Tutorials for using Aeon in historical research?

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#1

Hi there! I see that Aeon is primarily a tool used for writers. I am using it for historical research and there are a few things I’m unclear on for best-practices.

For example, I’m trying to plot differing ideas around the origin of an ancient text. So it’s not a simple matter of saying it was written at this time. There are alternate versions and contexts.

It looks like there are folks here who use Aeon in a similar way. I just wondered if there are any tutorials available for this use case.

Also, I need to be able to export these for Keynote presentations. Any tips on making things clear?

Thank you!

#2

Hello Mel, I have also requested a tutorial before that at least traced prose writing structure to a history utility structure, even one using the same terms.
Good to hear about another historical researcher. My particular interest is Military and Intelligence History, and I have created a 770 line spreadsheet containing all the battles and wars I can find occuring from ancient Sumar to Battle of Lipe River, 11 BC. There are some history AEON recommendations I should very much like to discuss with you. You and anyine elese reading this are welcome to database copies and discussions on history user recommendations. I expect AEON developers are kneedeep to a large elephant in work already, so perhaps several history useres providing coordinated recommendations will increase priorities. In any event all can cantact me at, llohoffman2@yahoo.com.

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#3

No we don’t have any tutorials available for that particular use case.
If you are not aware already, you can have uncertain dates for events, where instead of just a start and end date, you give a range for both start and end dates. This may be helpful to you if you are trying to plot something whose exact date is unclear.
You can read more about it here: Dates and Durations - Aeon Timeline 3 Knowledge Base

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#4

Thanks, Jess. I’m fairly new to Aeon and I think what I’m looking for is less about the mechanics of the software, which I can pick up by watching the tutorials for writers and more about how to approach it. I’ll give some examples:

  • I write a lot about the history of development of medicine and science. I’m looking for ways to add events to a timeline and then view them in different ways, may be different categories or tags if that’s such a thing? And then to create timelines I can use in presentations.
  • I recent use case was that I was tracking events in the development of a historical text, where most people think it was written in 200 AD but newer evidence suggests it was written in 200 BC and then lost for a while. The book isn’t exactly a “character” . . . or is it?
  • I’ll want to to do a comparison of key discoveries between East and West. For example, it’s frequently said that continuous blood circulation in the body was discovered by William Harvey in around 1618 and yet we get a detailed description of this process in Chinese texts dating back to 200 AD.
  • I like to track Nobel Prize winners in Physiology.

I guess it’s not one “Novel” or one “Narrative” - I don’t know if I should keep all of this information in one timeline? It’ll likely have different future uses. But I want to be able to track the dates and discoveries, track the sources of the information, and view it in different ways so I can highlight different things.

Hope that makes sense.

#5

Thanks, Lloyd! I’m very new to using the software. I did purchase V2 but never quite got off the ground with it. I use Obsidian for my notes but recently felt drawn again to having a definitive database of key dates.

Your project sounds very interesting! Would you be up for recording some of your key History User recommendations? I’m not currently in a formal academic setting but I love seeing what others do who are so that I’m using best practices.

Thanks!

#6

You know you can use a timeline for your research object, and attach your Obsidian Notes as links to the different subjects/objects/events in your timeline, using the Obsidian URI or URL, that way you can have your research notes in Obsidian and just click them to open them in Obsidian…
https://help.obsidian.md/Advanced+topics/Using+obsidian+URI

#7

Hi folks (just Mel and Lloyd?). I’m a historian and using (trying to use) Aeon for several things, including tracking Soviet pilots and aviation events in the Great Patriotic War, and creating a timeline for my own Air Force unit, the Aggressors. I have some of the same issues you’ve mentioned – approximate/conflicting dates, the need to export graphics and/or slides, and trying to decide how to use colors/arcs/etc. most effectively.

I keep running into problems due partly to the lack of tutorials. So I’d love to work together to document best practices for historians.

Reina Pennington, PhD
Charles A. Dana Professor of History
Department of History and Political Science
Norwich University
Northfield, VT 05663

#8

Hi all,
I have a timeline of Europe from the mid-1400s that I work on in my spare time. It’s far from perfect but it does help me to see the period in a way I’ve never been able to by simply reading or looking at dates in tables.

Aeon is great for event mapping but the narrative between events is usually as important so I’d like to work out a way to use the Narrative tab maybe with a custom non-timeline data type to create a narrative, without leaving Aeon to use Scrivener, etc.

I’d also like to better understand when to use Parent hierarchy vs Relates To vs Tags vs custom relationships… ?!

I’d be very happy to share and discuss my timeline’s many flaws, and discuss your timelines so we can work out some kind of best practice.
Steve

#9

Seriously,

There is a way better Open Source and free software for historic research.

I am near calling Aoen for word starting on “S” and ening on “am” regarding timelines for historical research.
There is no way to export a large timeline, neither to image nor pdf with an accuracy of weeks or days.

This is a desktop software where you can export your timeline to their web service…
The software can be found here: Running Reality - Download the App

If you have an organization that can install a web service for you, one of this 3 solutions may be better for most historical research:

#10

Thanks Jaran, I appreciate your recommendations. It may be that I reach the limitations of Aeon for my purposes, and Heurist looks esp interesting, but right now I’m invested in it and keen to see how well it can handle my requirements.
Steve