It includes the Sundered Empire dating system (Sundered) in the entry blocks, as well as drop-downs for most of the menu driven choices. What I would ask of the community is the following:
Test the conversion system, and let me know what you think. As before, you only need to enter one year on the calendar, and an event description, and the reconciler will do the rest.
You will see that several columns now have drop-down menus when you click on them. This ensures that standard entries are made (and spelled correctly) which in turn will help the search function when I create it. The master lists are to the right of the loader on the same sheet. As you look at the columns and the options within them, let me know:
Is anything misspelled?
Are there too many choices in some of the columns? For example, I put the months for each of the dating systems that we have them for, though I have never seen months presented as anything but CY names.
For locations and regions, is the list too long, too short, or poorly organized. Again let me know what you think so I can make the changes now. I used the original gold box for this, so it stops at the edge of the Flanaess. Sundered Empire specific information is not included as I do not have it (but would appreciate it).
Lastly, let me know what you would like to see. This includes error checking and the like. If you can find an error, let me know so I can take care of it. Finally, I did not enable this version to load yet, as I wanted to nail down the format first. The next version will load and sort the timeline by dates.
Thanks again for all of your support.
<Bodies of Water>
<Hills and Highlands>
<Marshes and Swamps>
etc Might be better served in regions
then you can sort by nations and those regions.
For Sources you might incorporate an index in your lists tab that would serve as a Cross reference for Abbreviations. This would save Misspellings and Not make the field as wordy.
ie LGG= Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, CF=CanonFire, 1ePH=1st addition players handbook, etc.
So GA/p89 would be a reference for Greyhawk Adventures/page 89 Referencing Oerth Geography.
Thank you for the comments. I am still trying to decide how to deal with wilderness areas, as some straddle national boundaries or are nations in a sense themselves, while others are wholly contained and (somewhat) policed.
As far as the Source references, I follow you suggestion for abbreviating sources; I am in concurrence with this. I think the fields might yet be wordy, but that will cut down on the mispellings. I do not plan to have the source's field searchable at this time, but that oculd be changed (the beauty of doing this incrementally). Would that be a feature you would like to see? Keep the comments coming!
I am still trying to decide how to deal with wilderness areas, as some straddle national boundaries or are nations in a sense themselves, while others are wholly contained and (somewhat) policed.
I understand your position, but would add most of the "political boundaries" could be viewed as those established by shorter lived races. Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes might view such boundaries incomparision to the "tide", constantly changing with the seasons. They instead (IMO) would define borders by more natural and enduring markers. (ie Mountains, hills, forests, etc). These can be "seen" in the real world, as opposed to some line on a map. Which, from their perspective, seems in a constant state of change.
So I can see it being placed in either field (I'm certain the Dwarves of the Lortmills don't think they are part of Veluna or Ulek.. heheh) So can see that as a "nation" of sorts, but from a purely mechanics side, was thinking one could sort for Veluna in the nations field, and then further filter it down to just Lortmill elements with in Veluna.
tarelton wrote:
Would that be a feature you would like to see? Keep the comments coming!
IMO, I can't imagine a time when someone would want to sort by reference source, except maybe Rasgon? But it does bring a thought to the surface, a "keywords" category"? Though not sure how or if the mechanics would work in an excel spreadsheet, nor how you would go about "structuring the user input" for that entry. Just rambling thoughts....
Thank you for the list of acronyms; I think that will be an excellent source for the published products. I will work out a system for magazine/journal articles.
As for the nations/wilderness question, I think I have a solution. Note that there are three columns for nation (thus three possible entries). This allows someone loading data to pick the combination of places that works best for him. Thus, an event taking place in Rel Mord would only have Nyrond selected in the pull-down, but an event taking place in the Dreadwood would have the Dreadwood selected in the first nation column, and Keoland in the second. A wartime event in the Vesve might have the Vesve, Iuz, and Furyondy all selected. This give the person loading information the maximum flexibility to address an event, I believe. It is also a lot easier for me to organize and program it.
When the search interface is built, however, I want to keep it simple, and I will enable users to decide if they want to look at nations, woodlands, etc. as they construct their search. That will keep it simple and manageable for them in my opinion. What do you think?
I will work out a system for magazine/journal articles.
Happy to assist, You might think on the Magazines and articles in similar fashion. ie OJ= Oerth Journal, DgM=Dragon Magazine, DnM=Dungeon Magazine, GHry=Greyhawkery. etc.
You could then further shorthand as follows:
DgM#256/p45 could equate to Dragon Magazine Issue 256 page 45 when referencing Greyhawk secret societies.
tarelton wrote:
As for the nations/wilderness question, I think I have a solution.
I like your solution, but what if the field is blank? Do you get everything or is it a "null" entry and you get nothing?
tarelton wrote:
When the search interface is built, however, I want to keep it simple, and I will enable users to decide if they want to look at nations, woodlands, etc. as they construct their search. That will keep it simple and manageable for them in my opinion. What do you think?
Sounds good and yes the more flexible the ability is in the search options, (ie filters, etc) the more usable a tool it would be.
Here are some more random thoughts from a disturbed mind...
Give any thoughts to how it will print it out?
It might also be helpful to be able to "homebrew" a field for the unforseen.
The ability to enter "homebrew" but keep it separate from "canon" elements might allow for an occasional batch file to be uploaded as more data is found and/or corrected. That way users can add based on their own time lines, and if the "core data" were corrected they can simply upload the latest "patch".
If the field is blank, the loader will still process it into the system. When a search is conducted, the effect of a blank field will be up to the searcher and how he constructs the search. Depending on how he structures the query, it might not be an issue (i.e. does not search by nation at all) or it could be limiting. However, I think most events take place within a specified geographic area, so there should be at least one column filled in.
As far as layout, that will be customizable to some extent as well, with the searcher able to specify which dating system(s) he wants in the returned file. The return will include the dates, the event, and the reference list for that event.
I will give thought to the "homebrew" option you mention. I do not have the skills to enable the program to self-correct entries (i.e. double events and the like) and require a human in the loop to take care of it. Homebrew might fit as a source type instead, but I am just thinking out loud in that case. Thank you again for the ideas... I am grateful for all the feedback.
An odd little behaviour ... when entering dates, if one doesn't put them in order, one line directly after the other, but instead skips lines in between (leaving more room for other entries in between those dates), the sheet stops reconciling when it reaches the first blank row.
There should not be a reason to skip lines between dates. In fact, my inspiration for this was an abortive timeline project I originally did purely in Excel where I was constantly going back and inserting dates between others. The beauty of the loader is that you can enter the dates in the order you read them in a source, but you do not have to worry about chronological order. Once you hit the loader button (not present on current version), the VBA code checks for certain errors, then takes all of the events, puts them in the database, and sorts them. It is completely intentional on my part for the loader to stop at a blank line. I do not want to load blank events, and it allows the user to realize that he may have forgotten to put in the description.
As far as the formatting of the blocks, I plan to standardize that. I enabled text-wrapping in the description block (and I will have to do it in the source block as well). However, the way the code is working, the horizontal and vertical justification is not important. It will be important with the output code, but that is a bit down the road.
Thank you for your observations, and reminding me of things I need to take care of. I do appreciate it alot. I am currently writing documentation for the loader, and will get back to programming this weekend. Please keep the comments coming.
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They instead (IMO) would define borders by more 
But it does bring a thought to the surface, a "keywords" category"? Though not sure how or if the mechanics would work in an excel spreadsheet, nor how you would go about "structuring the user input" for that entry. Just rambling thoughts....