It feels like it needs a little refinement, but the future is here! And I feel like my friend’s daughter when she spots a park from about half a mile away! PLAYYYYYY!
For some considerable time, I’ve been known as someone who guiltily, geekily enjoys spreadsheets and will create one at the drop of a hat. I mean, what’s not to like? Especially when I get going on conditional formatting and things like that – you should see my school mark-books!
But there was one area where I felt Excel (or Numbers, actually) was letting me down.
What I really wanted, thinking I might really do something with it, was some decent TIMELINE facility. It must go with the territory, when you are usually dealing with things which were written 100+ years ago. So, I made myself a number of timeline Spreadsheets: clumsy, but did the job. And it may be that it’s my tech knowledge that is the issue: bear in mind I am someone who picked up his first computer at age 14, and it had a whopping 32Kb RAM (see below) …
This is a resolutely non-commercial affair at the moment, so there is no mileage for me in telling you that the timeline at the bottom of the screen was created online using Time.Graphics software. But, nevertheless, that’s what I used. The grouping tool is a useful filter, which means that you can expand/collapse any categories you like.
It feels like the beginning of a beautiful friendship: whilst it doesn’t replace my critical reading (on, yes, another spreadsheet or nine), I do feel like I might use it for indivdual texts, especially as a teaching tool when the narrative is non-linear. Only just starting to think about what I could do with it, tbh. VERY exciting times ahead, I think …
Any suggestions as to what I need to get on the Timeline gratefuly received. Here it is, in collapsed form:
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 