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1.4. Temporal Navigation

Learning Objectives

You will be able...

  • ...to list at least five time control tools.
  • ...to list two possibilities how temporal navigation can be realised in web pages.
  • ...to list three possibilities how temporal navigation can be realised in web pages.

Introduction

Time defines our life. Our whole life is based on time. A year consists of 12 months, a month consists of 28-31 days, a day consists of 24 hours and so on. We (normally) sleep at night and stay awake during the day. Days, months and years pass by while things are happening.
The question "When happened what?" is a basic question in our real life. You cannot just tell somebody "there was an earthquake" without any time declaration. The earthquake could have happened ten year ago or just last night.
Not only in real life but also in virtual environment time is a very important factor. When you save a document, the time of the saving action is saved as well. This time is very important when you have for example two documents with identical names and you are looking for the newer one. Only the saved time gives you information about which document is the newer one.

Within multimedia applications, time can be important as well. Here too, the question "When happened what?" is the most important question concerning the time aspect. Therefore, time is always coupled with a topic. In other words: there is one layer for each time segment. To keep one's orientation between these layers we need temporal navigation.

In this unit, we show you some possibilities how temporal navigation can be realised within web pages and interactive 2D maps.

remark

The following interaction part is only an example of a temporal navigation and is about the history of termtypography. You do not have to read all the text within the example but you should explore the interactive time line.

Time Line of Typography (Institute of Cartography)


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