Timeline 3D: A Review
If you're a Mac user like me, you might be aware of those software bundle deals like Mac Heist and MacUpdate Promo. I bought the promo bundle last year, which gave me $500 of legit, full-featured (not demo) software for $50. It's hard to beat that. This year's bundle wasn't as impressive dollar-wise ($376-worth of software for $50), but what caught my eye was Timeline 3D from BeeDocs. Normally, this is $65. That's $15 off just for buying it in the bundle. There's some other cool stuff in the bundle that I'll surely make use of, but what I'm writing about today is Timeline 3D.
What really caught my attention with Timeline 3D was its ability to export to Keynote. If there's one thing that I find most difficult in designing slides, it's putting date-based information (e.g. a timeline) in a slide format that is easy to read and understand and also professional looking. When giving presentations about the status of a project, this can be a very real and daunting challenge. Often, people will just copy and paste from Microsoft Project. The problem is, these are difficult to read and understand, likely to create map shock, and frankly, don't look professional. This is where Timeline 3D steps in and makes, in my opinion, a valiant effort. If that doesn't sound convincing or you think I'm advising against this software, read on. As with anything, the answer to whether you should use this for your timelines is "it depends."
Creating a new timeline
Creating a new timeline
Getting Started
When you first launch Timeline 3D, you're presented with an impressive selection of themes and data import options. Since your slide designs will likely not match what this software offers, the themes are a decent starting point, but not as important as the import options. Timeline 3D gives an amazing set of options, including importing from Basecamp, iCal, and RSS feeds. You can, of course, just work from a blank timeline if you wish.
Adding events is quite simple. Just make sure that in your date settings that you have the format chosen that works best for your events. For example, if the day isn't of concern to you, make sure you choose the appropriate format or else the software may yell at you for having an improperly-formatted date.
Visually, what you get is quite impressive. You can even assign images to your events to reinforce the point. A nice touch is the ability to pull images in from iPhoto using the built-in "Photos" panel. However, keep in mind the size of the images when you insert them. Resize them down to an appropriate size when you can to avoid corrupting your timeline file. When building a timeline for my day job, I didn't resize my images, many of which were quite large, and my data file edged over 11 MB in size. At this point, the document became unusable and my system unstable (Timeline 3D trial, 20" iMac w/Snow Leopard & 2 GB of RAM). After closing the application, I could not reopen the file. I couldn't even open it on my MacBook Pro (Timeline 3D fully registered, Snow Leopard, & 4 GB RAM. The file, along with a whole morning's worth of work was toast.
Events with date ranges
Another issue I ran into was the lack of customization. Though you can change fonts and colors, you're stuck with very thin lines to represent the date ranges of your events. This makes it quite difficult if your screen isn't big enough for your room (as is nearly always the case where I work). An option to make the lines thicker is a must-have enhancement that I would like to see in the next version.
Of course, I must mention the 3D aspect of this tool. This is the key feature that makes your events visible to your audience when a view of the timeline as a whole makes them too small to even be noticed. They accomplish this by taking the canvas of your timeline and angling it toward the viewer. Then, as you advance through your timeline, you move down the length of the canvas stopping at each item as they fly out much like a door. This can be quite effective as you call out each individual event. However, this feature still can't save the software from the event range lines that are far too thin.
Another issue that I ran into at work on both the trial and fully registered versions of the software was the duplication of events. When I went into the bulk edit view (spreadsheet-like option for entering events), each event was duplicated. This became a problem when exporting the timeline to Quicktime.
Exporting
Exporting is where you get your real use out of this software. You can export it to email (static image), to certain devices (Apple TV, iPhone, and iPod), to QuickTime, or to Keynote. When exporting to Quicktime, though you can choose sizes smaller than 480p, it's not advisable. Anything smaller than 480p is just not readable. Also note that depending on the size of your timeline, the movies can be really REALLY huge. I mean monsterous. This is where the event duplication issue caused problems for me. It was a timeline with roughly 45 events. Upon exporting, it processed the events just fine, but when it was done, rendered another 44 phantom events on a completed timeline frozen in time. This made the movie double the necessary length and had me staring at the portion just a few seconds before the end sequence for half of the length of the movie. All told, the final movie was 1.6 GB in size.
Exporting to Keynote gives you two options. The first is static images. Though this option lacks the dynamic transitions from event to event, it is the most lightweight. Each fly-out event is represented on a slide in the deck created by Timeline 3D. Below is an example using my Posterous's RSS feed and the static Keynote export option.
Exporting your timeline in movie format produces the best looking product. The progression of the timeline is smooth and flawless as long as you go forward in time. That's because each event is given its own slide in your deck as with the static option, but instead of an image, each slide contains a short movie. This kind of quality and impressive presentation comes at a cost, however. Each individual movie is saved in a folder named Timeline Exports in your Movies folder. For the timeline example below, it saved 22 movies totaling 248 MB. That's pretty unwieldy if you're ever asked to share your deck or if you need to continue working on it on a different machine.
Below is an example using my Posterous's RSS feed and the movie Keynote export option.
The Verdict
This surely doesn't seem like a glowing review. It certainly has its flaws. Depending on how you'd use it, those flaws are either pretty minor or deal-killers. As with all design tools used in creating presentation slides, this one should be used with caution. Until the major flaws are fixed, think about your audience and the environment (room, projector, screen/monitor). Is it worth the $65? Again, it depends. For some, it's a no-brainer. For others, it may be best to see what Bee Documents comes up with for version 3.0. Do I feel that I got my money's worth? The answer to that would be a qualified "yes."
