Hi @Amontillado,
I am with @Peter_T on this (hi again Peter). Obviously, since I started the original referenced thread, duh… 
From my side, any open, non-propietary data format (XML, JSON, etc.) would do just fine; or even relational like SQLite. As long as it is possible to round-trip data cleanly and efficiently between TL and something else.
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Hi, @MINE, as may have been noted elsewhere, the AT3 file format looked like a process image dump to me at the time of beta testing. Lots of redundancy, and quite dangerous to tinker with.
From the AT developers’ point of view, however, it can be an advantage to discourage the publishers of third-party software: It is clear to me that problems with ill-coded utilities or open source applications will eventually affect the reputation and support of Aeon Timeline. Therefore, focusing on cooperation with a few mainstream applications seems quite sensible to me.
And as I have noticed after all these years here in the forum, almost nobody is willing to even start a Python script, let alone program or improve one. Mind you, I’m not complaining because I can help myself in every way.
But one thing would interest me: Assuming you had the roundtrip capability, how would you take advantage of it?
Python is fun.
I haven’t done anything with automating Aeon Timeline. A long time ago, I wrote a sync utility in Python to keep Scrivener in lockstep with a Word-like word processor on my Android. It was primitive, but it worked.
Mellel is my far and away favorite word processor, but it doesn’t have a mail merge function. I wrote my own in Python, and I also wrote a Mellel style set analyzer which creates a report of what styles are dependent on which other styles.
Both those products, Mellel and Scrivener, have file formats that are completely transparent.
My use of Aeon has been more for documenting projects and correspondence than story generation. I’d like to change that.
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Great! Maybe you can update my aeon3obsidian script, there is definitely interest for that here.
It shouldn’t be too hard, it looks like some nodes have been moved or renamed in the JSON part.
If I can get the time, that sounds like fun. I would like to learn Aeon file internals.
But one thing would interest me: Assuming you had the roundtrip capability, how would you take advantage of it?
Essentially by using AT as a visualisation and editing tool for date/time data that is stored in other systems. For example, looking at, comparing and commenting different customers’ purchases and related events over time. Or, building a project time line/schedule in AT that integrates with the project’s admin data base. Another is to help root-cause analysis during major Incidents by reading the tickets and logs from the Service Management CMDB and enhance them with additional event details in AT, which are then stored back in the CMDB (preferably in real-time).
For me, a visually appealing timeline is just a different (and nice) front end for dry, time stamped event data in core operations systems - hence the round trip… You may have already guessed that I don’t use AT for its original purpose, i.e. to create story boards / time lines for novels 
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Well, in essence, your use cases are not that different from mine. If it’s just about visualising the course of time, and relationships don’t play a role, you could manage it with the open source “Timeline” program. It has an XML format, if somewhat hackishly implemented.
… “Timeline” program. It has an XML format, if somewhat hackishly implemented.
Quite so. See post in the original thread…
About Timeline
Yes, everything has already been said … I’m starting to get a guilty conscience, it’s all off-topic in this thread.
I didn’t want to interrupt y’alls conversion, but as is seems to be done now - do we have a vague ETA on the update? Q1, I assume, means it’ll be out by April, which is nice. Will that be a full release, or beta?
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Looks like a fantastic update is in the pipeline. I’ll be looking forward to many of the features but especially tabbed views and the ability to have those tabs focusing on the same view types with a different focus and settings. I really like the avatars too. Can’t wait for the release. When is is due?
Hi Keith and @Faustyna, at this stage we’re aiming to be in beta sometime around the end of March.
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Yes! Thanks Rob! 
Can’t wait!
Ah, typical that my curent coverage ends end of March.
Mine runs out in May, but I figured the beta release and eventual full release was going to take a fair while longer (my guess is middle to end of April for the beta and a few months after for the release, but I may be wrong). So I added an extra 12 months of updates to my account back in January. Hopefully we won’t have to wait quite that long for the release of 3.5 though 
EDIT: just wanted to add that my comments are not a criticism. As the saying goes: Good things come to those who wait 
And I am sure that 3.5 will be worth the wait.
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I’m happy to continue supporting AT’s development with my subscription. I’m with @ahansonauthor in my optimism.
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Me, obsessively checking this thread to see if we have any more info on the beta drop date.
March 13th is basically the end of March, right?
I can’t wait to see if the syncing is fixed (bidirectional relationships where the relationships are inverse [parent/child] don’t all sync over in exports, or to Scrivener. It’ll just show Children under one character, but those children characters won’t have their ‘Parent’ anywhere, just blank). It’s the one major thing that impedes my current workflow. I think it’s been mentioned it should be.
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Yes, absolutely!
Excellent set of changes. Can’t wait to play with it.
On text file, perhaps a markdown file would be very helpful. It gives more flexibility particularly when importing to note taking tools such as Obsidian
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The 25th definitely is though!
Not me, sitting here refreshing the forum page in hopes we get the update today
If not the update, at least give us some more teasers! Did you guys add anything else based on feedback, or have new ideas about stuff to do?
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