Last modified: 2014-10-19 22:52:18 UTC
After previewing an edit tonight, I discovered that a red caption reading: "Invalid image map generated by EasyTimeline" appeared above the left corner of the timeline. It was not there following my last edit June 17, 2009. The same caption appears on every edit all the way back to the creation in 2006. There does not appear to be anything added to the timeline template to suddenly cause this error to appear, unless it was inherent in the timeline syntax from its creation. The timeline is otherwise unaffected and seems to draw properly on all platforms.
Probably caused by recent security fixes to EasyTimeline (r52591).
I discovered today that the links on the timeline are no longer active. Basically the timeline is only a picture now and not interactive at all. I discovered another Macintosh Timeline, a VERY simple one which also exhibits the exact same symptoms. After reviewing the relatively few lines of code and comparing it to other functioning Macintosh Timelines, I cannot find anything that would be causing this problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Timeline_of_New_World_ROM_Power_Macintosh_models
In the German Wikipedia, we had a similar problem. The errors occured because the software changed its behaviour with umlauts (ä, ö, ü …). I think these errors are always created by the timeline’s code. So you should check this. In the German Wikipedia, I wrote a bot module to search such broken timelines. The solution of this problem is to create a system message to which you can add a category. This is done in r56366. So wait till this revision is live. Then you can find all broken timelines. Check their code to remove the error. Here is an example what the problem could be: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vorlage:Zeitleiste_Vizekanzler_(%C3%96sterreich)&diff=prev&oldid=64332643
Found the image map bug is already known by the original author, Erik Zachte, who is no longer active on this extension. Ive reassigned it to Brion, who appears to be active. Don't use ampersand "&" in links, use "%26" instead. Perhaps the extension could catch it and do the swap?