External Links

What are External Links?

Events can have links with images and documents on the local computer, a network drive, or over the internet.

In the Links tab in the Inspector you can:

Add new links by clicking on the + symbol, and then either typing a title and URL/path for the file, or by clicking on the Browse button and selecting a file.
Edit existing links by clicking on the edit icon and then changing link details.
Remove existing links by clicking on the edit icon and then clicking Remove.

The icons underneath each link allow you to perform the following additional actions:

Mac-only: View it inside Aeon Timeline using its Quicklook plugin
Reveal the link in Finder (Mac) or Windows Explorer (Windows)
Open the file in its default application

How external links are maintained

Unlike some file package formats including Scrivener Projects and Microsoft Word, Aeon Timeline does not make a copy of linked resources inside the Aeon Timeline file. Instead, it maintains a link to the document’s external location on the file system. (If you wish to make a copy of a linked resource, consider using Attachments instead of External Links.)

There are several benefits to this approach, the most critical of which being the following:

Aeon Timeline can retain a light and portable file format that won't become too large
As documents are not copied, Aeon Timeline will always be able to link to the most recent version of the file where an internally copied document would “go stale”.

The downside to this approach is that the user may move or delete events in their file system, which may in turn lead to broken links (documents that cannot be found by Aeon Timeline).

To counteract this, Aeon Timeline keeps track of linked files using two distinct approaches:

Relative Path: Aeon Timeline records the relative path from where the timeline file is stored to where the externally linked file is stored, and looks for a document with the same name at the same relative path. This allows Aeon Timeline to find the correct file if an entire folder system is moved or copied (if copied onto a USB key or synced to another computer using Dropbox, for example).

Absolute Path: Aeon Timeline also records the absolute path of a linked document. This means that timeline documents can be moved around a computer independently of linked files and the links will still be retained.

Each time a timeline file is opened, Aeon Timeline attempts to locate all of the externally linked documents using the above techniques in the above order. Once a document has been found using one of the methods, the information for the other methods is then updated to reflect the position of the newly found file.

Moving timelines and linked files between computers

If you anticipate the need to use your timeline file on multiple computers, the best approach is to keep your timeline file and externally linked documents in a single, consistent folder structure across all machines.

As an example, if you save both the timeline and linked images into a single folder, you can copy that folder onto a USB stick, and then onto another computer, and Aeon Timeline will be able to maintain the link to the external file using the same relative path regardless of where you copy the folder.

More complex folder structures will work equally well, provided the entire folder structure is duplicated across all machines.

Warning: If you are not copying the entire folder structure at once, be careful about opening the timeline file while it is copied onto a USB stick. It will first attempt to resolve the links using the relative path, but if it cannot find them, it will revert to using the absolute path to find the files in their original location on the computer. Once the external links are resolved using this method, the relative path would be updated to match that absolute path, and the links will be broken when the USB device is connected to a new computer.

Links vs. Attachments

Aeon Timeline also allows you to embed files into your timeline file instead of linking to them externally. These are known as Attachments.

It's up to you which one you use to reference your documents, however if you are unsure here are a couple of things to consider:

When you attach a file, you are taking a copy of the file at that point in time. Any changes you make to the original file will not be reflected in the attachment. If your file is something that is constantly changing, consider adding it as a Link.
The maximum allowed attachment size is 50MB. For larger files, you should use Links. You should also consider using Links if you have a large amount of files and are worried about disk space, as attaching files to the timeline will increase the overall timeline size
Since attachments are stored within the timeline file, you can move the timeline file to any computer and still view the file. If you are using your timeline on multiple computers, or wish to share it with others, consider using Attachments.
Since the attachments are stored within the timeline file, you will be able access them on the iPad version of the application if they are an iPad supported file format. If you are sharing your timeline between the Desktop and iPad versions, consider using Attachments.