* Ancestral Sources v5.1 (Beta)

[NickWalker]

[Edited this post on 28th Feb to reflect details of second beta (5.1.1)]
[Edited this post again on 6th March to reflect details of third beta (5.1.2)]
[Edited this post again on 11th March to reflect details of fourth beta (5.1.3)]

I've completed an update to Ancestral Sources which I think is now ready for release. It is only a minor update really and as I haven't had to make too many changes I'm hopeful this will be OK for everyone to use, but for now I'll class it as a 'beta' version as it hasn't been fully tested. If any issues arise I'll fix them quickly and all being well I'll take the 'beta' tag off it and update the AS Knowledge Base, website, add a news announcement to FHUG, etc.

Therefore, feel free to download and try this out but be extra careful for now and as always make sure you are confident you have backups, etc. As usual it is available in a 64 bit version and 32 bit version.

Please let me know if you spot any problems, either by replying to this post or by emaiing me (nick at ancestralsources dot com)

Best wishes

Nick

Changes in Ancestral Sources Version 5.1

New Features

• Added autotext keywords to allow repository details to be displayed. Joop on the FHUG forums suggested this.
• There are now options available for all source types to allow a 'short title' for a source to be entered and a short title template to be set up to automatically generate this. This was requested by a number of people over the years including Mervyn Ashby and BarbaraD.
• Glenn Cox requested keyboard shortcuts for adding spouse, child, etc. These are now available (see edit menu for details).
• When adding a new child to an individual, if they only have one spouse they are selected by default. This was suggested by Glenn Cox
• David Miller and others suggested having the 'Add to entry' ticked by default when adding a new parent, spouse, sibling or child and this is now implemented.
• Added the 1939 register as a census template. Although not strictly a census, it can be treated as a census for the purposes of data entry in Ancestral Sources.
• If the deceased flag for a parent is ticked it now automatically selects the individual to show they are included in the entry. This change was inspired by a post from Colin on the FHUG AS forum.
• When AS remembers the size of a form when it closes, it is no longer as strict about a form's frame having to be within the boundaries of the screen(s).
• Ancestral Sources will now check for updates automatically every 7 days. Previously it was only possible to manually check using the option in the Help menu.

Problems Fixed

• William Benson spotted that 'between dates' were not displayed correctly. This problem has been in Ancestral Sources since the first version five years ago but is now fixed!
• Another problem which must have been in Ancestral Sources for a long time was spotted by Colin on the FHUG forum. When creating a new birth or death record the date and place of birth/death was always recorded even if the relevant boxes were unticked. This is now fixed.
• Fixed a typing mistake where niece was misspelled as neice in the informant drop-down list, reported via email from Teris.
• Steve Galloway reported that under particular circumstances birth entries which include marriage details of parents can cause a crash. This should now be fixed.
• Backing up AS options now includes any changes to the main form size. This was spotted due to an issue reported by Pentris on the FHUG forums and investigated by Mike Tate.
• AS would crash if particular non-specific regional locations were set: AS uses the location to try to determine if the default date format should be dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy. Keith Skipper reported this problem which should now be fixed.
• For census entries which include a birth date column (e.g. UK 1939), the dates are now displayed in title case rather than capitals to be more consistent with other date fields in Ancestral Sources. This inconsistency was reported by 'capnkeith' on the FHUG AS forum.
• Doug Byway reported an issue which must have been in AS since version 1, which could have meant that a cell currently being edited in the census grid was not saved. This has now been fixed.
• The option to retain parents after saving a baptism entry was broken by version 5. This is now available again for baptisms together with the option to retain parents for birth entries.
• Colin Spencer and Lorna Craig reported that the census birth entry screen could add a blank place to an individual who has an existing birth entry with a date but no place recorded and that this caused an exception error report in Family Historian. This error should now be fixed and I've tidied up the various option that are presented when adding birth details for a census record.
• Colin Spencer spotted another issue which hasn't been reported before, despite it being there since version 1.1. When adding a new individual's name if Enter was pressed rather than OK, the name wouldn't be correctly formatted. This has now been resolved.

[NickWalker]

I thought I'd bump this post back onto the 'recent topics' list to make sure that interested AS users are aware of this update. It has been downloaded a number of times since Tuesday evening and I've had no feedback so far, either positive or negative but I'd like to make sure enough people are test-driving it without problems before I can remove the 'beta' tag and release it properly.

Thanks

Nick

[ColeValleyGirl]

Nick, after I installed the upgrade and started AS, I got 3 error messages saying I was denied access to update the settings files in C:\Users\Helen\Documents\Ancestral Sources\Settings. Double checked and I had access through file explorer and they weren't marked read only...

Ran AS as administrator, and there were no error messages. Have subsequently been running it without problems not as Administrator (although my account is an Administrator account).

Helen

[Peter Collier]

I used the new beta last night to enter some census data - a dozen or so household records - and experienced no problems.

I found the inclusion of a new field to enter the short title to be particularly useful. That gets a big thumbs-up from me. My only criticism would be that I want to see both the short and full title fields at the same time, rather than having to toggle between them, but that is just my personal preference and I can see that the lack of space might be a problem there.

[LornaCraig]

I have used the beta for a few 1939 Register entries. So far so good, no problems. Thank you Nick.

[capnkeith]

I have been using the beta version for Register entries with no problem apart from the birth date month being in all in upper case. Which is perhaps more a template issue? Than an issue with the beta version itself. I've looked but cannot find a way of altering it, other than just editing the text before saving.

[tatewise]

Keith, I think that Birth Date Month problem needs correcting as it is inconsistent with all the other data entry types.
In all the other tabs the event Date Month is always shown in mixed case.
Although the 1939 Register/Census is the first time a Date has appeared in a UK Census, they do appear in Canada Census templates with the same upper-case problem.

[davidm_uk]

The download link just comes up with a page saying "This webpage is not available". Same with both Chrome and Firefox.

Anyone else having a problem?

[rocksrock]

Click on the relevant 32 or 64 bit link in Nick's post at top of ht epage - that got me into it!

[davidm_uk]

That's what I did!

Nick's wesite http://www.ancestralsources.com/ is ok, but v5.1 doesn't seem to be there yet.

[davidm_uk]

Ah, 'twas my AV (Avast) blocking it, said it contained a "nasty". I disabled my AV, the update downloaded ok, then I scanned that file with Avast and no problem found. Ho Hum

[NickWalker]

Nick, after I installed the upgrade and started AS, I got 3 error messages saying I was denied access to update the settings files in C:\Users\Helen\Documents\Ancestral Sources\Settings. Double checked and I had access through file explorer and they weren't marked read only... Ran AS as administrator, and there were no error messages. Have subsequently been running it without problems not as Administrator (although my account is an Administrator account).

Thanks Helen. I don't have any explanation for this, other than perhaps something like anti-virus, backup-software or similar may have been accessing the files at that time locking them out? IF AS isn't given permission to overwrite the files by the operating system then there isn't really anything AS can do about it. Was this when the installer ran AS automatically following install? Did you just try it once and then 2nd time as Admin or did you try it more than once and got the same error. Whatever, I don't think its likely to be an issue with AS. Glad to hear that things worked OK once you got over that issue.

Best wishes

Nick

[NickWalker]

I used the new beta last night to enter some census data - a dozen or so household records - and experienced no problems. I found the inclusion of a new field to enter the short title to be particularly useful. That gets a big thumbs-up from me.

Thanks Peter, that's useful, positive feedback

My only criticism would be that I want to see both the short and full title fields at the same time, rather than having to toggle between them, but that is just my personal preferenc and I can see that the lack of space might be a problem there.

Yes it is a space issue and also a time issue as AS would have needed a major redesign for a feature which I'm not sure too many users will want to use, and I've not got much time to do any major AS development. To rearrange all the screens to fit in an extra text box would have been difficult to achieve, particularly as I try to support users with 800x600 screens (try resizing AS to the smallest possible size to see the problem). In theory you shouldn't really need to look at the short title anyway once the title template has been setup as required.

Thanks again

Nick

[ColeValleyGirl]

Did you just try it once and then 2nd time as Admin or did you try it more than once and got the same error.

I tried it several times as an 'ordinary' user and got the errors repeatedly then tried as Administrator. Backup wasn't running at the time and MSE doesn't usually cause problems like this. Dropbox might have been the culprit but I'd be surprised as it happened repeatedly and the existing files hadn't been modified for some time.

Still, if anyone else reports it, you can tel them a workaround,

[NickWalker]

I have been using the beta version for Register entries with no problem apart from the birth date month being in all in upper case. Which is perhaps more a template issue? Than an issue with the beta version itself. I've looked but cannot find a way of altering it, other than just editing the text before saving.

Keith, I think that Birth Date Month problem needs correcting as it is inconsistent with all the other data entry types.
In all the other tabs the event Date Month is always shown in mixed case.
Although the 1939 Register/Census is the first time a Date has appeared in a UK Census, they do appear in Canada Census templates with the same upper-case problem.

Thanks Keith and Mike. This inconsistency has been there since version 1 but not reported presumably because birthdate isn't a common column. It will be fixed in the release version.

Best wishes

Nick

[NickWalker]

I have used the beta for a few 1939 Register entries. So far so good, no problems. Thank you Nick.

Thanks Lorna, that's good news.

[NickWalker]

Nick's wesite http://www.ancestralsources.com/ is ok, but v5.1 doesn't seem to be there yet.

As I perhaps didn't explain clearly in my original post, I'm just using this thread to beta test AS v5.1 and won't be advertising it elsewhere until I feel it has been sufficiently tested.

As, 'twas my AV (Avast) blocking it, said it contained a "nasty". I disabled my AV, the update downloaded ok, then I scanned that file with Avast and no problem found. Ho Hum

This kind of thing is very frustrating. The usual issue is that AS doesn't have a code signing certificate which means that it is seen as suspicious. A certificate would cost over £100 a year so I'd have had to have to have spent about £600 so far over the last 5 and a half years which I've just not been prepared to spend for software I provide free of charge. I'm not really complaining about this, it is reasonable for software without a certificate to be treated with caution.

Glad you found a solution David

Nick

[BillH]

Nick,

I created a few census entries and a few marriage entries and all seems to work fine.

Thanks for all the hard work on this program. I find it indispensable.

Bill

[NickWalker]

I created a few census entries and a few marriage entries and all seems to work fine. Thanks for all the hard work on this program. I find it indispensable. Bill

Thanks Bill for your continued support and encouragement

Nick

[johnmorrisoniom]

Hi Nick,
No problems with 5.1 apart from Chrome trying to delete the download (But I'm used to that).
It would be useful to know which templates have been modified so that users who have created tweaked versions would know to create new tweaked versions. (I use England, Wales Isle of Man instead of UK census, because I use different icons for each, and the Isle of Man 1901 & 1911 and Wales 1891,1901 & 1911 templates have a language column)

Could we have a keyword for the Witness Description please?

[rocksrock]

Nick, I have tried loading threee or four items today and it went just fine.

Short Titles yipee! I'll try some after the weekend, but meanwhile I have to mess with car insurers............................................ after 48 years too!

Anyway, thank you very much for these additions to a splendid piece of wizardry which saves me endless hours.

RR

[NickWalker]

Hi Nick,
No problems with 5.1 apart from Chrome trying to delete the download (But I'm used to that).
It would be useful to know which templates have been modified so that users who have created tweaked versions would know to create new tweaked versions. (I use England, Wales Isle of Man instead of UK census, because I use different icons for each, and the Isle of Man 1901 & 1911 and Wales 1891,1901 & 1911 templates have a language column)

Assuming everything is working as expected, then if you've got modified templates then it warns you and asks whether you want to overwrite them with the default being that it doesn't do this and only updates any that you've not modified. It certainly shouldn't change any templates for Isle of Man, etc. If I change templates I include this in the list of changes - I added the 1939 'census' as noted in my first post in this thread and that was the first census template change since version 3.0.

Could we have a keyword for the Witness Description please?

Will have a look tomorrow and let you know.

Thanks

Nick

[NickWalker]

Nick, I have tried loading threee or four items today and it went just fine.

Short Titles yipee! I'll try some after the weekend, but meanwhile I have to mess with car insurers............................................ after 48 years too!

Anyway, thank you very much for these additions to a splendid piece of wizardry which saves me endless hours.

RR

Thanks for that feedback. Good luck with the insurers

[rodit]

Nick
I have been using V5.1 with the 1939 Register. It is very useful for adding the actual birth date to people who you only had an estimated year for.
Thanks

Roger

[NickWalker]

Could we have a keyword for the Witness Description please?

I think you are referring to 'associated individuals' - this was a feature of AS before Family Historian 6 introduced 'witnesses' and AS continues to support earlier versions of Family Historian which don't have witness support. The problem with associated individuals is that there can be various types and any number of people and AS only supports a few ways that these can be displayed in autotext - e.g. as a list of names separated by commas or carriage returns. So if we wanted to include the description too it would be difficult to provide flexible ways to format. e.g. do you want: Jo Bloggs (Witness), Jane Smith (Witness), Alan Brown (Best Man)? Or Witnesses: Jo Bloggs, Jane Smith, etc.

One option already available to you would be to put something like this into a template:

Code: Select all

=IF[{ASSOCLIST[Witnesses]}|Witnesses: {ASSOCLIST[Witnesses].COMMA.AND}
|]=IF[{ASSOCLIST[Best man]}|Bestman: {ASSOCLIST[Best man].COMMA.AND}
|]=IF[{ASSOCLIST[Bridesmaids]}|Bridesmaids: {ASSOCLIST[Bridesmaids].COMMA.AND}
|]

This checks to see if there are associated individuals of any of these 3 types and if there are lists them in format like this:

Witnesses: Dennis Julian Childs and Helen Jones
Bestman: Jo Bloggs
Bridesmaids: Jenny Dowling

Does that solve it for you or do you need something different?

Nick