devices.
If all of your announcements are going to be different lengths, we suggest purchasing the Timeline Express Pro, which has a built in method for laying out variable height announcements.
- How do I change the way that the date displays on the front end/in the datepicker?
By default, the date should display in the same format that your site is setup ( Settings > General > Date Format ). However, you may want to alter the way the date is displaying on the front end of the site. You can quickly and easily do so using the following snippet, added to your active themes functions.php file.
function custom_te_date_format( $date_format ) { $date_format = "M d, Y"; // will print the date as Apr 22, 2016 return $date_format; } add_filter( 'timeline-express-custom-date-format' , 'custom_te_date_format' , 10 );
For additional help, please see How do I change the announcement date format ?.
- How can I display the announcement year instead of the icon?
Add the following to your themes fucntions.php file to display the year in place of the icons:
define( 'TIMELINE_EXPRESS_YEAR_ICONS', true );
For a full explination, please see How can I display the year instead of an icon on the timeline?.
How do I customize the announcement container/single announcement template/single announcement content?
We’ve built out a very flexible contemplating engine, allowing you to customize any aspect of the timeline, the announcement template, or the announcement itself.Take a look at the following three tutorials we have setup, explaining how to customize each template:
– How do I customize the announcement container on the timeline?
– How do I customize the single announcement content?
– How do I customize the single announcement template?- Is there a list of available hooks in Timeline Express?
Yes, take a look at our ‘Hooks Visual Guide’ that we have setup in our documentation. This visual guide should give you a good representation of where the hooks are, that you can use to display additional content:
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