Some issues on Chronas.org

[polina-o]

Firstly thank you for making this awesome interactive tool.

I have had several things go wrong using the site:

Timeline disappears, parts of it are hard to elect. I move something it just looses place elected. For example i want to start at the start -2000 - but it sometimes seizes up and i'm bounced somewhere else. So it's hard to explore. Sometimes this election tool comes up - elect the time you want - I do that. Then I can't get out of this window - even if i press the x on the right hand corner. So i have to reload the page.

I've signed up as was asked to. For some reason - it can't recognise my sign in again. Says wrong email or password. So that's glitched up a bit. Still learning how to use this site.

Thank you
P

[aumanjoa]

Hey @polina-o, thank you so much for your kind words and for taking the time to report all of this — it truly means a lot! 💙

It sounds like you ran into quite a few frustrating moments, and we really appreciate you pushing through and still taking the time to write it all up so clearly. Your description of the timeline jumping around, the selection window getting stuck, and the sign-in issue gives us a lot to work with.

We will work on all of these: the timeline navigation stability, the stuck modal/dialog issue, and the authentication problems. You shouldn't have to reload the page just to get back to exploring history!

Please don't give up on Chronas — we're actively improving things and your feedback is exactly what helps us make it better. Thanks again, P, and welcome to the community! 🌍

[aumanjoa]

Hi @polina-o, thank you again for reporting these issues — we've been working through them and have now deployed a set of fixes to new.chronas.org. Here's what was addressed:

Timeline fixes

• Timeline "seizing up" — Fixed a memory leak where event listeners were accumulating on the timeline component, causing it to slow down over time.
• Year selection dialog stuck / X button not working — The close button was being blocked by an inherited CSS property from the timeline container. This is now fixed — the dialog can be closed via the X button, pressing Escape, or clicking outside the dialog.
• Year dialog not moving the timeline — When entering a year in the dialog (e.g. 1500), the timeline marker and viewport now correctly scroll to that year.
• Epic filter toggles not working — The epic event items on the timeline (wars, empires, discoveries, etc.) were not responding when toggled in the Layers panel. This is now fixed.

Sign-in fixes

• "Wrong email or password" after signup — We found that the login form was not normalizing email addresses (trimming whitespace, converting to lowercase). If you signed up with User@Email.COM and tried to log in with user@email.com, it would fail. Emails are now normalized before sending to the server.
• Generic error messages — Previously, the actual error message from the server was being swallowed and replaced with a generic "Login failed" message. You'll now see the real error from the backend (e.g. "Authentication error"), which makes it much easier to understand what went wrong.
• Login is now a popup — Instead of navigating to a separate login page (which had no way back to the map!), sign-in is now a popup dialog that appears on top of the map — just like the original chronas.org. You can close it anytime with the X button, Escape, or clicking outside.

UX improvement

• Epic items (wars, empires, discoveries, etc.) on the timeline are now disabled by default for a cleaner initial experience. You can enable them anytime via the Layers panel (click the layers icon in the left sidebar → scroll to the "Epics" section → check the types you want to see). We'd love to hear if you prefer this or if you'd rather have them on by default!

How to test

Please try it out at new.chronas.org and let us know:

1. Does the timeline feel smoother? Can you navigate to different years without it jumping around?
2. Can you close the year selection dialog (click the year number on the timeline marker to open it)?
3. Does sign-in work correctly now?
4. Do you prefer epics off by default, or would you rather see them when you first load the page?

Thank you for your patience and for pushing through to report all of this — it really helps us improve! 🌍

[aumanjoa]

Testing Report – Implementation Review

Tested on new.chronas.org after the deployed fixes from commit cb1b7ab.

✅ What's working

Timeline fixes:

• Year dialog opens correctly — clicking the year marker bubble on the timeline (e.g. the “1039” label below the red marker line) opens the year input dialog as expected.
• X button works — the close button on the year dialog is now fully clickable and correctly closes the dialog. Previously this was blocked by inherited CSS pointer-events: none.
• Escape key closes the dialog — confirmed working.
• Entering a year navigates correctly — typed -2000 into the dialog, pressed Enter, and the map and timeline both jumped to year 2000 BC as expected. The URL updated to ?year=-2000.
• Timeline navigation is smoother — clicking on the timeline bar to jump years works without seizing up.

Login fixes:

• Login is now a popup dialog — clicking the login/signup button opens an overlay modal on top of the map instead of navigating to a separate page. The X button, Escape key, and backdrop click all close it correctly. This is a major UX improvement.

Epic items:

• Epics are disabled by default — confirmed, the timeline loads cleanly without epic events cluttering it. Users can enable them via the Layers panel.

⚠️ Remaining / not fully testable items

Sign-in email normalization — The fix for normalizing emails (trim + lowercase) before sending to the API is in the commit but cannot be fully tested without creating a fresh account to reproduce the original mismatch. The code change appears correct based on the commit.

Epic filter toggles — The fix for epic filters not responding when toggled in the Layers panel is claimed in the commit (epicFilters missing from useMemo deps). Confirmed that the Layers panel exists and the Epics section is present, but testing the exact toggle responsiveness requires more extended manual testing with epics enabled.

Timeline "jumping to wrong place" — The event listener memory leak fix (on/off reference mismatch) is a code-level fix that addresses the root cause of accumulating listeners over time. In short sessions it felt stable. The original issue described the jumping getting worse over an extended session, which is harder to reproduce in a quick test.

Summary

Issue	Status
Year dialog stuck / X button unclickable	✅ Fixed
Year dialog not navigating to entered year	✅ Fixed
Escape key / backdrop click closing dialog	✅ Fixed
Login is separate page with no way back	✅ Fixed (now a popup)
Timeline event listener memory leak	✅ Code fix applied
Epic filter toggles not responding	✅ Code fix applied
Email normalization for login (trim/lowercase)	✅ Code fix applied
Timeline still jumps on extended use	⚠️ Needs longer-session testing

Overall the fixes look solid and the most frustrating UX blockers (stuck dialog, X button not working, login page trap) are all confirmed resolved. 👍