Family Historian User Group

A couple of Note field questions.

I see when I imported from FTM back in December, that my "notes", I know there can be notes for many of the data fields, were imported as 'linked', shown in the image "Note Record 1 link" (sorry the place-in line feature is not working correctly.)

While new notes initiated from the Individual Property box Main tab are local notes. See the image "Local Note".

Local notes are shown on the Individual Property box Main tab, as shown in the image "Populated note field, local note". But the linked notes are not. Is there a setting to change to display the linked notes on the main tab?

What are your recommendations? Should the local notes be converted to linked? Are there ways to convert in mass? Or should should it be the other way around in which linked notes are converted to Local?

Are there differences between the two? I was tracking don't some potential information on one of my brick walls and cut a paste a reasonably large (several pages, not hundreds or thousands) in to the local note field and my actions seemed to have reached the capacity of the local note. If I try to add more, nothing is modified, I can delete text and add back to the same limit.

Thanks in advance

The main difference between a local Note and a linked Note record is that linked Note records can be shared by linking to as many other records as you like, but local Notes cannot.
You can see all the linked Note records via the Records Window on the Notes tab and View > Record Links... shows what records they are linked to.

In your example, the linked Note record has only 1 link. Therefore, if you run the Clean Up Notes plugin, the text will be moved to the local Note. This is quite a common scenario for Projects imported from other products.

Theoretically, wherever a local Note is allowed, a linked Note record is also allowed, but FH does not fully support such linked Note records in all those positions.

The limit on the length of the local Note text is not something that I was aware of.
About how many characters is that capacity limit?
It may be a design restriction or it may be something that can be fixed.

Thanks Mike.

I will run the plug-in. I was missing some important info as I was scrolling thru my ancestors, since I was looking for something in the note field shown on the main tab but only recently became aware that linked notes were not showing. I was aware I could see more on the Notes tab, but I'd like to see it displayed front and center so to speak.

I also did not think there was a note length restriction. I cut and pasted the note in question and it does run 26 pages and 12,462 word according to MS Word.

Before I run that plug-in I will check a couple of my other long notes and see if I have the same apparent limit.

Interesting, I cut and pasted repeatedly the same text into a local notes field and got to 383 pages and 182,230 words without any issue.

I bet there is an offending character in the note with issues. Now to see if I can find it.....

Is "Clean Up Notes" working with v. 7? When I run it I get an error message.

[String "C:\programdata\Calico Pie\Family Historian\Pl...]:188:attempt to index a nil value (global 'iup'). No changes have been made to the data records.

Any insights?

The plugin did state it was only available for V5 and V6 so no 1.2 was not compatible.

I have uploaded 1.3, but please make sure you check it's work carefully and make a backup and/or snapshot first.

That is odd Jane because its Version History said it had V7 Compatibility although Family Historian Version(s): did not include V7 and it ran OK.

Anyway should be OK now.

Thanks Jane and Mike,

Back-up made and V 1.3 ran fine. Looks good I'll keep checking more individuals over the next few days.