Family Historian User Group

For people with no known birth or death dates, I keep seeing the following in reports: John SMITH ( - )

I just want to suppress the ( - ), so it just shows like: John Smith

Under Format > Heading > Record, there seems to be an option to use =LifeDates() or =LifeDates2(), but I can't figure out how to suppress the parenthesis when there are no life dates, so the best I can get is John Smith ( ).

When the person is listed as a child or in the index, I don't see any way of controlling the display.

Isn't there a global way of specifying "don't display ( - ) when there are no dates to display"? I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

Thanks!!

Yes, it is quite tricky if you need to customise all those possibilities. There is no overall setting.

In Format > Heading > Record you must replace (=LifeDates2()) with =CombineText("(",LifeDates(),")",)
i.e. when LifeDates() returns something then enclose in ( parentheses ), else nothing.

The section items such as Father, Mother, Spouse, Child need similar treatment, but is complicated by the fact that the default items cannot be edited.
So Parents, Spouses, and Children must be set to Hide, and replaced with a series of custom items.
e.g.
Father set as %INDI.~FATH[1]>% =CombineText("(",LifeDates(%INDI.~FATH[1]>%),")",)
Mother set as %INDI.~MOTH[1]>% =CombineText("(",LifeDates(%INDI.~MOTH[1]>%),")",)
and so on with data refs using instance indexes [2] and [3] et seq, and shortcut codes ~SPOU and ~CHIL
Set them all to Show if not empty.

In the Index the only option is to untick option Include Dates with Names to omit ALL life dates.

However, the above tactics may still not cater for every eventuality in every Report type.

Well, I guess the good news is that I wasn't really missing something obvious.

The bad news is those are all fairly icky workarounds (but thanks for documenting them!)

I'll put in an feature request, but I'm not sure whether to ask for a "Stop putting ( - ) everywhere when there's no dates" or "Allow editing of default items". I guess the first.

I've added Wish List Ref 582 Life Date display options when no dates exist that you can now Vote for.