How do I enable relationship lines without constraints in the timeline

Q & A
#1

How can I enable lines for relationships without constraints?

i.e.:
I have an Event “Voyage 1”.
I also have a Research Journal "Item of type “Research Journal” that I also want to show on the timeline.
The Research Journal has sub-items “Research Log” and “Research Plan”.

The Event occurred in 1922 in the period between Jan 1st and Jan 15th, while the research was do started in i.e. 2020-01-01.

I thought there would be a line showing this relation without the need of setting a constraint on it?

So what I is looking for is a line showing the relation in the color I configured in settings…
If I should set constraint on this relation, I would like those to occur in a different color, i.e. “warning neon red”.

Is this possible, or do I need to set constraints on any relation I want to show in the timeline?
And If I need to use Constraints, How can I change the color of the line to the one I use for the “target” item?
And How can I change the type of Line, like I can in the mind map view?

And if constraints is the only option, can this be added as a feature or at least an option to change the color and line type of the lines manually ?

#2

The constraints are really not meant for what you are describing, so I think it wouldn’t be a good workaround.
I‘m afraid what you wish is not possible at the moment, but there might be other ways to visualize the relation between those items.

#3

Yes, I know the constraints is not ment for that… but I can not see any other way…

My “Research Object” is historical, while my “research journals” is of course of newer dates, and if I want to both track the history of my historical objects and my research, I can’t add the research journals as child…

It is also another reason why a “research journal” or any other item/object can’t be added to an event as child, and that is because this type of objects can have multiple parents…

So I have a dilemma here… using constraints to at least have a visual “link” between the items in the timeline (i don’t like the mind map approach for this), or I need to go back and use a project management software that I don’t like and that has other limitations…

I really like the look and feel and general usability of Aeon…

#4

Hi Jaran,
There isn’t currently a way to draw those relationship lines on the timeline.

I am not sure if someone has asked for this or not, but we can add it to our list to consider.

Using simple Blocks/Blocked by links could create the display you want for that if the order between those items will be fixed, but it is kind of creating wrong data to make a display, which is not an ideal choice.

#5

Yeh, it’s not ideal, but at the moment I just use a “Start is after Start of” for i.e. Research Journals.

for this type of projects where there are little calculations for the project itself (I have actually turned of the auto adjust at the moment), it is a temporary workable workaround.

If you take it into consideration, can you also consider custom colors i.e. based on the relation setting for the mind map and to be able to adjust the opacity for the lines?

#7

Yes, that would make sense to include as part of it.

#8

You could add relationships between those items and make those show in the item card. There wouldn’t be a line between them, but you could at least show which other items are connected.

By the way @matt : I realize those shown items in the item cards cannot be clicked on to get to these items. I think that could be a great addition.