Family Historian User Group

Short titles will no longer be recorded if templated sources are used.

In the announcement of changes to Ancestral Sources in v. 7.7 there is mention that Short Titles are no longer recorded with templated sources. I rely on Short Titles as my primary organizing scheme for sources. Yes, even with templated sources. I’m reluctant to upgrade to AS 7.7 to experiment with how Short Titles are treated for fear of losing this ability. My assumption is that any change to AS would not affect my ability to add/edit Short Titles in FH7. But just thought I’d learn more before upgrading.

Would you please explain a little more about this change In AS 7.7?

My assumption is that any change to AS would not affect my ability to add/edit Short Titles in FH7

Your assumption is correct. Once AS has had added data to your project you can do whatever editing you like in FH. (I sometimes do!)

Thanks for the reply.

I made the decision to turn off short titles for templated sources following the confusion it caused in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=21379&p=132508#p132505. I made that change at the start of January in the versions that have been tested. No one raised any objections to that. I really do urge you and others to keep an eye on the AS beta testing threads (when I am in a testing phase), even if you don't get involved, so you can have a chance to comment on any changes being made.

Family Historian does not make use of the short title when templated sources are used. They are not displayed in the property box. They can be added behind the scenes in the records window or the 'All' tab but they don't show up where most users would be looking.

A templated source title in Family Historian is designed to be auto-generated based on the information recorded in the template. To fit in with the way that FH works, AS by default will not record a title and allows FH to generate it when the file is opened following the entry in AS. If users had used the 'Short Title' feature before adopting templated sources then they could quite reasonably wonder what was going on when they find the source title doesn't appear when they view their source in FH. There is no way for AS to ask FH to auto generate that short title.

However, I am aware that more recently you were involved in a lengthy discussion about short titles (viewtopic.php?f=32&t=21603&start=50 and you have explained your reasoning there so I'll have a look if there is something I can do for you in this regard.

I enter my Short Titles manually in all cases. No problem that they’re not auto-generated. I’ll just edit any AS entries in FH to add Short Titles.

I've created a new update v7.7.2 though I'm not going to advertise it to all users yet as I'm conscious this would be the 3rd update this week and I don't want to annoy people.

There is now a new option (on the first option page) for Templated Sources: 'Allow use of short source titles'. This is off by default. If you tick that then you can create short source titles in AS and have them appear in FH even if you're using templated sources. This is assuming you've ticked the options to use short titles for the individual source types.

The 64 bit version is available here: Ancestral Sources v7.7.2 64 Bit
The 32 bit version is available here: Ancestral Sources v7.7.2 32 Bit

Nick

Great; thanks so much. I’m traveling the for next few days but will download the latest update when I return to my computer. Now, that’s service!

Installed v7.7.2 and ticked the "Allow use of short titles" option. Thanks again!