COGlory 3 years ago

Cool idea, but not very well done. Basically the map zooms into one spot and then tells you about a bunch of other places that were involved that the map doesn't pan to.

Also, the timelines are overlapping too much, for example it says something happened, then moves locations and says some other thing previously happened (that it just told you about).

Finally, lots of little things thrown in at the end; "the Ionian revolt happened and Persia spent time and effort conquering them. [3 paragraphs] Also Persia was mad at Athens for helping which kicked off the war". Not built in a very narrative or easy to track way.

  • brudgers 3 years ago

    Curious if there is a better implementation?

    • jimmySixDOF 3 years ago

      While not map based this link is the best History-as-a-Timeline implementation I have stumbled across so far (desktop only) ....

      https://histography.io/

n8cpdx 3 years ago

Very cool project, but as others have said there are performance issues even on high end devices.

Full disclosure: I work for Esri, a competitor to Mapbox.

This probably could have been implemented more quickly and easily, with better usability and performance, via StoryMaps or ArcGIS StoryMaps. The product is tailor-made for exactly this sort of website/project.

https://storymaps.com/

lagrange77 3 years ago

Even though it's pretty invasive, i love the image onclick fullscreen display along with the clicking sound.

  • nonoumasy 3 years ago

    Thanks. I'm still rethinking that. It was a quick solution to show the images especially the otherImages(which are predominantly other map images) full screen. There's value in seeing the details up close. But I might try a different design, maybe a carousel in the future.

  • nonoumasy 3 years ago

    btw, why do you think it's invasive? in what sense?

    • lagrange77 3 years ago

      Making the browser window fullscreen, while the user is not clicking on a fullscreen button.

      • nonoumasy 3 years ago

        I see. So adding a fullscreen button instead of the cursor: zoom makes it non-invasive?

xhevahir 3 years ago

This reminds me there's a book, The Landmark Herodotus, that has lots of maps detailing the geography treated in the text, including the story of the Greco-Persian Wars; I've got another book in the series (the Thucydides one) and the maps are really nice.

Andrew_nenakhov 3 years ago

Nice idea, but the app autoscrolls every few seconds on mobile Firefox making it unusable.

  • nonoumasy 3 years ago

    Not sure why it's autoscrolling. I haven't seen that issue before and also the play feature is disabled on mobile. Which phone and os do you have? I'll try to reproduce the issue.

    • Andrew_nenakhov 3 years ago

      I think this happened when I pressed play. Also works the same on Desktop. Smetana's music is nice, but the resource becomes unusable as it scrolls and scrolls to new chapters. In can record a video of you want.

      • nonoumasy 3 years ago

        Sure that would be great if you can record it. But how are you able to press play on mobile Firefox. I hid the button on mobile. Are you accessing that using Firefox dev tools?

        Btw, it's suppose to autoscroll on Play. That is the feature. Its what I call the 'storyteller mode'. I am thinking of using text-to-speech to read each event before proceeding to the next event so the 5 second delay is an arbitrary setting for now.

        If you don't want the autoscroll, then you can just scroll the old fashion way on the sidebar. When you do the map will flyTo() the corresponding event.

        • Andrew_nenakhov 3 years ago

          I just press the "play" button right in the center, music starts playing and everything starts jumping around. Try this link for video:

          https://www.dropbox.com/s/nq0y4mywomv5vd1/20220806_024731.mp...

          • nonoumasy 3 years ago

            Thanks. I saw the video. Yes! That is what it's suppose to do when you hit 'play'. But you don't get that view on a real mobile device. The menu icon is also hidden on mobile. You only see this view on dev tools.

            The play feature is only if you want the events to autoscroll for you and its part of a storyteller feature I'm working on. So you don't have to use it to scroll.

            • Andrew_nenakhov 3 years ago

              > Yes! That is what it's suppose to do when you hit 'play'.

              Well. I don't think it is a good idea. In text-based content, you need to wait for some input from the user that he's done reading this part of the page and is ready to proceed further. And in your case, the page scrolls extremely fast. I'm no slow reader, but I barely manage to read the chapter headline before it scrolls.

            • nonoumasy 3 years ago

              well then, the solution is simple. Don't click 'play' and like I said, Users on mobile won't even see that 'play' button.

jeanlucas 3 years ago

My dream in web development since 2012 is to have a way to represent timelines well. They are not easy and they are not intuitive.

Unfortunately I never had the chance of a paying project that involved timelines, or libraries around it.

  • nonoumasy 3 years ago

    I guess it depends on how you implement timelines. They can be as simple (as one line) or complex (multiple lines + categories + filter) as you want. I created a Timelines Game using the same HM data: https://timelines-ruby.vercel.app/

AtlasBarfed 3 years ago

And the Persians were sowing the seeds of their destruction, as Alexander and the Macedonian phalanx marched across their lands 100 years later

  • geraneum 3 years ago

    I think the reality could have been more nuanced that this.

    Persians were the prominent tribe in Achaemenid empire which was destroyed by Alexander. But remainder of Persians among other tribes that formed the empire later on freed themselves from Macedonian rule and eventually and gradually pushed them out. Even though the Macedonians occupied the land, they adopted the form of government and were influenced by the culture and Persian way of life. They themselves also had an influence on those empires, naturally.

    Unfortunately the website is lacking in painting a comprehensive picture of Persian or those other tribes that formed the Persian empire or perhaps I couldn’t find it.

    • nonoumasy 3 years ago

      This is perhaps a limitation on the story since its about Alexander, so obviously it more from the Macedonian or even from Alexanders point of view. The story is Alexander-centric.

      I do plan on creating other History maps on the Ancient Persian empires: Achaemenid Empire, Parthian Empire, Sassanian Empire, Seleucid Empire

      Would love some feedback when those are done. Thanks for the constructive feedback. I always appreciate those.

      • geraneum 3 years ago

        Kudos for the effort of creating this nice website. I enjoyed your way of laying out the events.

        That will be awesome to read more about those pieces of history in the form of this website. Well appreciated.

    • AtlasBarfed 3 years ago

      Well yeah, but the power structure of Darius and Xerxes who were pursuing these invasions was utterly destroyed by Alexander.

      But yes, eventually the Caliphate was invading Europe using cannons to reduce formerly state of the art castles 1000 years later.

      • geraneum 3 years ago

        I think you are missing out a good few hundred years. Caliphate were not Persians (Indo-European).

        The tribes I was talking about were Parthians [1] and Sassanids [2]. These are long before Islam and Muslim invasion of Iran and they were once part of Achaemenid empire.

        I don’t know what you exactly mean by power structure but the form of government (i.e. Central government and Satraps) were adopted by and outlived the Macedonians.

        You can get more information here (or simply Wikipedia):

        1. https://www.worldhistory.org/Parthia_(Empire)/

        2. https://www.worldhistory.org/Sasanian_Empire/

        edit: fix typo

      • nonoumasy 3 years ago

        Do you mean the Ottomans?

rendang 3 years ago

Nice info, but where's the scroll bar?

  • Calavar 3 years ago

    Scroll bars are Web 1.0 garbage.

    • UberFly 3 years ago

      Fine then give me some web 3.0 scroll bars.

    • BbzzbB 3 years ago

      Definitely missing some Web 3.0 treasures like a Metamask connection and microtransactions for each event displayed.

kensai 3 years ago

It is good, but given today’s interactive capabilities I somehow expected more. Still well done!

  • nonoumasy 3 years ago

    What other things were you expecting?

    • pazimzadeh 3 years ago

      -searching text

      -scroll without hovering over the text itself

      -not having to wait for each section to load when scrolling

spyremeown 3 years ago

Very cool! I'm getting some performance issues though (mb air 2018). Pretty low FPS.

  • nonoumasy 3 years ago

    thanks for the feedback. are you gettng the issues just on the story page? or also on the main home page?

  • nonoumasy 3 years ago

    can you try again? I refactored some stuff.

nikolay 3 years ago

There wasn't a Greece back then to call these wars "Greco".