Introduction to Syncing with Scrivener and Ulysses

 Aeon Timeline allows you to sync your timeline data with your Scrivener or Ulysses writing project. Once you have setup the initial sync, Aeon Timeline will detect changes made in either application, and prompt you to sync those changes across to the other application.

Syncing between your timeline and writing projects creates links between items (such as events, characters, etc.) in your timeline and documents/folders in your writing project.

Narrative to Manuscript

The most important syncing takes place between the Manuscript/Draft folder in your writing project and the Narrative in your timeline. Once syncing is enabled, these two structures will be kept in sync, so every item in your narrative will be reflected by a document in your Manuscript folder, and vice versa.

Every time you add, delete or move an item in either location, Aeon Timeline will prompt you to apply that same change in the other application. 

To give several examples, this means you can:

  • Plan out the key events of your story in your timeline file, assemble those events into an intended narrative order, and have that structure transferred across to your writing project ready for you to begin writing.
  • Break a document into several scenes as you are writing, and have that change automatically reflected in your timeline narrative.
  • Re-order problematic scenes in your timeline file, and their order in the writing project will be automatically updated to reflect the new order.

In addition to creating, deleting and moving items, syncing with your narrative can also copy all kinds of metadata across into your file (see Narrative metadata below).

Entity Folders

In addition to syncing your timeline narrative and Manuscript folders, syncing also allows you to nominate additional folders outside the Manuscript folder that can be synced with other item types in your timeline.

This will allow you to create a folder to store your Character profiles or Locations for your story, and have documents in those folders sync with your Character or Location lists in your timeline file. Once synced, every time you add a new Character in either Scrivener/Ulysses or Aeon Timeline, a matching character will be created in the other application.

Document Metadata

When syncing documents, you are able to choose which additional information you want to keep up to date between the applications.

The following options are available when syncing:

  • Timeline label can be synced with the Scrivener or Ulysses document title
  • Timeline summary can be synced with the Scrivener synopsis, or Ulysses notes
  • Timeline color can be synced with:
    • Scrivener label (i.e. color)
    • Scrivener status
    • List-type Scrivener custom metadata fields
    • Ulysses Notes
  • Timeline start date, end date, and duration can be synced with custom metadata fields in Scrivener, or Notes in Ulysses
  • Timeline properties can be synced with matching Scrivener custom metadata fields, or Notes in Ulysses
    • Timeline list-type properties can also be synced with Scrivener label or status
  • Timeline tags are automatically synced with Scrivener or Ulysses keywords
  • Timeline relationships can be synced with your choice of:
    • Keywords or custom metadata fields in Scrivener
    • Keywords or Notes in Ulysses

Supported Platforms

Aeon Timeline 3 supports syncing with:

  • Scrivener 2 and Scrivener 3 on Mac, 
  • Scrivener 1.9 and Scrivener 3 on Windows
  • The latest version of Ulysses on Mac

Unfortunately, syncing is not possible on iOS at this time due to platform limitations.

What to read next?

To get started with syncing, you should read the following two articles: