I use AT3 mostly for academic purposes and thus I have many links to sources, articles, etc in my timeline. For example, if a ‘person’ object has authored a ‘publication’ object then I have usually put in a link to the article/book itself and/or links to reviews on that work.
Seeing those on the timeline would allow me to examine the data closer and quicker. If there is a way to do this then please let me know, otherwise consider it. I’m not an author so my needs may be different than some users.
Either way would be great. The hover option would help in the case of multiple links.
Is it possible to link to an event? It would be nice to link events, or to allow other applications to link to Aeon events (or people, any item). For instance, a corkboard in Curio could link to timeline events.
Hi @Amontillado this is a feature requested by myself during the beta phase. For Mac and iOS it could possibly be achieved via x-callback-url links. Each event or item could, I think, have its own item url which could then be placed in another application. You mention Curio. I would like to be able to access Aeon items from inside Ulysses, my writing app. Links can be stored in Aeon currently but Aeon does not create its own links.
For Windows, where x-callback links are not really a thing it becomes more complicated. At least that is my understanding from @matt.
x-callback-url links would provide give AT3 a real place in my workflow. Currently it exists as the only place I can look with at data in a timeline that doesn’t look like a spreadsheet. Give me the ability to link to individual events and other items from DevonThink or anywhere else and AT3 could be fully integrated.
Yes, @matt mentioned there is such functionality on Windows. It is clearly different to x-callback-urls. But macOS and iOS also use URIs in some instances. A good example would be DEVONthink. It can use both systems. But @matt suggested any such system might need some careful consideration when implementing in Aeon Timeline. Not that I should speak on @matt’s behalf as I am certainly not a software programmer and he can speak for himself.
Having said all of the above, I hope that on both Windows and Macs that AT3 gains the ability to utilise a system to link to its own items. It is something I was asking for back in January 2020 when I started Alpha testing and it would make a huge difference to my workflow with DEVONthink and Ulysses and AT3 all talking to each other.
Good to know there is a fellow DEVONthink user requesting support for communication between our favourite software programs. I always envisaged AT3 as a kind of bridge between research info in DEVONthink databases and the systems used to create content (in my case Ulysses). Of course, AT3 is so much more than just a bridge. It is also an awesome planning and outlining tool. But I would like AT3 to also act as a central hub for those links and vice versa.
I totally agree with you that it would be a great feature… It would also be possible to linke to timeline items from most other software that support linking to objects like files/folders or web links, you could just paste the Aeon URI to that link field and when clicking on it, it would be opened in Aeon Timeline…
just as a side note:
Linking from Aeon to Zotero items with a URL/URI link like “zotero://select/library/items/32Z9AB85” do work from the link field, if Zotero is closed it will open if it’s open it will open the correct item…
I agree with @matt on that it is some work to get it working, and another problem is that if you rename your items/object, the URL/URI needs to be changed to, unless the links goes to a unchangeable object ID.
If we did it, the link would go to an unchangeable object ID, which would not look very pretty but would work.
Pointing to the correct file if the file is renamed or moved would be more or less impossible though.
So the system wouldn’t be very portable across computers… any change to the file path (e.g, different computer username) would probably break all the links.
Yes, we would always have to do some compromises…
URL’s will also change from time to time, that’s the reason it is so important to add a date for when visited a site when documenting and citing sources that you find online…
That’s why I add " Obtained {ISO-Date} from {URL-Address}" on/in all my links/citations to online repositories (read online “archives” of digital copies).
Some features has to be seen as advanced and we as users need to understand the consequences and limitations it comes with…
