* Configuring AS and understanding different Template types

[Gary_G]

Edit by Nick Walker: I've split this into a separate thread as this isn't Beta Testing related

Thanks, Nick.

I'm still working out how to configure AS for use with records from France, so it will be a while yet before I'm actually doing real data entry.
While it comes set up for the Essentials templates, it's quite a challenge to figure what to tweak for others; especially custom ones.
Still trying to figure out where to set certain items, like the list of possible countries (France is not there). So it will be a while.

[NickWalker]

Still trying to figure out where to set certain items, like the list of possible countries (France is not there). So it will be a while.

If you are referring to the Census Templates in AS then you are not forced to choose from the existing entries in the Type/Region/Year drop-downs. So you can choose an existing type (e.g. Census) or create an entirely new one and just enter France into the Region drop-down and an appropriate Year. You would then need to define the various column types, etc. for your census template.

France Census Country.png (10.31 KiB) Viewed 1008 times

[Gary_G]

Nick;

Thank you. I see what you are doing, but that only seems possible when creating a template directly in AS.
The template that I'm trying to set up is one I developed in FH7 for the French Census records.
Suspect that I will run into a few of these issues, when using templates developed outside AS7.
Think I can work around it, since I can easily make the template use the country of the current repository.

[NickWalker]

You are using a very vague term "template" to refer to various different things. I assumed you meant Census Templates because you mentioned countries and countries only really appear there. Family Historian doesn't really have an equivalent of this so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

To try to make this clearer. In Ancestral Sources you can obviously have your Source Templates. For 'Census' source types you can have a Census Template - this is to specify the columns and the types of data to be entered into those columns - some of these columns will directly populate facts such as Census, Occupation, Birth. For all source types you can also have Auto-text templates which help you to generate a transcript.

[Gary_G]

Nick;

Yes. The word "template" is used in many ways in both AS and FH7, so its use is definitely a source of confusion.

So; let me describe the impression I get about the data entry paradigm after poking around the AS configuration and data entry screens. If I can get that straight in my mind, I think it will avoid a lot of confusion on my part.

I'm assuming that AS is focussed on source-driven data-entry and more specifically the content of what one sees within an image or database entry. That generally provides sufficient info to complete the various facts and notes. The data it does capture, AS makes available to the template user to map to his/her citation template fields. However; because the citations usually depend on information from "outside" the above scope (ie. URLs, call numbers etc.) and this can be highly variable depending on the repository and source, there will often not be enough captured to fully complete a citation. Hence the warning to check the citation template prior to saving. Is this more or less how it is intended to work?

So; as far as I can tell, the circled fields in the attached image are there primarily to support the auto-text templates, not to supply info to any citation template. I "think" the year field may be the same as the available to the citation templates, but I suspect the other fields are not. Is this correct?

Census Input Screen.jpg (79.57 KiB) Viewed 942 times

[NickWalker]

If we're focussing on census for now...

The Census Templates specify the columns. If you enter each individual you find in the census entry into the grid then some of those columns will automatically generate facts such as occupation, census, nationality, birth, etc. Some fields might populate notes attached to those facts (e.g. 'Industry' may go into the local note for occupation). All of those facts will get automatically linked to the source via citations

The auto-text templates can take all that data and generate a rich-text (or plain text) table which would then populate source text.

AS will also allow for linking images to the source that is generated.

Remember that most users of AS don't even use Templated Sources and AS saves them a great deal of time over entering these details manually in FH.

It can save even more time for those that do use templated sources... AS is then also able to help you to automatically populate some of the template fields and for other fields (with the new version we're testing) it will save you time by carrying over the data in those fields to your next entry.

The fields you highlighted in the image can all be pulled into your source template fields via the {SOURCETYPE}, {COUNTRY}, {YEAR} and various {DATE} keywords. And of course you can also put 'IF' functions into those fields if you need to use more complex logic.

Maybe go back and have another look at the videos in my YouTube channel