Locating 'star-burst' fields
Posted: 16 Nov 2002 20:51
Locating 'star-burst' fields
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 11:16:13 +0100
John Hanson asked if there was an easy way of locating 'star-burst' tags (aka 'sun-burst' tags - i.e. tags that Family Historian has loaded and treated as text fields because it doesn't recognise them). Here's one way of doing it...
Before starting, backup your original file so that if anything goes wrong, you can't lose any data.
Make a copy of your file (use Family Historian's Save As if you don't know a better method). Give the copy the same name as your original file, but with '- no starbursts' on the end. Then open the Preferences dialog (bottom of the Tools menu), click on the File Load/Save tab, and look at the 2 options 'Exclude other applications extensions to GEDCOM' and 'Exclude fields that are not valid for Gedcom 5.5' (the term 'field' is treated as more or less synonymous with 'tag' in Family Historian). Both of these are usually unchecked by default (ie. when you install F.H.) but if they're both checked now, you must have set them that way at some stage. In that case, you won't have any star-burst fields because you have opted not to load anything that F.H. doesn't recognise.
If either or both are curently unchecked, take note of their current settings, and check them both now. Press OK to save your changes.
Now open the *copy* of your file (ie. the 'no starbursts' version). If you've got it open now, re-open it, using File/Open as normal. If you don't get a warning message coming up (saying that some lines were skipped and not loaded and do you want to see a list of them), then you don't have any star-burst fields. If you do get a warning message then you probably do have some star-burst fields.
Either way, you should set your File Load/Save Preferences back now to how they were originally.
If you got no warning message when you opened the copy, you can stop now, and delete the file you copied. If you did get a warning message then, as I say, you probably do have some star-burst fields and you should do the following: Click File/Save to save the 'no star-bursts' copy. This saves the copy without the unrecognised (starburst) fields which have effectively been removed. Now re-open your original file (it is important that you reset your File Load/Save preferences back to how they were before you do this). Click on Merge/Compare on the File menu, and select the copy as the file you want to compare with the current file.
You are comparing 2 files that should be identical apart from the starburst fields, so you might expect that all individual records should match. In fact, that's not necessarily the case. Even if you compare 2 files that are 100% identical, Family Historian doesn't know, or take into account, that the files are supposed to be identical. If you have some records where there is not much data to compare, Family Historian may conclude that it has insufficient information upon which to match the records. So don't be suprised if some records fail to match. However, in a normal file, you would expect that only a few at most would fail to match (if any).
Records containing star-burst fields will have 'Subset' as their value in the Match column in the lefthand pane. To find these, click on the column heading to sort by Match, and group all 'Subset' records together for easy inspection. You will have to scroll down to the bottom of the list to find them. When you expand the record (centre or righthand pane), the star-burst columns will have '>> Keep' opposite them in the Action column If you also want to check any that have not matched, these will have a blank entry in the Match column, and will appear right at the end of the list.
That's it. Bear in mind, that star-burst fields are not necessarily a problem. If you can read them OK, you may just want to leave them.
Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 11:16:13 +0100
John Hanson asked if there was an easy way of locating 'star-burst' tags (aka 'sun-burst' tags - i.e. tags that Family Historian has loaded and treated as text fields because it doesn't recognise them). Here's one way of doing it...
Before starting, backup your original file so that if anything goes wrong, you can't lose any data.
Make a copy of your file (use Family Historian's Save As if you don't know a better method). Give the copy the same name as your original file, but with '- no starbursts' on the end. Then open the Preferences dialog (bottom of the Tools menu), click on the File Load/Save tab, and look at the 2 options 'Exclude other applications extensions to GEDCOM' and 'Exclude fields that are not valid for Gedcom 5.5' (the term 'field' is treated as more or less synonymous with 'tag' in Family Historian). Both of these are usually unchecked by default (ie. when you install F.H.) but if they're both checked now, you must have set them that way at some stage. In that case, you won't have any star-burst fields because you have opted not to load anything that F.H. doesn't recognise.
If either or both are curently unchecked, take note of their current settings, and check them both now. Press OK to save your changes.
Now open the *copy* of your file (ie. the 'no starbursts' version). If you've got it open now, re-open it, using File/Open as normal. If you don't get a warning message coming up (saying that some lines were skipped and not loaded and do you want to see a list of them), then you don't have any star-burst fields. If you do get a warning message then you probably do have some star-burst fields.
Either way, you should set your File Load/Save Preferences back now to how they were originally.
If you got no warning message when you opened the copy, you can stop now, and delete the file you copied. If you did get a warning message then, as I say, you probably do have some star-burst fields and you should do the following: Click File/Save to save the 'no star-bursts' copy. This saves the copy without the unrecognised (starburst) fields which have effectively been removed. Now re-open your original file (it is important that you reset your File Load/Save preferences back to how they were before you do this). Click on Merge/Compare on the File menu, and select the copy as the file you want to compare with the current file.
You are comparing 2 files that should be identical apart from the starburst fields, so you might expect that all individual records should match. In fact, that's not necessarily the case. Even if you compare 2 files that are 100% identical, Family Historian doesn't know, or take into account, that the files are supposed to be identical. If you have some records where there is not much data to compare, Family Historian may conclude that it has insufficient information upon which to match the records. So don't be suprised if some records fail to match. However, in a normal file, you would expect that only a few at most would fail to match (if any).
Records containing star-burst fields will have 'Subset' as their value in the Match column in the lefthand pane. To find these, click on the column heading to sort by Match, and group all 'Subset' records together for easy inspection. You will have to scroll down to the bottom of the list to find them. When you expand the record (centre or righthand pane), the star-burst columns will have '>> Keep' opposite them in the Action column If you also want to check any that have not matched, these will have a blank entry in the Match column, and will appear right at the end of the list.
That's it. Bear in mind, that star-burst fields are not necessarily a problem. If you can read them OK, you may just want to leave them.
Simon Orde List Administrator and Family Historian designer