Is downgrade to version 2 possible?

[Jan (Jan S)]

I’m using Aeontimeline v3.1.9.
I still have a v2.3.16 installation on my Windows computer.
Is it possible to migrate/convert/export my .aeon file to use in Aeontimeline v2.3.16?

[Jaran]

You can run both version 2 and 3 on the same computer, you just need to be sure that you install to different folders.

[Peter_T]

I think it should be possible to export events, characters, locations, and arcs as csv with Aeon 3 and import them into a new project with Aeon 2. But I don’t know what relationships can be transferred in the process.

If you are a programmer, you can read the .aeon file with a script and create an .aeonzip file from the data. I have created Python program libraries that can read both file formats, and write the .aeonzip format. But because those were intended for a different purpose (data exchange with yWriter), you would first need to understand and adapt them to combine them appropriately.
See the extract_json.py script and the aeon3yw and aeon2yw projects on GitHub.

[Jan (Jan S)]

Thank you.
Aeon v2 had a webexport function, since v3 it is promised, I becomes urgent to have that webexport funtion again. I try to find a way to use the webexport function in Aeon v2.
I am not a professional programmer, just an amateur so I can try it. Where can I find documentation about both fileformats?

[Peter_T]

@Jan

Where can I find documentation about both fileformats?

There is an extensive discussion about the Aeon file formats in another thread:

What is the data format of an *.aeon file?

I would like to try and link/sync an Aeon timeline directly with an external data source (a bit like the Scrivener sync feature). I noticed that the timeline data is stored in a binary file in what looks like JSON format. I would like to create timelines directly from DB data and have changes made in the timeline written back to the DB, without going through an Import/Export procedure. Is this possible, and what would be the right format to read open/read/write the binary *.aeon file?

In short: Both Aeon 2 and Aeon 3 organize the data as JSON data structure, so you can use any programming language with JSON support.

• Aeon 2 compresses the JSON file to a ZIP container.
• Aeon 3 merges the JSON data with other binary data.

The extract_json.py script linked above can read both formats and create a JSON file that you can inspect with any text editor, preferably one with JSON syntax highlighting.

The internal structure of the JSON files from Aeon 2 and Aeon 3 are somewhat different. I don’t know whether there is an official specification; I just analyzed the data structures with a small project. The data structures are not exactly straightforward; there is a lot of need to look up UIDs and to track references across the whole file. So if you are a beginner in programming, this could be quite a challenge.

Have you already tried the csv transfer?

[Jan (Jan S)]

Thanks.
I tried csv transfer but this gave no good results.

[Peter_T]

If your Aeon 3 project is not excessively complex, but has just too many events on the timeline to rebuild with Aeon 2, you could also try to create a yWriter project with aeon3yw and then convert it to an Aeon2 project with aeon2yw . That is, synchronize with an empty Aeon 2 project. The yWriter project file (.yw7) serves only as an intermediate format, so you don’t need a yWriter installation. With the help of configuration files you can control this process to some extent, but you have to deal with the instructions for use in any case.

EDIT:
Be aware, however, that such an approach is not what these file converters are intended for. It is quite possible that the results obtained with them do not surpass the CSV transfer.