Family Historian User Group

I have added a fact, and in Sources pane, I click Add Citation, which bring up a Citation [untitled] box.

I fill in all the details I want, but how am I supposed to save it, when there is no save button?

The Citation Window works like the Property box it saves as you go.

Very backward move! In FH6 clicking save also closed the dialogue box.

This new action is contrary to normal windows behaviour! Are users expected to know that by closing this dialogue box, they won't lose anything? I consider myself a very experienced computer user and programmer, and it had me worried!

In any case, without a save button, the dialogue box is left cluttering the screen!

IMHO, Very poor design.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I like the fact I can leave it open and step through seeing all the citation details while moving around the Property box.

In any case, without a save button, the dialogue box is left cluttering the screen!

It does take some getting used to, for those of us who are not keen on floating windows and/or those who have a small screen. But I think the idea is that you can 'park' the floating citation window at one side, or even on a separate screen if you have that luxury. By default the window is synchronised with the Citation list attached to the Property Box (see the blue pin icon at top right of the window). This means that, as Jane says, you can step through citations details very easily.

By the way I assume you realise you can close the side panel of the Citation window so that it is much narrower. (The icon left of the blue pin).

Jane wrote: ↑

10 Dec 2020 16:33

I like the fact I can leave it open and step through seeing all the citation details while moving around the Property box.

At the risk of being argumentative, how often have you felt the need to do this?
When viewing facts in the property box, you can already see the citations for each fact shown in the Sources For pane. I realy can't see the benefit of having the citation box open so you can see a few more details, at the expense of not providing a save button!

NB Even with a save button, it doesn't mean the dialogue box can't be left on screen as you want. It is NOT having a Save button that is wrong!

It is NOT having a Save button that is wrong!

Hmm. It may depend on what hat you've been used to wearing. Database software seems to seldom have a save button - closing the box suffices, I mean why would you fill it in if you didn't want to save it? I think I virtually never use the SAVE button in FH, because occasionally I'll make a swift amendment, close FH and I'll be really surprised to be asked if I want to save the data. I guess it depends on what you've been used to doing in the past...

Now having said all that, I'll go into my (v6) FH and discover something where I do hit save!

In preference section under saving options I have set mine to automatic save every 5 mins. There is a choice on how often you want to save things

Victor

AdrianBruce wrote: ↑

10 Dec 2020 21:12

It is NOT having a Save button that is wrong!

I guess it depends on what you've been used to doing in the past...

I'm used to FH6 citation pane having a save button, that also causes it to close
I get where you are coming from with regards databases. But with them, one generally moves from record to record directly via a table, or if via a dialogue box, there are normally 'buttons' to navigate through the records, which is what is missing from FH7

CP are adamant that it was a deliberate design decision, so I'll just have to get used to it. I have now managed to fit Main Window, Property Box and Citation box vertically on the screen, so not too bad, certainly something I can live with.
PS This works because I have a 43" screen, but how people with a small laptop screen get on with it, I don't know.

I agree with the OP especially being an 'old codger' and being a bit of a technophobe, it's very off-putting not having a save button. Initial use frightened me!
Also, the fact that there are now 3 types of additions to make a source is of concern as not having had that choice with FH6 I didn't know which to choose? A tutorial on these new additions would have been very helpful!

Jane wrote: ↑

10 Dec 2020 16:33

You are entitled to your opinion, but I like the fact I can leave it open and step through seeing all the citation details while moving around the Property box.

This is good to know...that said, it confused me as well. However, now I know, all is good.

Gowermick wrote: ↑

11 Dec 2020 12:45

CP are adamant that it was a deliberate design decision, so I'll just have to get used to it. I have now managed to fit Main Window, Property Box and Citation box vertically on the screen, so not too bad, certainly something I can live with.
PS This works because I have a 43" screen, but how people with a small laptop screen get on with it, I don't know.

I like the new floating citation box and I'm working off a 15" laptop screen. That said I just close it and the "show sources" box when I'm not working on sources.

Gowermick wrote: ↑

10 Dec 2020 16:26

Very backward move! In FH6 clicking save also closed the dialogue box.

Mike

Knowing what you now know (autosave as you go) surely just closing the window would be the same as clicking save. So no more clicks than you would have before in FH6

William,
It is counterintuitive to close a window in order to save what you’ve typed. Furthermore, to make it worse, if you press <CR> to indicate you’ve completed your input (as most people do out of habit) and you get warning beep!
I stand by initial complaint, I regard it as poor design!

Not really Mike, many programs have autosave now a days, so clicking x to close is normal in many now a days. You are not clicking x to save, it is already saved you are clicking x to close the window. Microsoft 365/ Office has it for one, I am not saying it is not counterintuitive if you haven't used it before, just that it has crept in to quite a few programs. My guess is it was put in to most programs that have it because people were fed up losing all their work when there was a computer crash/shutdown or when they were in a hurry to close a program and just clicked through the 'do you want to save' warning that popped up without reading it and again lost their work.

GeneSniper wrote: ↑

14 Dec 2020 00:11

Microsoft 365/ Office has it for one.

IMHO, you’ve chosen a poor example to use since when have MS done anything because it’s good for the user. I stopped using their products long ago when they thought they knew what I wanted to do better than I knew myself!

Back to FH7, if they don’t want us to use <CR>, ( why warn us otherwise), why not just intercept <CR> and replace it with a <Tab> character behind the scenes? Just laziness on their part

I think I have to side with the anti-auto save view a bit. I know programmers think they are being helpful, and maybe even prevent folk from losing data by taking control away from them. But the other view (mine) is that such an approach can verge on the patronizing. Like auto complete, and spell and grammar checking (which in this message is making assumptions about what I want to write and filling it with distracting red lines!) That may have been an appropriate default position many years ago, but today most computer users are more aware of what they are doing and don't need the level of nannying of the past - remember the hideous "helpful" paper clip in MS office - that's the past, not the present. In many cases "helpful" autosaving can increase database errors in situations where you input something on screen and don't spot an error/misspelling and then it is saved for you without your confirmation. Giving the user control of what is definitely to be included or not should be more important, and in programming terms is not difficult to implement. It's a decision made by CP and we have to adapt our way of working to it. And if we are skilled at digging up and interpreting records of long dead and forgotten people, we are most of us capable of adapting. I am more frustrated by a lack of other usabilty developments in FH7 - like - why can't we save custom workspaces, screen layouts; why can't FH open up showing the last person worked on? But that's a rant for another day...

Martin Tolley wrote: ↑

14 Dec 2020 10:22

why can't we save custom workspaces, screen layouts; why can't FH open up showing the last person worked on? But that's a rant for another day...

Martin, This has been achieved in FH7 (Go to Preferences/startup and tick Display Last Used Focu...

Also, you can switch off Auto-Save and Spell checking.
See Tools > Preferences > File Load/Save and Notes.

Regarding the absence of a Save button in the Citation window, did anyone take in the very first reply to the question, by Jane? She said:
"The Citation Window works like the Property box it saves as you go."

In other words, in the Property box it has always been the case that as you tab from one field to the next, or click outside the Property box, the text you have just typed in the previous field is saved. This has been the case from the earliest versions of FH. Yet I don't recall anyone ever complaining about the lack of a Save button in the Property Box! If that has never been a problem, why is it a problem in the Citation window?

Well said!

Lorna,
In answer to your question, I found it a problem because unlike the property box, where one usually uses more than one field, and naturally tabs to get to next field. I don't usually do this in the Citation box as I only use the Title field! Had it accepted a <CR>, perhaps I wouldn't have minded, but it Beeps a warning when I try to do that!

At the risk of prolonging this debate, I have just been working to create a custom Chart and when I closed it, I was asked if I wanted to save it. (Thankfullly, as I couldn't find a Save Option, sound familiar?)

However, when I opened the saved chart, and made some modifications to it, then closed it, I wasn't prompted to save the changes and what is worse, the changes were lost! - aarrgh

Come on CP, how about some consistency!

I found it a problem because unlike the property box, where one usually uses more than one field, and naturally tabs to get to next field. I don't usually do this in the Citation box as I only use the Title field!

OK, you are probably unusual in not using anything except the Title field of a source, but even so, in FH V6 when you created a Source in its own Property Box, you would have had the same "problem"!

The behaviour of the new Citation window is exactly the same as the behaviour of the Propery box. It would be inconsistent if they behaved differently.

LornaCraig wrote: ↑

14 Dec 2020 12:39

OK, you are probably unusual

Quite possibly

LornaCraig wrote: ↑

14 Dec 2020 12:39

in FH V6 when you created a Source in its own Property Box, you would have had the same "problem"!

Er I seem to remember it having a Save button in FH6? (Can’t check, no longer have FH6)

No Property Box, for any type of Record, had a save button in V6.