UniversalHistory

A standard implementation of infinite historical time and a timeline viewer, built on a single proleptic-Gregorian JDN timestamp model.

Features

• Unified time model: microsecond-precision JDNTimestamp with astronomical year numbering (year 0 = 1 BC).
• Legacy .his adapter: loads and saves History-format files, converting natural-language time expressions to JDNTimestamp.
• Timeline renderer: PyQt6-based infinite zoom/pan timeline with automatic track layout for point and period events.
• Multiple threads: display any number of sources on the left/right sides of the axis; allocate side space proportionally via per-thread share (each side's shares always sum to 1); add threads from existing .his files, create new source files, or create empty threads and bind a source later.
• Horizontal / vertical orientation: toggle the time axis direction with Ctrl+T; threads keep their intuitive left/right placement.
• Event editor: edit time, location, people, organization, tags, title, brief, and event text; select the focus label.
• Filter dialog: query the workspace by source, focus label, included/excluded tags, and time range; results reuse a single filter thread.

Install

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Or install the project as an editable package:

python -m pip install -e .

Run

python -m universal_history

Or, after installation:

universal-history

Tests

python -m unittest discover -s tests -v

Project layout

UniversalHistory/
├── pyproject.toml
├── requirements.txt
├── README.md
├── universal_history/          # main package
│   ├── __main__.py             # python -m universal_history
│   ├── main_window.py          # PyQt6 application entry point
│   ├── models/                 # Event, EventIndex, Workspace
│   ├── chrono/                 # JDN timestamp, bridges, tick stepping
│   ├── adapters/               # .his file adapter
│   ├── render/                 # timeline geometry/layout/painter/view
│   └── ui/                     # editor, filter, thread-manager, add-thread,
│                               # and bind-source dialogs
├── tests/                      # unit tests
└── docs/                       # design notes

The sibling History/ directory is kept as a reference and is used only by the .his adapter parser.