Conflict where there is no conflict bug report

Bug Reports
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#1

Platform & OS Version

Platform: Mac
OS Version: 11.6
OS Language Setting: English

App Version: 3.0.12

Problem Description + Screenshots

Event C has start = start of event A and end = end of event B. A comes before B, so there is no logical problem with that, but C has the ! conflict notice at beginning and end.

Screen Shot 2021-10-20 at 21.30.07
Screen Shot 2021-10-20 at 21.30.071918Ă—728 161 KB

Steps to reproduce

How would I know?

I created events A and B before C.

A and B are the time Grey is elsewhere and Jane is in charge at the bar.

Any relevant files?

My timeline file is relevant.

#2

I assume that you want the event “Jane is in charge” to automatically change its end date to the event “never go there”?
The reason that you are getting this conflict is because the current constraints system is not set up to automatically change the duration of events to solve a conflict. This is because the constraints system is common across all templates and particularly in project management in can be dangerous to change the duration of events automatically.
However we realise that there are use cases where this is not the case, and therefore are going to be looking into how we can get this working for this purpose.
In your case it just means if you get a conflict like this, it will just be a flag to you to manually adjust the end date to what you want.

#3

I never set “Jane is in charge” to have zero duration. Your software did that and promptly flagged it as a conflict. If I have to set the end of it manually and later I change the start or duration of earlier events, I have to reset THIS event’s start and stop all over again.

Constraints seem to serve no purpose. To make them useful, you’d have to start with keeping track of whether I ever set a duration/start/end for the event and if I didn’t, you’d use constraints to define it.

#4

The constraints system shouldn’t be changing the duration. Do you know what steps you took that made the software change the duration of that event? This would help us work out what is happening.

#5

Timeline makes the duration zero when an event is created, and that’s the problem. It should leave it undefined until I set it or a constraint determines it.

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#6

Yes you are correct, the program does give a default duration of 0 if not adjusted by the user, currently there is no way in Aeon Timeline for an event not to have a duration if it has a start date.
As stated earlier, we will look at adding in the ability to have the constraints automatically adjust the duration of an event, as well as the start date.

#7

I didn’t give it a start date, either. That seems to have come from one of the constraints.

#8

Yes a constraint can cause an addition of a start date to an event. Once this has been added, it then adds the default duration of 0 seconds.

#9

I got into Timeline 3 with some excitement, seeing all those constraint options, e.g. the ability to set the start of event C = the start of event A, and event C end = end of event B.

So I used those constraints.

But they don’t do anything but cause errors. I don’t get the point of it, at all.

1 Like