* Events in Reports

[Scribbler]

I'm trying to understand how the Events and Attributes work on Outline and Narrative reports.
According to the Context Help on this I should see a list of all the Events and Attributes available when "All" is selected, but the list is greyed out.

Also Custom Attributes can supposedly be added, but all you appear to be able to do is to create a name for it, with no effect in the report.

Can someone please explain how this works.

Screenshots attached. Hopefully this should explain what I mean.
(EDIT Screenshots are apparently in the reverse order)

[tatewise]

The purpose of these Options is to choose which Events/Attributes you want to appear in the Report.

If you choose All then literally all Events & Attributes whether Standard or Custom will be included in the Report.

The other two options allow you to choose which subset to include (List Only) or exclude (Exclude List).

These options are NOT defining Events/Attributes; they are simply a filter that enables or disables existing facts to be reported.

The Events and Attributes lists show all the formally defined Standard & Custom Facts in the Fact Sets.

The Add Custom Event/Attribute button caters for Event/Attribute tags in your data that have no formal definition in any Fact Set.

See Tools > Work with Fact Sets for more details about defined and Hidden <undefined> Facts.

[Scribbler]

Thanks
The first part about All and List only I understand now.

For the second, I am getting there but not there yet...

Here is an example. In a narrative report of a descendant it produces a standard format like this:
John Soandso experienced birth in 1800 (and so on)
what I want to do is produce a format that says
John Soandso was born in 1800.
I don't want to add a new fact, I just want to change the format, and use the existing birth fact, but all I seem to be able to do is (see screenshot) and this doesn't work.
Can you help?

[tatewise]

It seems as if you have not entered the Birth events correctly, or perhaps they have been imported from another program in a non-standard format.
Can you help me by explaining how those facts got into your FH database.

Can you also describe exactly what OS you are using, because although you said in another thread you were using Windows 7, the screenshots you have posted do not look like Windows 7.

You do NOT need to define a Custom Event for Birth as that is a Standard Event.
The Standard Event for Birth has the narrative Sentence Template already defined the way you want.

The wording you are seeing is typical of an undefined Attribute rather than an Event.

However, I suspect the solution to your problem is to identify the underlying format of your existing Facts and convert them to Standard Facts using the Change Any Fact Tag Plugin.

A first step along that road is to use Tools > Work with Fact Sets to identify the names of your undefined Facts.
In its Event/Attribute List window tick the Show Hidden option and enlarge the window by dragging a corner.
Hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and click the Visible column heading.
Are there any Facts listed with Fact Set <none> and Visible <undefined>?
If so, are they Events or are they Attributes and is one of them named Birth?
Post a screenshot if possible.

[Scribbler]

All the data was entered via the keyboard.
I have been using version 2 for the last several years until about 3 weeks ago when I upgraded to version 5. The version was the download and has been updated to the latest.
I have no problem with charts, I understand how to customise and make them appear as I want.

The operating system is Windows 7 as updated by autoupdate. The fact that the screen does not look how you expect is unexplained.

Here is a screenshot. As you can see they are all undefined.
I tried to create a custom birth event and that is undefined as well but not on screenshot

All charts work as expected, and standard reports work as expected except for customising as I described above. I cannot see a standard event defined the way I want.
Please continue, it has all been helpful thanks.

EDIT: One thing I should add is that when I downloaded version 5 it overwrote the version 2 I already had installed. Perhaps this has caused a problem? I could see some of the custom diagrams I had created on Ver 2 in version 5 but they did not look quite the same so I deleted them and started again.

I could completely uninstall all traces of Family Historian and reinstall. Presumably my unlock code will still work. What do you think?

2nd EDIT: Some progress... I have managed to get the display I want in a narrative report but only by creating a custom fact (custom birth) and manually adding a date into the new fact field. What I want is to be able to do this with the standard birth field. Maybe the answer is your plug in.

[Jane]

It looks as if your install has lost or failed to install the Standard Fact Set.

Can you take a look in ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Fact Types/

and see if you can see a file called Standard.fhf, if not try copying it from program files\family historian\ to that folder.

[Scribbler]

Thanks for the reply.

Standard.fhf is present. It's in a subdirectory of fact types called Standard (presumably because of the custom birth I created earlier.)

[tatewise]

That is the correct arrangement with the sub-folder Standard containing the Standard.fhf file 8KB in size, and there should also be GroupIndex.fhdata and Standard.v1.fhf.

The Custom sub-folder is where Custom Fact definitions reside.

Something unusual has happened, and I have a vague recollection that when upgrading from V2 or V3 to V5 that FH sometimes upsets the Fact Sets.

So as Jane suggests copy the file from
C:\Program Files (x86)\Family Historian\Fact Types\Standard.fhf
to
C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\Fact Types\Standard\Standard.fhf

If anything else unusual materialises then try re-installing FH V5.0.9.

[Scribbler]

Doing the copy has fixed it. The facts now say standard and the narrative report is correct too

Thanks to both of you.

[tatewise]

That is good.
What happens is that FH V5 thinks the Fact Set has been customised by FH V4 and retains the changes.
But the FH V2 Fact Set is a slightly different format and nothing is defined correctly.
Copying the Standard.fhf file establishes the correct format and settings.

(I will add some advice to the Knowledge Base Installation Guide on this matter.)

Just double-check that your attempts to create Custom Birth Events have no residual effects.
The folder C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\Fact Types\Custom\ should be empty.

[Scribbler]

I understand this a lot better now but I have another question on the subject:
The attachment shows the baptism fact as installed.
In an outline report I want the baptism information to read (eg) Baptised 1820
If I change the abbreviation from Bap to Baptised it works as expected on the outline report.

But I also want the date to show only the year. The form {date:YEAR} doesn't work in an outline report, whatever I do I get the full day month and year, but if I change it from the default, it does display as I want it in a Narrative report.

How can I show the abbreviated date in an outline?

[Jane]

The Templates are only used in Narrative reports, for outline reports you can't customise the formatting for the date, but you could include life dates and exclude baptisms.

[Scribbler]

Thanks, but it seems baptism year only appears in life dates if birth date is missing.

[tatewise]

There is an Option that affects Dates in Ancestor Outline and Descendant Outline Reports.
On the Report Options > Format tab at the bottom there is a Format for Dates drop-list selection.
If you choose Abbreviated(4) then EVERY Date is reduced to just the Year for all Facts.

In Individual Summary Reports there is a way to show Baptisms with just the Year.
But it adds the Event to the Main Section Items at the top instead of in the Individual Events and Attributes below.
Use Report Options > Main Section Items > Add with Label: Baptised and Expression: %INDI.BAPM[1].DATE:YEAR%
Also use Report Options > Individual Events/Attributes > Exclude List > Edit List and add Baptism Event to omit Baptisms.

[Scribbler]

There is an Option that affects Dates in Ancestor Outline and Descendant Outline Reports.
On the Report Options > Format tab at the bottom there is a Format for Dates drop-list selection.
If you choose Abbreviated(4) then EVERY Date is reduced to just the Year for all Facts.

Thanks, that was exactly what I wanted. I'd never noticed that selection. I've just tried it.
But in the end I found the full date too useful, so I kept it compact and used life dates, as it looked least cluttered but most informative.

Really appreciate your help by the way.