Some questions about 【story arc】【timeline】and【csv】

Mac & Windows (Desktop)
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#1

【My language is Chinese, and the following English version of the problem description is from the translator, I will attach my Chinese description for you to compare (thus reducing possible mistranslation problems with the translator)】
I am writing a novel about competitive sports.
When I first started creating the file from the template, I used [story arc] as [Group] to distinguish these stories/events: about official professional competitions, about secondary competitions, about youth training, about non-competitions, and there is also a [Group] (that is, the [story arc] of the original template) dedicated to recording personnel changes (including transfer information of athletes, onboarding and leaving information of important staff, etc., you know, The relevant plot of the transfer war is also worth telling in the novel)
I also set the club to [Group] (i.e. [story arc] of the original template)
In order to ensure that the various new [Group] settings are consistent, I copied the original 3 [story arcs] of the template, and then renamed them to the [Group] I needed (name: professional competition, secondary competition, youth training, etc.)
But I am now facing a problem:
I am used to dragging and dropping them into the timeline after creating them in the item list on the left
Some [Group] allows me to drag and drop like this, after I finish dragging and dropping, the item will be displayed on the timeline, and the item’s properties will automatically show which [Group] it belongs to.
But the other part of [Group] will prompt me:
【An item was dropped into the view but is not visible due to current filter settings.】
I need to manually select the [Group] of these items to get it to display properly.
I searched repeatedly and didn’t find that I had any filters set.
This is not an item issue, the problem occurs with a specific [Group], not an item
——————
Also, is it possible to create a discontinuous (or rather multi-segment) timeline for a single item?
Like what:
Player 1, club A youth training career, debut club B, playing for well-known club C, returned to the parent team A before retiring to complete the end of his career, and after a period of retirement, he started his coaching career in the small club D
For player 1, there are 6 time periods in A’s youth training, playing in B, playing in C, returning to A to play, after retiring to before coaching, and starting to coach D
If it is allowed to create a discontinuous (or multi-segmented) timeline for a single item, I don’t need to create 6 Player 1, or create 6 sub-items under Player 1 to represent the 6 states (A, B, C, A, Retirement, Coaching D).
——————
Finally, I would like to ask, since I have made too many settings for the current file, if I can’t find which step of the setting is wrong, I want to export to keep the data, and then create a new file to start over, why is the csv I exported garbled? What kind of csv can be imported/exported correctly? (Note: My language is Chinese)

【以下是我的中文描述】/【Here is my Chinese description】
我在创作一本有关体育竞技的小说。
最初从模板开始建立文件时，我把【story arc】当作【Group】使用，以便区分这些故事/事件：有关正式职业比赛的、有关次级比赛的、有关青训的、非比赛的，并且还有1个【Group】（也就是原模板的【story arc】）专门用于记录人员变动（包括运动员的转会信息，重要职员的入职、离职信息等，要知道，转会大战的相关情节在小说中也相当值得讲述）
我还会把俱乐部设置为【Group】（也就是原模板的【story arc】）
为了保证新增的各种【Group】设置一致，我复制了模板最初的3个【story arc】，然后重命名为我需要的【Group】（名称为：职业赛、次级比赛、青训，等）
但我现在面临一个问题：
我习惯在左侧的item列表中创建以后，再拖拽到时间线中
部分【Group】允许我这样拖拽，我完成拖拽后，item就会显示在时间线上，并且item的属性中会自动显现它属于哪个【Group】
但另一部分【Group】会提示我：
An item was dropped into the view but is not visible due to current filter settings.
我需要手动选择这些item的【Group】，才能让它正常显示。
我反复寻找，也没有发现我设置了任何筛选器。
这不是item的问题，这个问题发生在特定的【Group】，而不是item
——————
另外，能否为单个item创建不连续的（或者说，多段式的）时间线？
比如：
球员1，俱乐部A青训生涯、出道俱乐部B、效力知名俱乐部C、退役前回到母队A完成职业生涯的落幕，退役休息一段时间后，在小俱乐部D开启了教练生涯
对于球员1，在A青训、在B打比赛、在C打比赛、回到A打比赛、退役后到执教前、开始执教D，就是6个时间段
如果允许为单个item创建不连续的（或者说，多段式的）时间线，我就不需要创建6个球员1，或者在球员1下创建6个子项来表示（A青训、B比赛、C比赛、A比赛、退役、执教D）这五种状态
——————
最后，我还想问一下，由于我已经对当前文件做了太多的设置，如果找不到是哪一步设置出现了问题，想要导出以保留数据，然后新建文件重新开始，为什么我导出的csv都是乱码？什么样的csv才能正确的导入/导出？（注：我使用的语言是中文）

#2

That’s quite a lot to take in at once, and I’m not sure I understand all your points. It seems that the automatic translator did not always use the same wording as the application.

However, if I have understood your description correctly, it is a fundamental problem, namely the organization of your events and data in order to obtain optimal views and minimize confusion.

One thing is essential in Aeon Timeline: the leading view is events. The most important step is to define the right events and arrange them on the timeline.

So you decided to use story arcs to categorize events? That’s a very good approach, which I also use. The problem with this, however, is that what you want to illustrate has multiple dimensions that cannot be easily distinguished by simply grouping them into different story arcs.

The question of discontinuous time sequences puzzles me somewhat. Based on the example, are we talking about the careers of individual athletes?

  1. In that case, I first would define a character for each athlete.
  2. Then I would define the events like competitions, trainings, and so on, and assign the attending characters to them.
    At this point you can group the events by characters and get a nice overview about what each athlete is doing at a time.
  3. Now it’s about club membership. I would define a “Club” item type. Each club involved in your story gets an instance that basically can be assigned to an event.
  4. Next I would create events that represent the time span of a character’s club membership. For example an event “John Doe is a White Socks member”. The character John Doe is assigned to this event as well as the White Socks club.
    At this point you can group your timeline by clubs and see who is a member at which time. If you assign these “membership events” a distinctive color, you can also easily see each athlete’s clubs when grouping the timeline view by characters.
    At the beginning and end of each of these events, there can be a “transition event” if that is helpful for your story. You can also split the membership events and assign them different roles (coach, etc.), but I would only do that once I had gained enough experience with Aeon Timeline.

That will be enough for now. Note that we don’t need story arcs yet. I’m sure time will bring you new insights when working on your project and exploring all the features. Aeon Timeline is a very flexible tool, and it allows for a great number of different approaches. Which one is the best for you, you’ll have to find out yourself.

Cheers,
Peter

3 Likes
#3

The other way to consider is a story arc Like John trying to marry Jane isn’t an event (scene in a story) but is a series of events that lead to the goal and usually the character changes during this journey in the story.
I would consider creating an item in the Sidebar called Story Arc. Inside this create the different ones you want and ASSIGN via relationships the story arc to the events that lead to the character achieving their goal. You could include the character’s name in the arc to help organize them.
Now use each arc to filter the story so can look at the string of events (scenes) to see if make sense for the arc.
You can also filter for the character, but not every scene the character is in will have to do with the story arc, I hope that makes sense.
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1 Like
#4

Hi @Lunar, I think the translation has worked really well. I wouldn’t have realized that English wasn’t your first language if you didn’t mention it.

Problems when dragging to add to group
We’ve set up a file in the same way you’ve described to test it and have run into the same problem. It looks like you’ve discovered a bug :ant:

We’ll have this fixed in the next version of the app and will let you know if we discover a fix before then.

Discontinuous/multi-segment timeline:
Unfortunately there is no way to create a single timeline with segmented sections in the way you’re describing without using multiple sub items to represent each stage.

The method suggested by @Peter_T is along the lines of what we were thinking could be a good work around. We’ll get back to you in a separate reply to show you how you could set that up.

CSV Export/Import
It’s possible that some of the Chinese characters are being misinterpreted during the CSV export. Would you be happy to send us a copy of your file so that we can have a look?

If so, please email that to us at support@aeontimeline.com

#5

Hi @Lunar,

Regarding your second question about creating a “multi-segment” timeline for a single item:

The app unfortunately doesn’t support giving a single event multiple dates or segments. An event would need to be created for each ‘segment’. However, Player 1 [“Player 1”] would only need to be created once to be associated with all of their career events.

To help keep your timeline organized, we’d suggest creating a new item type for “career events” [“career events”], so they can be kept separate from your story events.

To do this:

  • Go to [Settings > Item Types], and select [Event].
  • At the bottom of the list, click the icon with two squares to duplicate it.
  • Name the copy [“Career Event”] and give it an icon and color.
  • Click OK to save your settings changes.

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This will give you separate panels for both [Events] and [Career Events]:

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After creating some career events, you can then:

  • Set the timeline to show both [Events] and [Career Events]
  • Show a group for [Player 1] on the timeline
  • Drag the career events into [Player 1]’s group to create a timeline of their career

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As Peter mentioned, you can also associate each of the clubs, if you wanted to be able to see the players’ career events for each club.

By setting up [Career Events] as a separate item type, it allows you to more easily filter to show only your story’s events or players’ career events:

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Here is the example file used, in case it is useful to you. If you are comfortable to send a copy of your file to support@aeontimeline.com, we can also help you with any needed adjustments or clean up.

Example.aeon (51.2 KB)

您好 @Lunar,

关于您关于为单个项目创建“多段”时间线的第二个问题：

很遗憾，该应用不支持为单个事件指定多个日期或段。您需要为每个“段”创建一个事件。但是，玩家 1 [“Player 1”] 只需创建一次即可与其所有职业事件关联。

为了帮助您保持时间线井然有序，我们建议您为“职业事件”创建一个新的项目类型 [“career events”]，以便将它们与您的故事事件区分开来。

操作方法：

  • 前往 [设置 > Item Types]，然后选择 [Event]。
  • 在列表底部，点击带有两个方块的图标进行复制。
  • 将副本命名为 [“Career Event”]，并为其指定图标和颜色。
  • 点击“确定”保存您的设置更改。

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这将为[Events]和[Career Events]提供单独的面板：

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创建一些职业生涯事件后，您可以：

  • 设置时间轴以同时显示[Events]和[Career Events]
  • 在时间轴上显示[Player 1]的分组
  • 将职业生涯事件拖到[Player 1]的分组中，以创建其职业生涯的时间轴

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正如 Peter 提到的，如果您想查看每个俱乐部的球员职业生涯事件，您还可以关联每个俱乐部。

通过将[Career Events]设置为单独的项目类型，您可以更轻松地进行筛选，以仅显示您的故事事件或球员的职业生涯事件：

i

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以下是示例文件，希望对您有所帮助。如果您愿意，可以将文件副本发送至 support@aeontimeline.com，我们也可以协助您进行任何必要的调整或清理。

Example.aeon (51.2 KB)