Difficult to Commit to Purchasing

Q & A
#1

I spent many, many hours of my trial period filling in data, but as is typical of me, I started at the beginning and didn’t get to the point in the story I actually needed help with. I get easily overwhelmed, so I couldn’t work on it ever day, and I kept on running into roadblocks in the program, such as being unable to change the calendar after I started. I’m now seeing almost no official updates for years in the forum, and I expect my feedback will go both unseen and unacted on…

I would very much like to continue the timeline I started, as seeing the ages of characters for events was a critical detail I could not keep up with in a text document, but every time I felt liberated by one feature, I felt restricted by another. As visually useful as Timeline is, it is quite a primitive program, lacking many very basic functions (eg. it has red spellcheck lines, but no spellcheck function when they are clicked, and only functions on a US English dictionary, showing incorrect errors for a UK user), and only receiving bug fixes. I make no money from writing and have no income, so I cannot justify paying full price for a program like this that isn’t being actively developed in a timely manner with vital features missing (I already shared a list of my issues here).

I gave Timeline a try specifically because it was one of the cheapest options that had the kind of visual layout I needed, and I was willing to pay that amount until I started getting blocked by arbitrary restrictions. I’ve joined the newsletter in case the program goes on sale, but how likely is that? Everything I find from searching price and sales is years old, like Timeline has been on life support for years, and the forum is only active thanks to a couple of users… If feedback is ignored by the dev team, the program only receives bug fixes, and doesn’t go on sale anymore, this is an extremely bad look for new users, and I may just start again in a different program.

#2

I know you’ve posted your questions as you encountered some of your challenges. If you are willing to share details about the hurdles you’re still encountering, we might be able to help. It’s pretty normal to wrestle with AT in the beginning.

Though development is rather languid, AT is in active development. You have probably seen this video where @AeonRob previews some of the features of the forthcoming version 3.5, but in case not, check it out: 2025 Q1 Preview. It has just entered beta.

I’m in the beta group, and, for what it’s worth, I find version 3.5 to have some game-changing features–so much so that I suggested it deserves to be called version 4. (I don’t think I convinced the developers, though.) As to that pesky spell check red underlining, it’s being fixed for 3.5.

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#3

Yeah, I did see that thread, and it’s worrying that a Q1 preview hasn’t been released or updated by (almost) Q4, and there hasn’t been a major update since November 2023.

As for hurdles, being unable to change the calendar after data has already been entered is pretty major roadblock for me. It was suggested I cut the data, change the calendar, then paste it back, but I’m concerned about how much work that would require in changes. As I mentioned, I turned to Timeline to help visualise the hundreds of years of world-building, and only really started assigning months and days to birthdays after starting Timeline–if it’s only going to mess up the Winter dates because of the timestamp shift, that’s not too bad, but if it breaks every date and year by 30 days, that’s a huge amount to fix. And there wasn’t even a calendar view to track which events could have been stopping me from editing the dates (but I might have missed it, I got too focused on one goal).

There was a bunch of things like the spellcheck/dictionary, no year 0, to being able to define specific events in a person’s lifespan (like their age freezing due to magic–which is a big issue when it comes to tracking age during events–and changing names or titles), poor data interlinking (like if you imagine wikis, where every use of a name is a link to that thing’s profile), and some other things I can’t think of right now, and can’t check in read-only mode. I was stupid for not exploring more features while I could, but I was happy to buy it until the very end and the research since.

#4

Understood. You’re punching out.

FYI, this feature is part of the upcoming 3.5.

#5

What do you mean by “punching out”? I spent 10s of hours inputting data during the trial, so it’s not like I want to lose all that effort (not that I need to justify whether or not I buy it). If you think I’m simply complaining for the sake of it, I assure you that this comes from a place of zero emotion. I thought I was being quite polite. It does say a lot about the project that you’re the only person replying in the forum, though.

To repeat the question: are there sales? Is there any timeline on the 3.5 release?

#6

I am a user like you, trying to help. Honestly, I must have misunderstood you. I should have read your postings more carefully.

I have no idea if there will be any sales, nor do I know when 3.5 will be released. Good luck with your project.

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#7

This was me, another user trying to help you.

Not true. See above.

In fact, the community here is quite small, and proposing solutions can be a time-consuming task without appreciation or even feedback. I often wonder why this is so, even though Aeon Timeline software is used for the most fascinating projects. It takes experience to fully exploit its potential, which in turn should increase interest in continuously sharing information.

I suspect that most visitors here see themselves as customers rather than members of a user community. And it’s also true that @AeonRob is now putting a lot of effort into providing customer service. However, it remains to be seen whether this will strengthen community spirit or merely raises expectations.

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#8

A simple, easy, and free solution for an alternative workflow is to use Obsidian along with one of the timeline plugins. With these, you can create timelines based on your notes or a list within a note, etc.

Another free, though not as advanced, timeline software is The Timeline Project — open source and free.

The good thing about the Obsidian path is that everything is based on plain text, formatted with Markdown, so you can always read your notes.

Obsidian also has a longform plugin for writers.

Just a tip.

(And you’re right — there are only a few people replying or answering questions in this forum now, maybe 5–6 semi-active users.)

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#9

Historically, AT has developed in little booms, with long intermissions. Forum is relatively inactive because there often seems to be nothing going on or new to discuss. But that is the tip of the iceberg: there are many users who don’t ever appear in the forum.

That makes sense.
There are very few programs like AT though. You can look at cheaper, simpler alternatives.
I use the Lattics timeline feature - which is okay for me because I already use Lattics.
The Obsidian suggestions might be sufficient - if you already use Obsidian.
If you’re needs are more complex AT may still be your best answer. You cannot depend on development adding missing features that you need - but the very experienced users here on the forum might be able to suggest workarounds; but that would need to be one problem at a time.

I’d hoped that the ongoing subscription model would enable more consistent development, but I don’t thing that has been true. I’ve been using my current PC for a couple of years and just realised that I haven’t even installed AT because Lattics covers 99.9% of my needs and workflow niggles on AT (largely maybe because of its complexity) mean it’s not something I’d used casually. So I have just cancelled my ongoing updates subscription.

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#10

I, too, have used Obsidian as a complete novel-writing solution. It’s impressive on many fronts. (I posted a video here a while back showing my setup.)

The drawback that tipped the scales toward the Scrivener/Aeon Timeline synced combination was that in Obsidian, the timeline plugins couldn’t come anywhere near what I needed for my story. My take is that you could, with considerable effort, create a decent timeline for display purposes, but you couldn’t do the timeline acrobatics of reconfiguring things on a whim. And there was no way to create my most useful tab, the subway view. Only Aeon Timeline, to my knowledge, can do that.

#11

Yeh, you’re totally right about the timeline plugins – they’re all very limited when it comes to flexibility and reconfiguring on the fly.

I don’t write novels or fiction myself – I focus on historical research – so plain Markdown works fine for text and notes. Most timeline needs are covered by the plugins, at least until I need to use the timeline as a proper analytical tool.

I also have Scrivener, but for me, the network graphs in Obsidian/Foam are invaluable. They help uncover historical relationships and linkages that are nearly impossible to spot in a table or across multiple lists. That kind of visual pattern recognition is something Aeon Timeline doesn’t really offer – at least not in the same way.

I really wish someone could develop a timeline plugin for Obsidian or even for VS Code that matched Aeon’s flexibility – or that Aeon itself would offer a proper Markdown sync that’s both configurable and robust.

Also, I’d love to have a subway view for Markdown. It’s an invaluable tool when the data in Aeon is properly configured for my use case – it makes it incredibly easy to see when and where two objects have crossed paths.

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#12

There is a significant new version in beta. For fiction writers, it is a leap forward in that we can now model the narrative in ways not previously possible. Plus, we can create custom tabs and call them up as needed (even via keyboard shortcuts). I’m a happy camper, anyway. :slight_smile:

#13

This is exactly what I had wished for, too.

Honestly, if Aeon Timeline were to add an integrated markdown text editor that has some of the linking and backlinking capability of Obsidian, I’d be over the moon because I’d happily use it to write my novels. Those who need a different writing tool can still use Scrivener or any other tool. Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

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#14

Beta.
iirc the last version with significant new features was exactly a year ago. So my upgrade subscription will have seen precisely zero new features.
Bug fixes are good, but only if the bugs affect you. So my perspective has become that it’s best only to subscribe to updates when there’s something new I need. I’d hoped that the subscription model would have led to something more regular.

Obviously that makes even more sense for me personally since I don’t use AT most of the time. (And that’s more of a ‘is using something with that level of complexity genuinely necessary for this project, or would it be an unproductive time sink?’ question and not a comment on AT per se.)

#15

Your perspective makes perfect sense. This is the concept behind Aeon Timeline’s subscription model. If there is enough value in a new feature, we can purchase a year’s subscription. If not, then not. Since Aeon Timeline didn’t offer any new features during your subscription, I don’t blame you for being disappointed and not renewing.

I’d hoped that the subscription model would have led to something more regular.

Agreed, though for me Aeon Timeline is a critical part of my novel-writing process. I’ve subscribed to support its development and also dedicated time to helping with the beta testing. It just makes sense to invest in a project that lets me view my story from so many perspectives, even if we go through a dry spell of development. I suppose I’m taking the long view. I’m just happy with what I’m seeing in the 3.5 beta, which I’m now using with my novel writing. The wait has been worth it.

Also, the development team has been quite responsive to the feedback from the beta users. It’s obvious that there is active development going on, I’m happy to report.

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#16

Yes, I could most likely use that in much of my research as well. But I still think the network graph and some of the plugins are excellent tools for historical research, or for anyone working with complex relationships between people, places, and things like vessels or vehicles.

For example: where did a person work at a given time? If they were on a ship, where did it dock during that period? Who else was on board? Did they cross paths again later in life?

A relation line in the timeline would cover 99% of what I do, simply because visual patterns are easier to grasp than scanning through a table.

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