Categories (types, I assume) and Subcategories configuration

[poorinwa (Daniel Poor)]

I am looking for Aeon Timeline application configuration advice.

I am a historian trying to use the app to catalogue and chart PNW history events. The Aeon base Political nor Warfare templates meet my needs. Nor can I figure out how to tweak them to meet my needs.

I want to have categories (types, I assume) and subcategories (see below) for events with begin and end dates or durations and tags.

My category hierarchy might look like the below. My goal is to have category and subcategory “swim lane” GANTT views. How do I do this?

For example:

• Laws (category)

  • Railroad Land Grant Acts (Subcategory)
  • Settlement and Homesteading Acts
  • Indian Removal Acts
  • Conflicts
  • Wars
  • Strikes

• Territory Changes

• Annexations
• Territory Creations
• Statehood

• Presidencies

• Economic Downturns

• Demographic Patterns

• Farms
• Immigration
• Occupantions
• City Growth

[Goaliedad]

I have a novel with characters and character groups (events and event categories) which for me looks like this but could change item types.

[poorinwa (Daniel Poor)]

Thank your for this.

If in a GANTT view can you the have “swim lanes” for Character Groups and under them Characters? If so that solves my dilemma.
DP

[Goaliedad]

Not sure what you mean by a Gantt view?

[poorinwa (Daniel Poor)]

Sorry for my techno speak. The GANTT view is the “Timeline View”. Here is the mystery book template version. X-axis is time. Y-axis is topical swim lanes (categories - types) and then actual entries.

This view is what I want IF I can also have sub-types under Real Crime and Poirot’s Decoy theory “swim lanes”. Each of those subcategories/types would have their own “Real Crime” category “row” in the view. e.g. “Real Crime - Wives” and “Real Crime - Strangers” etc. Each that would look like the “Real Crime” row.

Your guidance is greatly appreciated.

[Goaliedad]

Don’t do it this way but played around. I used Characters who are nested under Character Groups (in example POV piont of view characters) Have to have Character groups enabled in the Inspector card by adding to the Inspector card. (ie add your groups you want to filter by) and events with tags you want to search for.
I choose two groups so only those events

This would allow you to examine intersections using the filters. Not sure exactly what you want but might get you closer.

[Riaan]

Hi there,

Here is an example of how this kind of project could be structured in Aeon Timeline using custom Item Types and grouping.

For this kind of project, I’d recommend using:

• Item Types for your major historical groupings
• Items for the individual laws/events/periods within them

For example:

• Laws (item type)
  • Railroad Land Grant Acts (Item)
  • Settlement and Homesteading Acts
  • Indian Removal Acts
• Territory Changes (item type)
  • Annexations
  • Territory Creations
  • Statehood

Note: In the example screenshots below, Laws are represented by the yellow book icons, while Territory Changes are represented by the purple square icons. These item type icons and colours can also be customised.

Each item can then have:

• begin/end dates or durations
• tags
• notes/sources
• relationships if needed

Image for reference: (NOTE: Except Railroad Land Grant Acts, all other swimlanes are collapsed)

One approach is to group the Timeline view by Item Type, which creates a nice “swim lane” / GANTT-style layout while still keeping each category visually separated.

Grouping Instructions:

1. Click “Group”
2. Tick “All laws” and “All territory changes” - Add other Item types (ie. Annexation, Statehood, etc) as you fill them with items
3. Click anywhere in the timeline - Done!

Nested items also work well for this. For example:

• Laws
  • Example Laws
    • Example Law 1
    • Example Law 2
    • Example Law 3

Image for reference:

Aeon Timeline also includes a Split View feature, which lets you display multiple timelines on top of each other while still allowing each view to be configured independently. This can be useful if grouping alone is not enough to organise the structure you want.

For example, one view could group Laws in the top section, while another groups Territory Changes in the bottom section.

Image for reference:

That approach can be useful for comparing different historical themes side-by-side while still keeping the overall chronology aligned.

I’ve also attached the example file used for the screenshots above in case it helps as a starting reference for your own setup. A number of the categories and structures you mentioned have already been set up in the file, although most do not yet contain sample data. If you would like help expanding the structure or adding your own data to it, feel free to ask.

Example file - PNW History.aeon (173.2 KB)

Hopefully that gives you a good starting direction for building the structure you want, but let me know if you would also like a guide on setting up Item Types, Split Views, or additional Timeline views.

[poorinwa (Daniel Poor)]

Riaan,
Thank you for this. I just want to make sure I am understanding the limits of the Item Type feature.
For Aeon to do what I hope it would need to have (effectively) parent level and child level Item Types, with actual items under the child level.

Let me explain.

Parent Level Item Type: Conflicts
Child Level Item Types:

• Wars
• Labor Strikes
• Social Unrest

And the actual items with names, dates and locations would be under the child level. For example:

Conflicts (Parent item type)

• Wars (child item type)
  – War of 1812 (1812-1814). (item)
  – Mexican American War (March to Sept 1848) (item)
  – CIvil War (1863-1865) (item)
  – Spanish American War (1898) (item)

Each Parent and Child level Item type can have the Items underneath it collapsed in the timeline view.

The Item Type Parent and Child Levels are just visual dividers in the timeline view, rather than parent-level encapsulating begin and end time line bars for the items. Two-level collapsing is really important, but this visual divider vs. parent-level time line container is just a nice to have.

Is there some way to do this two level Item Type?

Thank you.

[Riaan]

Hi there,

Thank you for the additional detail - that helps clarify the structure you are aiming for.

Aeon Timeline does support nested Items beneath other Items, but Item Types themselves currently exist as a single organisational level rather than a parent/child hierarchy.

However, you can achieve something quite similar visually and organisationally by combining:

• Item Types
• parent/child Items
• grouping
• and collapsing/expanding nested Items

For example:

• Conflicts (Item Type)
  • Wars (parent Item)
    • War of 1812 (child Item)
    • Mexican American War (child Item)
    • Civil War (child Item)
    • Spanish American War (child Item)

In this structure:

• “Conflicts” would remain the Item Type
• “Wars” would act as a parent/container Item
• the individual wars would be child Items nested underneath it

This allows sections to be expanded/collapsed in Timeline view while still maintaining the overall chronology.

The main difference from your ideal setup is that:

• the second grouping layer (“Wars”, “Labor Strikes”, etc.) would be Items rather than true child-level Item Types.

I’ve updated the attached example file slightly to demonstrate this structure using Conflicts - Wars - individual conflict Items, grouped by Item Type to help visualise the approach more clearly.

Screenshot of example file:

It may also help to better understand the end goal you are aiming for in your workflow. For example:

• are you mainly trying to switch quickly between different top-level historical categories?
• are you hoping to simultaneously view events by both category and subcategory?
• or is the main goal to keep a very large dataset visually manageable through collapsing and grouping?

If you can share a little more about the workflow or organisational outcome you are aiming for, we may be able to suggest additional approaches that would work well within Aeon Timeline’s current structure.

Updated example file:PNW History.aeon (214.9 KB)