Family Historian User Group

I do like the functionality of the new version, but agree with Jane that the dialogue is too cluttered. Possibly a simple and advanced tab, with the advanced being the current version and simple just showing a few basic options.

See what Jane said: Re: Ancestral Sources Data Entry.

I am working on an enhanced version of the Plugin with more field selection filters, and will look at the Simple / Advanced tab suggestion.
Would you relegate LUA Pattern Mode to the Advanced tab?
Some users requested FH field name related options, which I have provided.
So which FH fields are your candidates for the Simple tab?
Or would you lump all Short Text class together and all Long Text class together, plus perhaps Age & Date fields.
But that would need some explanation of which FH fields are Short Text and which are Long Text, and that is where we started, with users not knowing which FH field names belong to which field classes.

The Advanced tab could be what is now the main window. With the simple (default) being "All Short Text", "All Long Text" "Dates".
Another possible option would be for an Advanced "Option" for each of the simple choices.

My Business is very busy as we approach Christmas, so I may not get back to you as quickly as I usually do.

OK, so the default tab has All Short Text and All Long Text and All Dates (and perhaps All Names and All Places).

That puts the dialogue back to how it was for V1.6 and earlier, where users complained that they didn't know which FH fields are Short Text and which are Long Text and which are Names.
So they were not sure which ones to tick for the Search they wanted, and suggested using FH field names.

We added tooltips to help explain which fields were which, and then started down the road of FH field name tick options, which has now got too busy.

The only saving grace now is that the Advanced tab (or similar) would clarify which FH fields belong to each class.

Another approach I was considering is to have just a subset of popular FH field names (Names, Note, Place, Address, Where Within Source, Text From Source, Date) and a catch all of All other fields.

I have put together an experimental dialogue, along the lines discussed above, for all your comments.

Download it from my SkyDrive Search and Replace - Xperiment V2.1.
This version also demonstrates the Extra List Filters for subsets of Fact Attributes, Notes, Dates, etc.

It will install alongside any existing Search and Replace Plugin and share the same saved sticky settings.
It is functional, and should work the same as Search and Replace V2.0.

The only caveat is that if you use Set Window Font and select Default Plain or Default Bold then V2.0 will complain, so reset to another Font before closing.

The interface looks better to me. I prefer drop down combo-boxes to radio buttons, but they are fine.

One little problem. If I close the Help window (displayed on first run) while the plugin dialogue is displayed, FH crashes big time (Windows 8.1 x64)

Thank you for the feedback.
I felt Radio toggles were better with only two options, because both options are on show to the user, and each can have an associated tooltip to explain more about them.

I cannot get the crash you describe to occur, so could you give a more precise sequence of events or some sort of debug trace.

Did you notice that some of the Basic Filters are three state toggles?
If any of the Extra Filters dropdown lists for Notes, Text From Source, or Dates select a subset, then the associated Basic Filters toggles become undefined.
Similarly the All other text fields is undefined if the 'other' associated Extra Filters are NOT all ticked or all cleared.


BTW: Did you see my revised Ancestral Sources Data Entry Dialogue?

Run the plug in
The help screen displays automatically behind the dialogue.
Click the x on the help dialog
FH crashed at the windows level and closes.

No, I cannot get it to crash, so maybe it is something unique to W8.

Does it also crash if you close the Help window with its Close Window button?

If you use Restore Defaults, it should redisplay the Help behind the main window, does X Close still crash the system?

[EDIT]
I have been able to recreate the problem on my Windows Vista PC.
It is deep in my iup GUI library and probably affects several recently issued Plugins of mine.
It is OK if the Close Window button is used.

I believe it is now fixed, so try download again.

Much Neater Mike, although did take quite a while to get started.

Thanks for feedback.
I also find dialogues take a while to get started, usually when a Help window is involved.
I think it is the Internet communication with the FHUG Help pages that take the time.

The thinking behind showing the Help window initially or on using Restore Defaults is :

• Remind user that Help & Advice is available online.
• Display Version History so new features are made known to user.

It should not take long to start on second run because Help window is not shown.

I have updated the SkyDrive Search and Replace - Xperiment V2.1 with some small layout adjustments, but mainly improvements to the Set Window Font button.
The Plugin now automatically resizes its main window depending on the chosen font.

I have made several further "improvements" to this Plugin via my SkyDrive link above.

The Plugin initially defaults to your Windows fonts, and the Set Window Fonts button allows any fonts and colours to be chosen.
It also allows the default Windows fonts and default colours to be restored, and the main window reduced to its minimum size for the chosen fonts.

I plan to roll out this capability for all my Plugins in due course.
Jane, this is mostly implemented in version 2 of my iup_gui_v2.lua library module as discussed in Modules for FH Library (10857).

The Plugin has revised the options on the two tabs, and ensures they are correctly mapped onto each other.
There are several dropdown lists on the Extra Filters tab to further refine the search.
The Search and Replace are now multi-line text boxes so that tab and newline characters can be included for long text fields.

All the best for the New Year Mike.

I do like the new look.

However, I have tried a search for a replacement in Text from source (I use Method 1 for Census) on the new AND old versions, both with the same settings.
The old version could find the text, the new version did not.

[Edit]Version 2.0 also appears to run much faster. The above run took 3:19 on version 2.0 (with 11 replacements) and 6:40 on version 2.1 (No Data found)

I'll have a look at those issues.
The search works if you use Part Words - so it is the spaces that fool it.

I believe I've fixed the Search and Replace problems.
Could you possibly check it out with as many combinations of:

• The three main modes top right: Plain/Pattern, Case, Whole/Part Words
• Text with and without spaces/punctuation
• Both Search & Replace and Search ONLY

I have speeded up the search a little by reducing the Progress Bar update rate.
However, I could not detect a significant difference in runtime between versions, but my test data is much smaller than yours John.
It may just be the penalty for the extra drop-down list options in the Extra Filters tab.

Thanks Mike, almost there.

V2.1 does now find the same text I was searching for (I needed some left unchanged)

Search Only works perfectly on the only run I have done so far.

However, on search and replace, the option buttons are missing, when a data item is found. The only way forward is to cancel by using the X to close the window.

I think that should be fixed now.
The popup window should resize itself by getting bigger as the need arises, but only up to a limited size.
Scroll bars should appear in the text boxes as necessary when there is too much text to fit.

Thanks Mike, All working now.