Family Historian User Group

I've been exploring the custom templates, and thought the "Oral Testimony" was a better constructed source than the one I was using, with a few modifications :

I used the expression 'Author' for the "Select Informant" field, and the 'where within source' for the citation "informant" field, would doing it this way cause any potential problems ? It seems to work OK on few test runs.

For convenience, I typed a list of family members in the "Select Informant" field, and copy and paste the relevant person into the citation "informant" field.
I was wondering if the "enum" expression would allow me in some way to create a dropdown list of family members to select. Although I have no idea how to go about it.

cheers
Ian

An enum field allows you to choose from a set of predefined values (specified in the source template e.g. England|Scotland|Wales|Ireland), so would not help you with a dropdown list of family members.

Somebody looking from outside might think you're specifying informant in both a source field and a citation field -- that could lead to confusion so you will need to be careful constructing your footnote, bibliography etc (to exclude the Select Informant field from the source).

Assuming the list is just text Names (not Individual links) could the Citation-specific Informant field use an Enum of Names and dispense with the Source Select Informant field?
Presumably, the order of the Names must never be changed and new Names just added to the end, or would a Template resync sort that out?

That leads me to wonder about how Enum lists can be updated. Taking your example of UK countries, how would say the Isle of Mann and the Channel Isles be added after Source Citations had been created from the original list?

tatewise wrote: ↑

12 Apr 2021 09:49

Assuming the list is just text Names (not Individual links) could the Citation-specific Informant field use an Enum of Names and dispense with the Source Select Informant field?

Yes, but the list of names would be held in the Template and apply to all sources created from that template within a single project, which is unlikely to be what is wanted (unless there is only ever one source involved). You would also need to customise the Template for each project it was used in?

Presumably, the order of the Names must never be changed and new Names just added to the end, or would a Template resync sort that out?

They seem to be sorted alphabetically automatically.

That leads me to wonder about how Enum lists can be updated. Taking your example of UK countries, how would say the Isle of Mann and the Channel Isles be added after Source Citations had been created from the original list?

There are a number of ways you can do it but the Prepared Citation Window is one of the easiest:

Ah yes! I understand the first point.

I see how <Add new...> will add new items but presumably internally they get assigned the next available number.
Otherwise, all the existing Source Citation Enum values would refer to the wrong entry.
It is common practice to list such Enum items alphabetically but that is sometimes not ideal.
A user selected order is sometimes more user friendly or more logical.
AS has an example where the Associated Persons Enum list includes various entries but the most common Witness is always last and the user must click and select, whereas if it was 1st they could just continue.

Did you know you had posted two identical images of the Prepared Citation?

Mike, there are no numbers associated with enums (unless the enum values are numbers).

The text selected from the enum is stored in the source as text (otherwise exporting the source without the template would not work.)

Changes to a Source template Definition do not affect sources already created from that template.

(Extra image removed -- thx).

Ok, understood, my misunderstanding.

Been playing with templates in sample project, and I think I've found a workable solution (holds breath !) .
I used the Oral Testimony and made changes see screenshots :

You can add individuals via <Add new...> , but to delete individuals you have to go into the "Source Templates" box, and delete from the 'Prompt' section.

and now to try and solve a new problem, saving diagrams to pdf !

cheers
Ian

That should work. If you have more than one project, you'd need to customise the template in each project to hold the correct list of names.

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑

13 Apr 2021 06:25

That should work. If you have more than one project, you'd need to customise the template in each project to hold the correct list of names.

Thanks Helen, I'd realized that, in switching between sample project and my own, luckily at the moment I only run one project.
Do I take it that the only way to change the list of names is via the source template fields ?

cheers
Ian

Yes; you have to modify the values in the enum. If you're going to use the same source template in multiple projects, I'd keep the master with an empty enum, and modify the project-specific copy/copies after you add the template to the project.

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑

12 Apr 2021 06:34

An enum field allows you to choose from a set of predefined values (specified in the source template e.g. England|Scotland|Wales|Ireland), so would not help you with a dropdown list of family members.

Somebody looking from outside might think you're specifying informant in both a source field and a citation field -- that could lead to confusion so you will need to be careful constructing your footnote, bibliography etc (to exclude the Select Informant field from the source).

I forgot to post screenshot vis footnotes, they seem to be OK without any of my input (I think )

Ian

Personally, I'd include the name of the informant rather than 'See informants' -- if somebody's reading a report, they may not have access to the Informant data.