Exporting Aeon Timeline 3 to Obsidian

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#19

I don’t have enough information to help you, I’m afraid.
So Python is installed correctly? Fine.
By the way, please make sure to use the Python installation offered by python.org. There is also a variant from the Microsoft Store, but numerous problems are reported with this on the web.

Next, we have to find out whether there is a specific problem with your timeline. I tested the aeon3obsidian.py script with the “Murder on the Orient Express” example project, which is working fine for me. So you may want to try this out on your PC.

You can open this example project with Aeon Timeline 3, save the .aeon file to a test folder, then try to export the Markdown files. Does this work via drag/drop?

Next, you can try to start aeon3obsidian.py from a command prompt like so:

aeon3obsidian.py (path-to-aeon-file)

If the path to your aeon filename contains blanks, you need to enclose the path in double quotes.
If the program runs, you will see messages, like so:

aeon3obsidian_console
aeon3obsidian_console852×287 8.86 KB

The Markdown files are in a subfolder:

aeon3obsidian-folder

If something goes wrong, a meaningful error message should be displayed.

Good luck.

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#20

Thanks for your help. I am getting following error. Can u check and guide how to solve it.

image
image874×325 13.4 KB

#21

Thank you for the error message. This helps.

So drag/drop should work, but the script aborts because of an unlabeled aeon item.
This means, your project is missing something I took for granted when I wrote the program.
I will try to handle this error, but you may also want to take a close look at your Aeon project. Has every item (event, character, and so on) a name?

Please tell me whether converting the “Murder on the Orient express” example works for you.

Cheers,
Peter

Update:

Now the fixed version is available for download on the aeon3obsidian home page.
Please give me a short feedback if it works now for you.

P.S.
In the meantime, I managed to modify my test data so that the reported error is reproducible on my PC. aeon3obsidian.py version 1.0.5 also handles relationships that reference items with an invalid label.

3 Likes
#22

Just wanted to say all of you are awesome for digging into this. It’s imperative for me to be able to work in Obsidian on my Android phone for about half of my work time, so any efforts to create a syncing solution between Aeon and Obsidian will be huge for me.

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#23

Well, so far I don’t even have the feedback that my script works at all for anyone other than me. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be too much demand. But maybe someone else will want to carry on.
Anyway, thanks for the thumbs-up.

2 Likes
#24

According to the feedback by @geargat, the Aeon Timeline 3 file format has been changed in the meantime, so this script might not work for you.
Since I still use Aeon Timeline 2, I cannot develop my Aeon 3 tools further, I’m afraid.
However, anybody who wants to adopt the code can update it.

1 Like
#25

Hey - I created an account just to comment here and say that there is demand for your beautiful work. I am sure there are tons of others like me who stalk this thread and keep hoping there is a solution. I would be eternally grateful to you if you figure it out. Lots of love and cheering.

3 Likes
#26

Another stalker of this thread as well. Very impressive work being done here; am tempted to dive into this … I imagine there are more stalkers and lurkers in the shadows.

It might behoove us to understand how everyone uses AT and Obsidian and how they expect to use and manage the interface between the two products. In my workflow, Scrivener comes into play as well. I suspect a wide variety of desires and intentions.

In my case, I am a essay, short story, and novel writer and use AT to outline events (scenes) across plots, story arcs, characters (at a cursory level), location (cursory), and timeline. It is an incredible tool for this. AT is meta data rich.

Obsidian is my data and information & research repository and drafting environment.

Once I have a draft that is worthy of further writing, I use Scrivener for manuscript development. I still use AT and Obsidian as research and first drafting. Both AT and Obsidian are extremely useful in the early, planning phases and then tapers off during drafting.

My hesitancy in pursuing this interface is due to the one way nature between AT, Obsidian, and Scrivener. Granted I do all of my crafting on a large monitor, so I can have all three open and usable; why bother with this interface. I can see where it would become messy, quickly.

However, the idea of this interface won’t leave my interest. The most powerful attraction is in the relationships that AT has between all of these attributes and how that can translate into links in Obsidian. But what is the value in doing this. I can see @Peter_T has a need to use a andoid phone in his workflow.

Thoughts?

2 Likes
#27

Thank you very much for your kind words, @Broken. Many people find the idea of transferring data from Aeon Timeline 3 to Obsidian cool. It was an interesting study to realize something like this, but so far I haven’t received the feedback “It actually works for me” from anyone. And now it’s too late: The file format of Aeon Timeline 3 has been silently changed, and since I haven’t got the app, I no longer have the possibility to reverse-engineer.

As far as the hope of synchronizing unsupported third-party software with Aeon Timeline 3 is concerned, I have to bring some sober facts to the table here:

  • A project in Aeon Timeline 3 forms a network structure via its relationships.
  • As far as I can tell, this network of relationships can only be fully reconstructed from the original .aeon file.
  • The CSV files that Aeon Timeline exports and imports, on the other hand, are two-dimensional arrays. To find out the relationships here, additional knowledge about the user-defined structure of the project is required.
  • This makes it seem impossible for me to write a generic conversion tool based on the CSV export that is as powerful as aeon3obsidian.py.

Just to be clear: For me, aeon3obsidian.py was a programming exercise, inspired by the feature requests here in the forum.
I only had access to the .aeon file format version 6 from the beta test phase, since I don’t use Aeon Timeline 3 myself. And I tried Obsidian because of the general enthusiasm, but I keep using Zim Desktop Wiki myself, which is more advantageous for me.

As for my workflow, if I were to actually use Aeon Timeline 3, I would need both an export of the narrative and the synchronization of the event dates with my writing program.
During the beta test phase, I programmed a converter to yWriter and a LibreOffice extension. However, because I was unable to synchronize in both directions, I decided to stick with Aeon Timeline Version 2, where I can do so.

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#28

I just got into Obsidian recently. Right now I use it for building a Zettelkasten and notes in general. I will probably use it as a repository for all short form texts as well. At the moment I am not planning on doing long form texts in there, I guess I’ll stick with Scrivener for that. My current workflow is brainstorming in AT, building an outline there, then start syncing to Scrivener and keep on working in both.
That’s why right now I don’t think I’ll start mixing AT with Obsidian, but it’s possible that some day I’ll switch and maybe then I’ll be making use of something that started in this thread. Maybe we’ll have a dedicated AT plugin in Obsidian some day. Or AT will officially sync with Obsidian (which would mean syncing to a folder of Markdown files, actually).

2 Likes
#29

+1 / fingers crossed for this same use case @Rob mentions! Sync would absolutely skyrocket the already-high value both AT and Obsidian have for me too.

2 Likes
#30

A general Markdown export is something I have been requesting from the very early days of alpha testing Aeon Timeline. I want to be able to take an outline from AT3 and put it into Ulysses. But an export to Markdown would also work as the basis for an Obsidian integration, no doubt. There has been some teasing of adding further ways to export in future beta versions of AT3. But whether Markdown is one of those formats I have no idea. With Ulysses I can take word files and convert them easily and accurately into Markdown. So I have a few options for possible Ulysses integrations from AT3 in the future.

On a personal note I have no need of Obsidian. I have a copy of the app and hold an insider license, but I find the whole back link approach too much for my fiction workflow. Obsidian is a hugely impressive piece of software but now Ulysses has its own powerful internal linking with backwards and forwards navigation, I can’t ever see me needing Obsidian’s feature set.

I do hope those seeking Obsidian integration get what they want from AT3 though. Especially if it means we all get a solid, flexible markdown export.

4 Likes
#31

For whatever it is worth: I think it is very difficult to write an export or sync script as every need is very different. It would be nice if Aeon either confirmed that the file format is frozen and won’t change, so no effort is wasted, or if they even would provide documentation to help write a generic module (probably in Python) to read the files. I did some research earlier this summer but it was simply too much for me to spend time on.

I use Aeon to plan a roleplaying campaign and in that I have a lot of events which I want to refer to in my text. I write in Markdown, which I process using Python and GPP to generate HTML. I export the timeline to CSV and have a Python class parsing that. I then write things like

Frodo left Bag End on the @aeon(Frodo Leaves Bag End)(start:dth) of @aeon(Frodo Leaves Bag End)(start:mmm), the @aeon(Frodo Leaves Bag End)(start:mth) month.

and in the HTML I will get

Frodo left Bag End on the 23rd of September, the 9th month.

The code is quite simple but extensive since it adopts the output to if I write in Swedish or English (@aeon(Frodo Leaves Bag End)(start:dth) would render in English as “23rd” but in Swedish as “23:e”).

#32

What a great idea! I’ve got to try this because Obsidian is my canon repository of knowledge for my saga and I’m just now getting started with AT3.

However, I’ve run into a snag when trying to use your script.
Could you please have a peek at this Grok conversation and let me know what I’m doing wrong?

Might the .aeon file format have changed? Is this script still compatible with the current format?

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#33

There nothing you’re doing wrong, except ignoring the Requirements section on the aeon3obsidian home page. As stated there in bold, as well as in a recent post in this thread, the AT3 file format has changed since I figured it out during the Beta test phase. Because I don’t have an AT3 licence, I wouldn’t do any further development on the script. However, it’s Open Source, waiting for someone to adopt the code.

Anyway, LLM’s response provides some useful hints on where to start when adapting the code to the new file format. The first step is to extract and analyze the JSON structure of your .aeon file. Then adapt the read() method of the Aeon3File class in the aeon3_file.py module so that it finds the elements in the right place in the data tree.

If we are lucky, the required JSON elements will all still exist, but they will have been moved to other hierarchy levels in the structure. However, the file format can be silently changed again at any time.

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#34

Thanks for the reply! So the short of it is that the script is currently broken until someone can pick apart the AT3 project file format and teach the script how to find the relevant information.

I might be able to do it if I put a lot of time into it. I’ve done some crazy stuff with Python in the past, but it’s been a while. LLM might be able to refresh my memory, but it’d be a time commitment. The script does sound like a fantastic tool though! I could really use the ability to export Aeon data into Obsidian. Thanks for your work with it. I’ll have to do without for now.

#35

“Broken” is too harsh a word. I’d rather call it “outdated”.

Crazy stuff with Python is not necessary at all, and I would never rely on LLM-generated code. How to deal with JSON files is very well explained in the Python documentation and is not rocket science. Probably the biggest learning achievement is to fork the GitHub repository, commit the changes in a properly documented way, build the release package and create a pull request.

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#36

That’s cool. I might give it a shot.

I do like to use LLM to point me in the right direction when dealing with unfamiliar techniques. Like I used it at work last year to create a JSON parser that extracts our company’s sale data from our ERP’s API. It was quite a learning experience since I had zero experience with any of that.

At any rate, I just created a sample AT3 file with a single test event and gave it to Grok to see if it could find the event and point out anything notable about the structure. Here’s what it found.

#37

You can of course do it the way you are used to, but be aware that there is no intelligence behind the LLM. The answer I saw merely reflects the complexity and redundancy of the .aeon file format. Better to start from the Python code, where you can immediately see what the required tags are called and in which parts of the structure to look for them.

#38

It looks like it’s fun to play around with LLM-generated code. Maybe you’ll even manage to publish your own tool.

To give you a reference, I just uploaded the zipped Obsidian vault created with Aeon3obsidian from the “Murder on the Orient Express” sample project to my GitHub repository:

Good luck!