* Facts - Fast Add List or even faster?

[E Wilcock]

I have customised and been using the Fast Add menu which lets you select and add a frequently used fact using two key strokes. You have to open the list and select a Fact every time you want one of the facts.
Looking back to TMG, we could make a customised toolbar with one click access to any fact we used often. I miss that.

So is the Fast Add list really the fastest way to add facts in FH? The FH instructions suggest alternatives.
If one skips the Fast Add list in FH and goes to the entire list of facts, one can select multiple facts and paste them in all together on the fact window of the person on whom one is about to start work. (For the wish list - being able to multiple select this from the Fast add list -)

What do most FH users do when repeatedly entering the same facts?

By selecting and copying from the long list, one can then repeatedly copy and past ones chosen empty facts directly into the next person. And the next.
To save going down the long list, copying and pasting of multiple selected facts from a Facts screen in the Property Box, works too, provided one selects them all before copying.
Any information already in a fact in the Property box is copied as well, along with any source or sources. So if data repeats from one person to the next, as it may with a census place and date, one can copy and paste multiple facts plus the data in them and any sources from one person to the next.

It had annoyed me when copying and pasting a single source or Event, that my saved "copy" was lost (replaced) whenever I happened to cut and paste data - foreign language text or a complicated address for instance.

So I am thinking today of pasting in a multiple framework of the Facts /fact fields I need.

What do experienced users do?

I need to add that I am not working from UK censuses, and the Plug in would not be relevant. And I have also discovered that when copying and pasting from one person to another you have to be very careful not to accidentally add the wrong data.

[tatewise]

You say you are "not working from UK censuses, and the Plug in would not be relevant."
Do you mean Ancestral Sources would not be relevant, and if so why?
It can be customised with templates, and has been customised for most country's Census formats.
See fhugdownloads:ancestralsources|> Downloads and Links ~ Ancestral Sources.
(The same is true for Birth/Marriage/Death templates.)

On the Main tab of the Property Box you can create Birth, Death, Marriage facts, etc, directly.
By customising the Main tab, or via a custom Fast Facts tab, any facts & any of their fields can be similarly entered directly.

Also the All tab offers a standard menu driven way of creating facts.
Right-click the persons name, roll the mouse down to Add Attribute or Add Event, then roll to the fact and left-click.

See Copy/Paste in the Property Box (14380) for a discussion of Fact/Citation Copy & Paste interactions.

[E Wilcock]

I am once again defeated by FH Help and Knowledge Base.

I read that one can customise the Main Tab. But cant find out where the menu or sub menu is to do this.

I've looked under preferences for the Property Box but dont see anything there.

I cant find an option in the editing Facts which is where we were sent to select Events for Fast add. Fast Add does not allow you to select multiple Facts.

[BillH]

To add fields to the property box tabs such as the main tab use the "cog" wheel icon in the toolbar of the property box. Select "customize data entry...".

Bill

[E Wilcock]

Thanks Bill

[LornaCraig]

One of the quirks of FH is that it spells 'customize' with a 'z' rather than an 's'. It is worth bearing this in mind if you are ever searching for help with any other type of customi(z)ation.

If you search the Help for customise Property Box it says 'No topics found', even with the option to Match similar words ticked! (I am not convinced that option really does anything.) But if you search for customize Property Box it comes up with a long list, including a section with exactly that title.

[BillH]

Lorna,

That's the "correct" way to spell it.

Bill from Washington State, USA

[PeterR]

Certainly all such words are spelt -ize according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

[LornaCraig]

My dictionary gives ize and ise as alternative spellings, both valid.
Remember this discussion? Re: Americanisms (13542)

As Mike and E Wilcock had both used the ise spelling in their posts I imagine that is the spelling E Wilcock used when searching the FH Help. The problem is that even with the Match similar words option ticked, the search fails if you use the ise spelling. With only one letter different the words are certainly similar. Does the Match similar words option actually do anything?

[tatewise]

Match similar words does do something.
Search for custom property box and it finds 47 with it ticked but only 32 when not ticked.

Also a search for custom* property box finds the same 47 whether ticked or not.
While a search for custom property box finds the those 32 whether ticked or not.
So that gives a clue as to what Match similar words is doing, i.e. a leading string match for words in its vocabulary.

And a search for customi?e property box finds just 16 that almost all refer to customize Property Box.

Remember that the FH Help feature is not specific to FH but the general Windows Help so I suspect there is little Calico Pie can do to improve matters, unless it is possible to 'index' more words into its vocabulary.