Advanced Settings: Item Types

Accessing Item Type Settings

If you wish to edit or create your own Item Types, you can do so in Advanced Settings, which can be reached by the following steps:

  1. Click on the Settings icon () in the Toolbar
  2. Click onto the Data Types tab
  3. At the top of the Item Types section, click on the Edit button
  4. To edit an existing item type, select the item type from the list
  5. To create a new type, click on the Add button at the bottom of the list

Editing Item Type Fields

The tables below describes all of the settings that are available when editing or creating your own Item Types.

General Fields

Field Description Possible Values
Name A label for this item type, which will be used throughout the interface A short text value (e.g. "Event", "Person", "Place", "Project", etc.)
Icon The icon and color that represents this item type. Used on the Sidebar, in Item Cards, and type dropdowns, amongst other places. Choose from any of the available icons.
Default Item Color The color that will be used by default when any new item is created. If the chosen color matches a pre-defined color name, the named color will be applied. Otherwise, a custom color will be applied. Choose from available colors.
Compact Display How should the item be represented in limited space?

Identifier: Good for project management tasks. Uses a prefix and auto-generated number.

Initials: Shows the item's initials inside a colored circle matching the item color.

Short Label: Allows the user to specify a shorter label (e.g. Jonathon Swift may be shortened to Jon).

Identifier Prefix If "Identifier" is chosen as the Compact Display, this field specifies the short prefix that will be prepended to each identifier A 1-3 character text value (e.g. "EV" for "Event").
Category A broad item type category. This is only used to help group item types within Settings menus. Person, Location, Other
Enabled Determines whether this Item Type is used in the timeline or not.

When this is not selected, the Item Type will not be available in your timeline and any existing items will be changed to a new type or removed on confirmation of the settings change.

Disabling the Item Type is the equivalent of deleting it, except it remains in the list for you to activate later.
Label Display Specifies the text label used for item's primary label. For example, Events may have "Label", whereas a person will have "Name".
A short string value (e.g. "Label", "Name")
Start Display Specifies the text label used for item's start date. For example, Events may have "Start", whereas a person will have "Birth". A short string value (e.g. "Start", "Birth", "Created")
End Display Specifies the text label used for item's end date. For example, Events may have "End", whereas a person will have "Death". A short string value (e.g. "End", "Death", "Destroyed")
Anniversary Display Specifies the text label used when marking an item's anniversary in the timeline. For example, Events may have "Anniversary", whereas a person will have "Birthday". A short string value (e.g. "Anniversary", "Birthday")

Allowed Data and Usage

Allowed Data
  • Dates
 Specifies whether items of this type are allowed to have start dates, end dates and durations.

This must be enabled for the item to be able to be shown in the Timeline.
Show In
  • Chronological order
 When enabled, items of this type are included in chronological order views (Spreadsheet, Relationship, Subway).

Every item of this type will always be included in these views. 
  • Narrative order
 When this box is ticked, items of this type are allowed in the narrative order views (Narrative, Outline).

Items must be explicitly added to the narrative in order to appear in these views, even with this box ticked.
  • Timeline View
 When enabled, items of this type are allowed to be shown in the Timeline View.

Allowed Data: Dates must be ticked for this option to be enabled.

Even with this option enabled, the user may choose to hide items of this type from the Timeline View via View Settings.
  • Sidebar
 When enabled, items of this type will be shown in the Sidebar to provide quick access to a list of all items of this type. 
  • Relationship comparisons
 When enabled, items of this type will be allowed to be chosen as:
  • Timeline View groups
  • Relationship view columns
  • Subway view tracks

Parents, Relationships and Properties

Allowed Parent Types Aeon Timeline allows items to be nested as children underneath other parent items, creating a hierarchy of items.

Examples of this include:
  • A subtask within a task
  • A person within a team; or
  • A location within a different location.
This setting determines which types are allowed to act as parents of this item type. Using the example above, "Team" would be ticked when editing the "Person" type.
Properties Aeon Timeline allows you to specify custom text fields, number fields, checkboxes, and list properties, which is handled in the Properties tab of Advanced Settings.

This setting selects which properties are enabled for this Item Type: any properties you want listed in the inspector (for items of this type) should be selected here.

Note: this field is mirrored in the Properties tab, so you can assign properties to item types in either location.
Relationship Fields Aeon Timeline allows you to specify custom relationship types that describe different kinds of relationships between events. These are created in the Relationships tab of Advanced Settings.

These settings select which relationship types are enabled for this Item Type: any relationship types you want listed in the inspector (for items of this type) should be selected here.

To make navigation easier, this setting is divided into:
  • Relationships to event types
  • Relationships to person types
  • Relationships to location types
  • Relationships to other types

Note: this field is mirrored in the Relationships tab, so you can assign properties to item types in either location.