Family Historian User Group

Question for Nick re the above.

I have made minor modifications to a variety of Autotext templates (e.g. change Address references to use the .SHORT keyword and added an extra line to the 1939 register so that I can record the number of "Closed" records). In each case I have saved the template under a different name (basically, by adding my initials).

When there is an update to AS there has been a message to the effect that templates have been updated and giving the option to accept the updated ones or retain existing ones. I am happy to take the updated ones but is there anyway I can check what the changes were in case I need to change "my" versions of the templates?. I can see there is an AutoText.xml file in the /Program Files/Ancestral Sources folder (the "original" that comes with the update?) and a similarly named file in the Documents/Ancestral Sources/Settings folder (which I guess includes any changes I make). I have opened these and can clearly see the templates listed so is this the best way to check for changes (I don't recall seeing any detailed info in the release notes)?. Many thanks

Ditto. I have similarly had doubts about whether to accept the AS updated templates in case they destroy my customised templates. Any advice welcome.

AS will always update templates that are installed with AS if they've not been modified by the user, without asking. If it is asking then this means you have modified existing templates. So the best thing to do really if you're creating templates is to use your own names rather than modifying existing ones. I am aware that ideally it would be easier to export/import and reset if there was a dialogue form to deal with that (as there are for census templates), and it's on my long list of features for the future. However, I'm not really sure of an easy way to make it possible to compare the incoming template with your own, without some way to view both side by side with data to populate them. The changes I've made to rich-text templates recently, other than correcting mistakes, have been to add in the support for links to individuals which required several =LINKIND functions to be added to each.

So one option would be to duplicate any templates you've modified and change their name to something of your own choosing e.g. Parish Registers 1812 & earlier (England/Wales) - My Version. Then you could import the templates without losing your modifications. This would then allow you to compare your version with the new one.

Could something along those lines be mentioned in the Help so users are made aware that keeping the default names for customised templates is storing up trouble for the future?

Yes probably

Thanks Nick