[okfn-discuss] [ANN] TimeMapper - Create Elegant TimeMaps from Google Spreadsheets in seconds

Tue Oct 15 08:44:42 UTC 2013

Hi all,

On the topic of sign-in:

On 14 October 2013 22:42, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:

> On Monday, 14 October 2013, Gene Shackman wrote:
>
>> Looks nice, but why do you have to sign up using a twitter account? And
>> why google spreadsheets? What if you don't have an account with either of
>> those? For future applications can you design it so you don't need twitter
>> or google?
>>
>
> Twitter: happy to have another sign in mechanism but want something quick
> and convenient for most people that involved them already having reserved a
> unique username. Specifically we wanted to avoid being responsible, at this
> point, for doing the whole signup process (storing passwords, doing
> password recovery, handling spam accounts etc)
>

How about Mozilla Persona, have we tried using it in projects?
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/

It seems to be well-designed, as usual by the privacy-minded Mozilla folks.
The friction of creating an account on Persona would be arguably very
similar to asking users to create a separate account for TimeMapper (and of
course if it works well, it could be supported in other Labs projects).
That isn't to say we stop supporting Twitter sign-ins of course.

The lightweight web chat folks at http://scrollback.io/ have a demo which
integrates with Persona. (When the web chat bar appears in the bottom
right, click the autogenerated username and you'll be prompted to log in /
sign up using Persona.)

Thanks,
Emanuil

> Re google spreadsheets: its the best simple tabular data backend and one
> that very large number of people use. JSON and straight up CSV could easily
> be supported but they are more complex and are more complex for
> non-techhies to use (e.g. can't just be any CSV would need to be one CORS
> accessible etc).
>
> Rufus
>
>
>>
>> Gene
>>
>>
>>   ------------------------------
>>  *From:* Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
>> *To:* okfn-discuss <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
>> *Sent:* Monday, October 14, 2013 3:34 AM
>> *Subject:* [okfn-discuss] [ANN] TimeMapper - Create Elegant TimeMaps
>> from Google Spreadsheets in seconds
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> TimeMapper <http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/> is a new web app from Open
>> Knowledge Foundation Labs <http://okfnlabs.org/> that lets you create
>> interactive timemaps from Google spreadsheets quickly and easily.
>>
>> http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org
>>
>> More information in this post:
>> http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2013/10/11/timemapper.html
>>
>> Examples:
>>
>>    - Major Battles in the Napoleonic Wars<http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/rufuspollock/major-battles-napoleonic-wars>
>>    - Medieval Philosophers<http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/okfn/medieval-philosophers>
>>    - US City Bankruptcies since the Financial Crisis<http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/rufuspollock/us-city-bankruptcies>
>>    - Archaeology of Wine<http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/adamrabinowitz/archaeowinetimeliner>
>>
>> The site is a simple node.js app with storage into s3. The timemap viz is
>> pure JS built using KnightLabs excellent Timeline.js for the timeline and
>> Leaflet (with OSM) for the maps. For those interested in the code it can be
>> found here: https://github.com/okfn/timemapper/
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Rufus
>> **
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> *
>
> Rufus Pollock
>
> Founder and Executive Director | skype: rufuspollock | @rufuspollock<https://twitter.com/rufuspollock>
>
> The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>
>
> Empowering through Open Knowledge
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