* Same Date Sorting

[DavidNewton]

When a census contains occupation information then I enter both Census & Occupation facts. The order in which these events turn up in the fact list, sorted by date, appears to be random, i.e., sometimes occupation first, sometimes census first. I understand that one solution is to re-order the list manually but is there another solution which allows date ordering to produce consistent results?

[tatewise]

I don't think the order of Facts with identical Dates is random.
I believe it is the reverse order in which they were entered.
There is no mechanism for sorting on anything but Date.

So if you always enter Census and Occupation in the same order with the same Date they should be listed in the same order.
If you use Ancestral Sources then of course this is guaranteed to be the case.

As you say, if all else fails, then use either the All tab, or the List in Record Order button on the Facts tab, and swap the offending Facts using the Move Up/Down buttons.

Probably a Plugin could be written to automatically adjust the order according to a user defined precedence list of Facts.

[DavidNewton]

I have found a method of changing the order of facts within a date on a one-by-one basis - I do not know why it works, not even if it always works.

If I change the occupation date to the day after the census click the date heading then of course it is listed the day after the census. If I now change back the date and sort it stays after the census.
Equally, if I change the occupation date to the date before the census, sort and then change the date back it stays before the census.

I am not suggesting that this is a good way to change the sort order I was simply experimenting to see if it is possible. But for an occasional order change it seems to work.

David

Added in Edit. This is the expected behaviour when the program sorts by date, as you said, it puts the facts in date order (evidenced by the All tab) When you change a date the sort algorithm is probably efficient enough to only modify the order when necessary (some sort of bubble sort would do this) and hence when you artificially arrange the order by date changes it will not remember the original order and changing the date back does not change the current order. -

Sorry I don't think I am explaining this very well.

[tatewise]

Yes David, that is doing exactly the same as using the All tab, or the List in Record Order button on the Facts tab, and swap the offending Facts using the Move Up/Down buttons.

It is effectively forcing the order of the Fact entries, then changing the Date to be the same does not affect the order of those entries.

However, changing the Date that way (twice) is much more tedious than the methods I suggested, which are the methods I assumed you knew about in your original posting saying "re-order the list manually".

[DavidNewton]

Mike
Sorry my edit crossed your post post. The manual ordering I was referring to was as described in the help file namely click the List in Record Order button which then brings the up and down buttons into operation (even more tedious)

David

[tatewise]

I disagree that the List in Record Order button is more tedious as it is only 4 clicks:

1. Click List in Record Order button
2. Click Fact to be moved above/below adjacent Fact with same Date
3. Click Move Up/Down button once
4. Click Date column header

Whereas changing the Date is at least 6 clicks and involves using the keyboard:

1. Click Fact to be moved above/below adjacent Fact with same Date
2. Click its Date field selecting the day of the month.
3. Type new day of the month using keyboard
4. Click Date column header to sort
5. Click Edit
6. Click Undo ... Date Edit

[dhwalt]

I have been using the 'List in record order' method to move facts but this fails, for example, with a Marriage. You may want Residence, an individual fact - blue dot, to come after the marriage, a family fact - red dot.

The up/down arrows for the marriage are greyed out so the date on the Residence has to be set later than the marriage i.e. having those two facts from a single date on a marriage certificate. The plugin idea would be excellent to have more flexibility for the user to make some precedence choices.

[tatewise]

Unfortunately, a Plugin would not overcome the Individual (blue dot) versus Family (red dot) sequencing of Facts.
This is due to the Facts being in different Records, and Individual will always precede Family that will always precede Children (grey dot) based Facts.