* Another tip for 2.1: Simon Orde

[admin]

The Online Help has a 'What's new in Version 2.1?' section, which includes this: 'The Records Window now shows dates for Individual records in an improved format'.  Version 2.0 displayed a person's birth and death dates if known, in the Dates column of the Records Window.  2.1 does it a bit better. If birth and death are known it will display those (e.g. 1812-1862).  If birth is not known, but baptism or christening are known, it will use those instead (e.g bap.1812, d. 1862).  If death is not known, it will use burial instead if that is known (e.g. bap.1812, bur.1862).  This new format is also now used in some of the standard 'text schemes' (instructions that specify what text is to appear in diagrams) that are used with Family Historian.
The rest of this email is intended for advanced users only.
Family Historian includes features which ordinary users never need to know about or take an interest in, but which advanced and technically-minded users may take advantage of, if they wish to do so.  The rest of this email discusses features in this latter category.  Please do not worry if it doesn't make sense to you.

More sophisticated users may already have come across 'functions'.  A function is an expression which can be used in a query, text scheme or report to produce a particular kind of result.  The function '=LifeDates()' returns a person's life dates in the format used in the Dates column of the Records Window.  This is the function that is used in some of the standard text schemes, referred to above.  Its usually written as =LifeDates(%INDI%) but its the same function.
For example, the default text in the 'Names, Dates' text scheme looks like this:

Code: Select all

     %INDI.NAME:PREFERRED%
     {picture}     
     =LifeDates(%INDI%) 

Ignoring the picture marker, this might produce say
   John Smith     1812-1862
in the diagram.  If you created a custom text scheme using this line

Code: Select all

     %INDI.NAME:PREFERRED% 
     [=LifeDates(%INDI%)] 

This would give you
   John Smith [1812-1862]
in the diagram.  If John Smith had no dates at all (not even baptism, christening or burial), you would just get
   John Smith
You might prefer however to get
   John Smith [ - ]
in that case to make it more explicit that no dates are held for John Smith. In that case, you should used another function, =LifeDates2().  This is exactly like =LifeDates() except that it returns a hyphen where no dates are held.  i.e. use the expression:

Code: Select all

     %INDI.NAME:PREFERRED% [=LifeDates2(%INDI%)] 

To see a complete list of Family Historian functions and information about them, click on Help > Contents and Index.  Then in the Online Help Contents list, click on General Topics > Advanced Topics > Understanding Functions.
Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer