I would like to make another suggestion for increasing legibility in large / complex timelines. It would be great if you could highlight or flag events.
THE PROBLEM GENERALLY
The software is fantastic at allowing users to generate and structure large amounts of information. Unfortunately, current tools don’t enable users to access or effectively communicate that information.
The example I’ve included below displays 112 events. The timeline I’ve created to track an actual legal matter spanning 6 years currently has 1500+ events. Trying to locate important events in that timeline is difficult even for me, and even more difficult when I provide a PDF to my lawyers or barrister.
As an ex lawyer myself, I understand how difficult and time consuming it is to keep track of facts when dealing with complex matters, or when having to deal with a number of different matters at the same time.
MY CURRENT PROCESS
In order to highlight a particular event, I currently need to create a new event (e.g. EMPTY EVENT), then nest the event I want to highlight (e.g. THE THEFT) within the EMPTY EVENT. In this way, the EMPTY EVENT creates a border around THE THEFT.
THE PROBLEM WITH MY CURRENT PROCESS
My current solution creates dozens/hundreds of unnecessary events whose only purpose is to create a border around the event I actually want to highlight. This also creates unnecessary visual bulk as each of the EMPTY events has a heading and date.
A POSSIBLE SOLUTION
This continues on from my previous suggestion about borders - There could be an option to add a border around AND/OR fill events.
THE BENEFIT
Important events could be identified almost immediately. It’s also difficult to get a sense of the timeframe involved with complex timelines. Highlighted events could also be used to indicate the first event in a new year, or chapters in a characters life, or phases of a crime.
It makes smooth continuous data more granular, enabling more efficient identification and communication.
I like your idea of the highlights, but have you tried adding Item types and using the filter option to select only certain events. I am writing a novel and use Scrivener which allows me to add all kind of keywords (locations, characters, events, legal charges, crimes etc) and these are added to aeon as tags. I use this data to create information types in Aeon. So if you had motions, evidence, offenses etc you could filter the time for motions on one timeline, use the split view and filter evidence below, etc.
Please note that this is only a prototype and is not necessarily reflective of how a final feature may look or work.
We’d be interested to hear whether an approach like this would be useful for your workflow. It would also be helpful to understand a little more about the Events you’re currently highlighting in your legal Timeline.
For example, are you highlighting particularly important dates or Events, notable communications, different stages of the matter, or a combination of these?
Do you currently organise or identify these Events in any other way within Aeon Timeline, such as using a particular colour or Item Type, or is the empty parent Event currently the main way you distinguish them?
Any additional information about how you decide which Events need to stand out would be useful as we continue looking at this area.
GREAT IDEAS - BUT DIFFERENT PURPOSE AND DIFFERENT USER
The highlighting prototype looks great and the filter tool is also very helpful however both serve a different purpose and also different users.
I am creating content for people that dont use the software but receive a PDF.
EXAMPLE
Using my previous example - each of the different colours may represent every offence for a number of offenders. A lawyer, barrister or judge might want to know which offences resulted in criminal charges for 4 different offenders.
The alternative is to print it and use a pen to mark them, but if you need to distribute it to 20 different people via email you would need to use a paid version of Adobe Acrobat.
EXAMPLE 02
If I want to continually refer to a few specific events and Im constantly changing zoom level, timescale and layout between compact and expanded, it only takes a fraction of second to locate specific events, and without having to read a single word.
This is the exact reason everyone uses coloured highlighting pens.
IMPLEMENTATION
It could be implemented by using a property in the same way COLOUR is used, except you could select HIGHLIGHT ENTRY.
Thanks for the additional explanation and examples. That makes the distinction much clearer.
In particular, your point that the highlighting needs to remain visible in the exported PDF is useful. In your workflow, the highlight isn’t primarily a tool for navigating or filtering the Timeline within Aeon Timeline; it’s a visual indicator for the people receiving and reviewing the finished Timeline.
The examples you’ve provided of identifying Events that resulted in criminal charges, or keeping a small number of important Events immediately recognizable as the zoom level, timescale, or layout changes, help clarify how you would use this.
I’ve passed this additional information and your suggestion regarding a Highlight Entry property along to the team.
Thanks again for taking the time to explain the workflow in more detail.
I see where you are coming from, Have you looked at Scrivener which syncs with Aeon Timeline. Scrivener’s advantage is any document can have unlimited keywords (tags), you can add date tags, have information associated with event. But where Scrivener Shines is you can configure your compile to send to pdf’s a partial output. You can use collections to send a specific group of files to someone as a pdf. You can use labels so an event could have a color in the Binder to be easy to pick out.
But you could create a search with all of the convictions for persons a and b and only send this information. The colors would be visible in the event list and you can search by color (label) You can bookmark information for a document. So if John had a bribery conviction, you could add bookmarks (shortcuts) to the three others involved in the case and research this from the one hub, or include the pertinent statues for the crime as a bookmark from another project, or research from your current one. You can have an outliner view and choose columns to view like prior convictions, jail time, pleas whatever. I use for novels, but also use to organize info on writing. Advantage is one time fee and available for mac, windows, ios. See an example with colors in the binder documents, (can add comments inside the document and even have custom icons which can have colors as well.)
