Re: timelines from GEDCOM files

> I've converted Philip Durbin's program into HTML::Timeline, and  
> uploaded it to CPAN.

I apologize that my original ged2xml.pl script that's included in the  
distribution isn't a little tidier, but thank you very much, Ron, for  
converting it into HTML::Timeline!

> It ships with bin/timeline.pl, and Phil's sample data, which I'd  
> like people to test with various options.

It's very nice having all the logic in a module.  I did notice that  
timeline.pl doesn't seem to convert the "fuzzy" birth dates in my  
GEDCOM file (such as "1772-1773" or "ca 1698") into "start" dates that  
can be displayed by Simile Timeline (i.e. just the year), which is  
what my script does.

Also, timeline.pl -include_spouses doesn't seem to include the spouse  
of the root person, which is the behavior I put into my script.

Otherwise, timeline.pl seems to work very well and I think people  
shouldn't have any trouble using it.

> Start with timeline.pl -h.

For me, -h, -help, and --help don't work, but "perldoc timeline.pl"  
does.

> To do

4. Support a ~/.timelinerc that could be overridden with explicit  
options?

5. Help me figure out how to avoid my "James Riley Durbin death date  
hack" that has been crystallized in line 117 of Timeline.pm.  The  
problem is that dates such as "Feb 1978" are parseable by  
Date::Manip::ParseDate but not Simile Timeline.  (Perhaps this should  
be fixed in Simile Timeline!)  Basically, the hack extracts the year  
(i.e. 1978) so that Simile Timeline can at least display that.  I  
guess I need to add some logic to enforce that dates can't have only a  
month and year.  I wonder how many different dates formats are  
commonly encountered in GEDCOM files. . .

Thanks again, Ron, for converting my script into a CPAN module.  I  
really appreciate it!  Here's a handy link for anyone who's interested  
in checking it out: http://search.cpan.org/~rsavage/HTML-Timeline-1.00

Phil