NetHackWiki:Software updates/2026 MediaWiki 1.43/EasyTimeline example

A demonstration page for the 27 July 2026 update. Nothing in article space links here; it exists so anyone can confirm the timeline facility works again, and copy a working example from it.

A minimal example

The smallest thing that renders. The bars are clickable.

{{#tag:timeline|
ImageSize  = width:600 height:110
PlotArea   = top:10 left:60 right:20 bottom:30
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Period     = from:01/01/1984 till:31/12/1989
TimeAxis   = orientation:horizontal
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1985
PlotData=
  bar:Hack color:skyblue width:20 align:center fontsize:S
  from:17/01/1984 till:23/07/1985 text:[[HACK]]
  from:23/07/1985 till:28/07/1987 text:[[NetHack 1.3d]]
  from:28/07/1987 till:16/06/1989 text:[[NetHack 2.2a]]
  from:16/06/1989 till:31/12/1989 text:[[NetHack 2.3e]]
}}

Produces:

The real one

Below is the exact source Template:Timeline of NetHack carried until June 2026, unmodified, rendering live. It is what the wiki showed until it broke in November 2023.

Note the {{#tag:timeline|...}} wrapper and the {{#time:d/m/Y}} end date. That is the part that matters: inside a plain <timeline> tag those arrive as literal text and the timeline fails. The green bar runs to today because of it — which is also why this image quietly re-renders once a day.

The same timeline, sharper: method=svg2png

Identical source to the section above, with one attribute added: {{#tag:timeline|...|method=svg2png}}.

ploticus always produces both a PNG and an SVG. By default the wiki serves ploticus's own PNG. With method=svg2png it rasterises the SVG instead, using rsvg — the text is antialiased rather than jagged, and the image comes out at its natural 186×1193 rather than 120×1200.

There is a second, less obvious reason to prefer it. ploticus generates the clickable image map in the SVG's coordinate space, not the PNG's. The map's x coordinates run to 151 on an image only 120 wide, so roughly a quarter of every clickable region has been falling outside the picture since 2011. It went unnoticed because the bars are full-width horizontal strips and the vertical scale agrees to within 0.6%, so clicks landed on the right link anyway. Under method=svg2png the image is 186 wide and the map finally matches it.

The trade is file size: about 97 kB against 7 kB. The minor month ticks also come out as pale hairlines rather than hard black.

See also

• Game history — uses Ray Chason's SVG stand-in, which also still works, and is now served as a real SVG rather than a flattened PNG
• Forum:Interim fix for NetHack timeline template — the discussion that prompted this
• EasyTimeline syntax reference on mediawiki.org