* Force DEA to run without setting required fields

[sbell95]

Hi all,

Is it possible to force a DEA (such as the Record Census Data (UK) DEA) to run from a prepared citation window without setting the required fields (region, year, head of household, location)?

Screenshot 2022-07-19 100254.jpg (209.79 KiB) Viewed 1223 times

I ask because I have settled on using Kai Chandler's Freeform Citation Source Templates (with minor modifications), and I do not want to add extra fields to the source template in order to keep it generic for different source types. I am happy to edit the plugin manually if required to work with my source template (and have already done so in order to get the DEA to show up from the prepared citation menu) -- or is it possible to add the missing fields (region, year, head of household, location) once the DEA has been activated? I want the automatic event creation functionality, but for it to work with my existing source template!

Thanks!

[ColeValleyGirl]

In the census DEA, delete or comment out lines 55 to 70. In other DEAs, it will be other lines but well commented so you should be able to spot them.

[sbell95]

I was excited about your simple fix, Helen, but then I got this error (after deleting said lines and then trying to run the DEA from a prepared citation):

Screenshot 2022-07-19 170817.jpg (19.91 KiB) Viewed 1128 times

[ColeValleyGirl]

Ok -- I should have checked. You'll need to initialise the values that are derived from the required fields -- dtDate, sRegionName, sPlace (lines 71 to 100). If your template supports them in different fields, use those fields otherwise set them to sensible defaults (not sure what you'd set dtDate to as a default). You'll also have to decide how to handle sHead in line 163 if you don't have a Head of Household field.

sRegion and sDate need to correspond to one of the entries in the table starting at (old) line 890 (Census Definitions). e.g 'England' and '1851'.

[sbell95]

Hmm... okay. Is it possible to have pop-ups appear instead that ask for this information and assign that to the relevant variables/fields?

[ColeValleyGirl]

That's a bigger job. It's the approach I'm taking in the new DEAs I'm writing but they're not ready for testing yet.

[sbell95]

Ok -- I should have checked. You'll need to initialise the values that are derived from the required fields -- dtDate, sRegionName, sPlace (lines 71 to 100). If your template supports them in different fields, use those fields otherwise set them to sensible defaults (not sure what you'd set dtDate to as a default). You'll also have to decide how to handle sHead in line 163 if you don't have a Head of Household field.

sRegion and sDate need to correspond to one of the entries in the table starting at (old) line 890 (Census Definitions). e.g 'England' and '1851'.

OK, I'm struggling with what I have to change on which lines -- would it be too onerous to ask you to instruct me?!

[ColeValleyGirl]

Ok.

A couple of questions:

Do you have fields in your template for: the Date of Census, and the Region (Country) and Place of the census.

If so, what are they called.

Ditto for a Head of Household field.

[sbell95]

No to all of these — although the date (year) of census is always the first four characters of the “Head” and “Short” fields. And I don’t expect to use any censuses outside of England, so that can be hard coded. You can see my fields (and the template I’m using, albeit slightly modified) in the OP.

[ColeValleyGirl]

I'm sorry, but this is a much bigger rewrite than I first thought.