fix(webui): timeline opens on full landscape, drop undated points

After the chronological-order fix the page opened on the earliest month
(1995-12), showing only a handful of same-colored dots while the legend
listed every category — looked broken.

- Initialise the plot on the LAST frame (full landscape); Play now replays
  the build-up from the start (fromcurrent: false), slider starts at the end.
- Make _extract_month robust: year-only / junk dates (ISO/ETSI 'time' like
  '2015/CD Amd 2', bare '2023', '') no longer yield malformed month labels
  ('2015-/C') or a garbled 'unknown' frame badge.
- Drop undated docs from the temporal animation (they remain on /landscape).

At the full initial frame every category has points, so the legend matches
what is drawn.

src/webui/data/_shared.py

@@ -20,14 +20,17 @@ _CACHE_TTL = 300  # 5 minutes
 
 
 def _extract_month(time_str: str | None) -> str:
-    """Normalize a date string to YYYY-MM format."""
+    """Normalize a date string to YYYY-MM (or "unknown" if unparseable)."""
     if not time_str:
         return "unknown"
-    if len(time_str) >= 7 and time_str[4] == '-':
+    s = time_str.strip()
-        return time_str[:7]  # Already YYYY-MM-DD
+    if len(s) >= 7 and s[4] == '-' and s[5:7].isdigit():
-    if len(time_str) >= 6 and time_str[:4].isdigit():
+        return s[:7]  # ISO 8601: YYYY-MM-DD...
-        return time_str[:4] + '-' + time_str[4:6]  # YYYYMMDD → YYYY-MM
+    if len(s) >= 6 and s[:6].isdigit():
-    return time_str[:7]
+        return s[:4] + '-' + s[4:6]  # Compact: YYYYMMDD → YYYY-MM
+    if len(s) >= 4 and s[:4].isdigit():
+        return s[:4] + '-01'  # Year-only / year-prefixed junk (e.g. "2015/CD Amd 2")
+    return "unknown"
 
 def _cached(key: str, fn, ttl: float = _CACHE_TTL):
     """Return cached result or compute and cache it."""

src/webui/data/analysis.py

@@ -546,6 +546,8 @@ def _compute_timeline_animation_data(db: Database) -> dict:
         r = rating_map[name]
         d = draft_map.get(name)
         month = _extract_month(d.time if d else None)
+        if month == "unknown":
+            continue  # Undated docs (e.g. ISO/ETSI) can't be placed on a temporal animation
         cat = r.categories[0] if r.categories else "Other"
         month_set.add(month)
         category_monthly[month][cat] += 1
@@ -559,6 +561,12 @@ def _compute_timeline_animation_data(db: Database) -> dict:
             "month": month,
         })
 
+    # Deliver points in chronological order so the front-end's cumulative
+    # filter (p.month <= frame) is append-only.  Otherwise new points get
+    # inserted mid-array and Plotly's index-based frame transition animates
+    # existing markers flying to other drafts' coordinates ("jumping points").
+    points.sort(key=lambda p: (p["month"], p["name"]))
+
     months = sorted(month_set)
     # Convert defaultdict to plain dict for JSON
     cat_monthly_plain = {m: dict(cats) for m, cats in category_monthly.items()}

src/webui/templates/timeline.html

@@ -141,9 +141,12 @@ if (points.length > 0 && months.length > 0) {
         };
     });
 
-    // --- Initial plot (first month) ---
+    // --- Initial plot: show the FULL landscape (last frame) so the page
-    const firstTraces = buildTraces(months[0]);
+    //     doesn't open on the near-empty earliest month. Play replays from
-    const firstCount = points.filter(p => p.month <= months[0]).length;
+    //     the start to animate the build-up. ---
+    const initMonth = months[months.length - 1];
+    const initTraces = buildTraces(initMonth);
+    const initCount = points.length;
 
     // Slider steps
     const sliderSteps = months.map(month => ({
@@ -165,7 +168,7 @@ if (points.length > 0 && months.length > 0) {
                 {
                     label: '&#9654; Play',
                     method: 'animate',
-                    args: [null, { frame: { duration: 500, redraw: true }, transition: { duration: 300 }, fromcurrent: true }]
+                    args: [null, { frame: { duration: 500, redraw: true }, transition: { duration: 300 }, fromcurrent: false }]
                 },
                 {
                     label: '&#9724; Pause',
@@ -175,7 +178,7 @@ if (points.length > 0 && months.length > 0) {
             ]
         }],
         sliders: [{
-            active: 0,
+            active: months.length - 1,
             steps: sliderSteps,
             x: 0.05, len: 0.9,
             xanchor: 'left',
@@ -194,13 +197,13 @@ if (points.length > 0 && months.length > 0) {
         }],
     };
 
-    Plotly.newPlot('tsneAnim', firstTraces, layout, CFG).then(() => {
+    Plotly.newPlot('tsneAnim', initTraces, layout, CFG).then(() => {
         Plotly.addFrames('tsneAnim', frames);
     });
 
     // Update badge on animation frame
     const badge = document.querySelector('#monthBadge span');
-    badge.textContent = `${fmtMonth(months[0])} — ${firstCount} drafts`;
+    badge.textContent = `${fmtMonth(initMonth)} — ${initCount} drafts`;
 
     document.getElementById('tsneAnim').on('plotly_animatingframe', function(ev) {
         const month = ev.name;