Family Historian User Group

If a diagram is what you can display in a Diagram Window, and charts are no more than pre-saved or pre-defined charts or diagrams, why do we need the redundancy and confusion of two separate terms?

No doubt there is KB or other sources of help to clarify if there really is a subtle distinction. But reclusive learning by experience is painful, to say the least.

It is exacerbated by Chart toolbar button terminology that mixes terms:

• Charts > Everyone Diagram, but Pedigree Chart

• Charts > More Diagrams, but Saved Charts

• and so on

I'd rather scrap the whole business of "diagrams" and settle for the widely-used term "Chart". To me, a diagram is just an unsaved Chart.

Just me, being irritable as usual.

The distinction is important. (Although I agree that terms like 'Pedigree Chart' which is actually a Diagram Type, don't help!)

The most important point is that a saved Chart retains exactly what you had on the screen when you saved it, including the root person for the diagram, all the diagram options (colour and shape of boxes, text scheme, number of generations etc) and the postion of boxes and branches which you may have moved around, and any pictures or text boxes you may have added. (The only exception is that if you have added new related individuals or facts about existing individuals since the Chart was saved those will appear in the Chart when you next open it in FH, and this may affect the positon of some elements of the Chart.)

A Diagram Type saves the various diagram option for future use but you have to choose the diagram root and it creates a new diagram on the screen from scratch when it is opened.

See the FH Help file: https://www.family-historian.co.uk/help ... harts.html

Join the club, my friend...

This has been debated for years, and while the high level picture is as you say, FH is horribly inconsistent in this. IMO, it just makes it confusing for new users, and I don’t buy the “it’s always been that way” argument put forward by some long-term users.

Added in edit -posted simultaneously with Lorna - I think we’re on opposite sides in this debate...

Mark, I don't think we are necessarily on opposite sides. I agree that FH is inconsistent in its use of the terms Diagram and Chart (as in 'Pedigree Chart' which is a Diagram Type) but there is still a very important and useful distinction between a saved Diagram Type and a saved Chart. It's the inconsistency in FH which is the problem.

I’ll buy that - a Diagram is a dynamic template for producing a Chart. We just need CP to buy into that definition..

We could call them all Diagrams or we could call them all Charts. But we still need to distinguish between Diagrams/Charts (seen on screen), Saved Diagrams/Charts (preserving your particular arrangement and additons) and Diagram/Chart Types. It's probably inevitable that there will be some confusion for new users.

LornaCraig wrote: ↑

16 Jan 2022 13:00

The distinction is important. (Although I agree that terms like 'Pedigree Chart' which is actually a Diagram Type, don't help!)....

Beautiful explanation, thanks . With a few details missing, I suspect, but enough to lower BP to safe levels again, give me a framework for understanding all the other aspects of diagrams that I never use or think about, and point me in the direction to where I should have gone in the first place.

Maybe you shouldn't waste your life on pains-in-the-backside who haven't made any effort to study the various help sources.

Mark1834 wrote: ↑

16 Jan 2022 13:01

Added in edit -posted simultaneously with Lorna - I think we’re on opposite sides in this debate...

Edit: Redundant now.
Not necessarily, but why not? All good stuff.

Mark1834 wrote: ↑

16 Jan 2022 13:19

I’ll buy that - a Diagram is a dynamic template for producing a Chart. We just need CP to buy into that definition..

Actually I think that has always been CP's definition (in their heads, if not in those exact words). The distinction used to be much clearer but unfortunately CP have clouded the issue in more recent versions, escpecially V7.

1. They now mix Charts and Diagram Types in the Charts menu of the main toolbar and in the View>Charts menu. (To be fair, if you hover the mouse over Charts in the main toolbar it says 'Charts and Diagrams').

2. They have also started referring to the new Pedigree diagram type and (not quite so new) Fan diagram type as Charts.

Mercifully the Diagram> Save Diagram As... menu still makes a clear distinction between saving as a Family Historian Chart, saving as an image file (of various formats) and saving as a Custom Diagram Type.

I know that you said you said you don’t buy the “it’s always been that way” argument but I think it's true, and the point is that it was much easier to understand the distinction in "the old days"!

Some of this has been discussed before in Chart or Diagram? (18371).
I cannot remember where, but CP explained they prefer to use Pedigree Chart and Fan Chart rather than Diagram because that is what they are popularly known as. So they are wrong whichever they choose!

Simon Orde gave a long explanation along those lines in the V7 beta-testing forum, but access to that was taken away when the product was launched so we can’t retrieve it.