Beginner questions

[gsf (Gabriel)]

Hello,
I’m finally starting to try Aeon Timeline (which I’ve been aware of for a very long time!). Normally, I write “as I go,” but I need to try writing more structured things. A screenplay, in particular.
I have a few questions:
I’m currently mainly using the Spreadsheet view, because it’s the one I “understand” best (and that I usually don’t care about “real dates” in fiction!).

But I can’t get into edit mode by navigating with the arrow keys on my keyboard. (= move from one cell/row to another and edit the text within. I can only delete-replace, but not edit. Like I do in Airtable, for example.)
I’ve tried every possible key combination, but without success.
This would be very essential to me!

More generally, I’m a little confused because I realize that AT is extraordinarily powerful, but the few tutorials I’ve consulted only scratch the surface of the software’s capabilities.
I’m talking about YouTube videos or even the resources and guides on the website.

I’ve tried a few changes to the items for fun and experimentation, but it seems too complicated, or it doesn’t react as I expect. (Just a tiny example: I created a “voiceover” type with an indigo color, and yet if I modify an event to the “voiceover” type, the “color” column remains green. It doesn’t matter, just to illustrate.)

For now, I can’t get my head around the Narrative/Outline views (which I suspect would be very useful to me as an author!), and I don’t understand how the views interact with each other.

In particular, I don’t understand the option here:

I don’t understand the point of the Relationship view (I suppose it’s useful, but I don’t “see” how or for what!).

It’s as if I’m missing the elements to grasp all the subtleties of the software.
But I realize it will probably take some time to understand all this!
I’m sorry for having digressed, but it’s mainly the precise question about editing a cell that brought me here!
Thanks in advance for help or suggestions.

[AeonRob (Rob Steep)]

Hi gsf, welcome to the forum!

There are a few things to unpack in your post, so I’ll do my best to hit all the points

Spreadsheet keyboard control
It’s currently not possible to place the cursor in a cell using only the keyboard to edit the existing text the way you can in something like Airtable or Google Sheets. We’ll look into it as a possible update in a future release though.

New Item Types with custom colors
Creating a new Item Type and assigning a color only sets the default for new items of that type, but doesn’t automatically update the color if you convert another existing item to that type (e.g. converting an “event” to a “voiceover”).

It’s something that we may improve in the future, but there are no set plans for it yet.

One approach that might save you some time if you need to update the color on multiple items is to use the Sidepanel to select a range (Shift+Click), or multi-select individual items (CMD/CTRL+Click), then use the Inspector to update the color on them all at once.

If Voiceover isn’t showing in the Sidepanel, you can make it visible with the Show Item Types menu which I’ve marked with the red box.

Narrative/Outline views
The Narrative and Outline views are useful for working out the order in which your story is presented to the audience. You can arrange events in any way you like independently of their chronological order on the Timeline. The two views share the same data but present it in a different way.

The image you have there is how you can set the defaults for how folders and events are structured and labeled in the Narrative. The order the sections are arranged from top to bottom sets their hierarchy when nested, so I might suggest using the handles to drag “Scene” below “Chapter” so that Act > Chapter > Scene

The checkboxes set the default labels for folders and events in the Narrative, so for that I would suggest:

• Act: Folder
• Chapter: Folder
• Scene: Other Types (Event)

That way, a top-level folder will be labeled as an Act, a second-level folder as a Chapter, and events within them are Scenes.

We’ve actually got a new guide on the way that explains all this in detail, so keep you eyes peeled for that over the next couple of weeks!

Relationship View
This view provides a quick way to reference the who/what/where of each event on your timeline to help you see things like whether someone is in two places at the same time. Check out the Novel template to see it in action and have a play around with assigning people/locations etc to events.

Hopefully that helps clarify those things for you. Let me know if you have any other questions!

[SCN (Steve)]

@AeonRob

One approach that might save you some time if you need to update the color on multiple items is to use the Sidepanel to select a range (Shift+Click), or multi-select individual items (CMD/CTRL+Click), then use the Inspector to update the color on them all at once.

I discovered this a couple of weeks ago. I also enjoyed finding that, when selecting multiple items in, say, Outline view, I could bulk add relationships to them in one go. For example, if I want to add a character to three scenes, I select the scenes concurrently and add the character. My workflow got faster once I discovered that.

By the way, thank you, Rob, for the clarity of your explanations. Nicely done.

[gsf (Gabriel)]

Hi Rob,
Thank you so much for all this information!
Thank you for taking the time to provide these detailed explanations; I am very grateful.
I have already made some progress and better understood certain concepts and features since then.

I will take some time to review and test your suggestions.

I can say that Aeon Timeline is beautifully designed and engineered!
The keyboard-based cell navigation and editing feature would undoubtedly be very welcome news for many users, I guess.
Thanks again; I can’t wait to try all this out and !