Family Historian User Group

I want to show "Marital Status" in my text box in my diagrams (if non-blank) but cannot find how to reference. I know it should be simple but I cannot see how.
Thanks
Ed Fisher

In the Edit Text scheme dialog, select <Custom Item> from the list on the left and click > . Then enter %CUR~FAMS>_STAT% in the Template field.

It gets a bit more complicated if someone had more than one partner because your text scheme needs to make it clear which relationship the status applies to. Does that situation arise?

Welcome to the FHUG Ed.

In case you have not found the necessary options here are the steps:-

With the Diagram displayed use Diagram > Options or right-click Diagram Options.
Open the Text tab and select the Text Scheme you wish to modify.
It is advisable to use the Clone... button to make a custom copy, leaving the standard Text Scheme untouched.
Click the Edit... button to open the Edit Text Scheme dialogue.

Select <Custom Item...> from Available Items on the left and click > button in middle to add to scheme.
In the Description box enter Marriage Status as its title.
In the Template box insert Marriage Status: or whatever label you want to appear in Diagram.
To the right of the Template box click the < < Insert data ref assistant button to find the Status ref.
Expand [+] Current Family as Spouse, then [+] Miscellaneous, select Status and click Insert button.
So the data ref inserted will be %CUR~FAMS>_STAT% as shown below.
That will automatically apply to the appropriate family couple even if there were multiple partners.
Click the Test button lower right to check the Template is valid and then click OK.

Back in the Edit Text Scheme dialogue use the up/down arrows if necessary to move this new item into position.
Click OK and OK again to see the results of your handiwork.

That will automatically apply to the appropriate family couple even if there were multiple partners.

Sorry to disagree but I don't think it is clear. Perhaps it depends on where you display things in the rest of the text scheme. For example if I add the marital status to my standard text scheme, if a man has one wife and one partner and the status for the relationship with the partner is 'Never Married', the words 'Never Married' appear in the man's box as well as the partner's box. So it is not obvious from the man's box which person he was never married to. It is particularly ambiguous if there are no marriage details for the wife.

It is likely to be clear enough in most cases but the full solution does require the adoption of the standard Marriage item settings for Box Types and Conditions as shown below, but even that only works if spouses are shown in own boxes.
If shown in a single box then partner details need to be added to the Template for Status.

Yes, this is the setting that makes the difference:

Those other settings are the default for a Marriage item, so why not use them for Status?

That ringed option is good when partners have own box, but what about other scenarios?

I didn't choose those settings. They appear by default when I add any <Custom Item> .

However we should not get bogged down with this unless the OP has any problems with individuals with multiple partners. Don't want to over complicate things.

Thanks Mike Tait. I never would have found it myself. It allows me to highlight parents of illegitimate children when I know they were never married (e. birth certificate says illegitimate).

It worked first time.
Ed Fisher

Further to this discussion - I would like to write an expression that shows m.[marriage year] if it is entered, or m., if there is a spouse but no date, or "Never Married" if that status is recorded, but no status otherwise. So far, working towards getting two of three conditions to work, I have tried
ItemIf(%CUR~FAMS>_STAT%="Never Married", %CUR~FAMS>_STAT%, m. %CUR~FAMS>MARR.DATE:YEAR%) which comes up with an error at the "Never Married" stage
Have also tried using TextIf(Exists(%CUR~FAMS>MARR.DATE:YEAR%),CombineText("m.", %CUR~FAMS>MARR.DATE:YEAR%) which tests correctly but shows as written on the diagram - that is, with the words TextIf(Exists)m. 1874 etc
Is my attempt to put it all on one line a step too far?

You were getting close. Here are some tips to watch out for.
=ItemIf(...) needs both its 2nd & 3rd parameters to be data ref items and your 3rd param is not.
=TextIf(...) needs both its 2nd & 3rd parameters to be a single text item or a data ref that displays text.
The number of opening and closing ( parentheses ) must match in pairs.
Build the expressions section by section.

So instead of =ItemIf use =TextIf and start with:
=TextIf( %CUR~FAMS>_STAT% = "Never Married", "Never Married", "?" )
That will display Never Married or ?

Now consider what needs to replace the "?"
TextIf( Exists(%CUR~FAMS>MARR%), Text("m. " . %CUR~FAMS>MARR.DATE:YEAR%), "")
That will only display anything if a Marriage event exists and then shows m. optionally followed by the YEAR (if any).

The whole expression is:
=TextIf( %CUR~FAMS>_STAT% = "Never Married", "Never Married", TextIf( Exists(%CUR~FAMS>MARR%), Text("m. " . %CUR~FAMS>MARR.DATE:YEAR%), "" ) )

Thank you Mike - for the correct formula as well as the explanation. Helps enormously in getting the diagrams to appear as I wish.

Amending further - I added in the marriage place to the working formula as follows: =TextIf( %CUR~FAMS>_STAT% = "Never Married", "Never Married", TextIf( Exists(%CUR~FAMS>MARR%), Text("m. " . %CUR~FAMS>MARR.DATE:YEAR%, %CUR~FAMS>MARR.PLAC:SHORT% ), "" ) ) returns "The expression at position 1 of the template is not a recognised function". I didn't alter anything at Position 1 so how do I deal with this error? It happens quite frequently when I am enhancing as existing formula.

Amended. - I found my error - didn't have the . before place name. But not at position 1? Have also tried to insert a space before place name =TextIf(%CUR~FAMS>_STAT% = "Never Married","Never Married",TextIf(Exists(%CUR~FAMS>MARR%),Text("m. " . %CUR~FAMS>MARR.DATE:YEAR% . " " . %CUR~FAMS>MARR.PLAC:SHORT%),"")) but this returns the place name twice.

Yes, sometimes the error message is not very helpful. It is one of the weak points of FH.

You correctly spotted the dot operators needed to join text components together.

There is nothing wrong with your final expression. It works perfectly for me.
Do you have a rogue extra %CUR~FAMS>MARR.PLAC:SHORT% beyond the far righthand end of the Template box that you may not notice unless you hit the End keyboard button or copy the entire expression into a plain text editor like Windows Notepad.

Sorted - user error! I had another field below that I hadn't deleted. Thanks again for your advice Mike.