* Export GEDcom plugin -- some questions

[ronk]

Could you deliberately create two Place Records in TNG with similar names that tidy to the same name, and review the resulting popup message.

. Not sure what you mean, create in TNG? I don't generally input any data there, and don't export from it. Did you mean FH? And what popup? I did enter them and TNG accepted both, and then there is a Merge tab which one enters text to find merge candidates, and then it merged them to one place.

I did verify that some embedded ',' and spaces were removed from over 100 places, but, unless I change my procedures on import, I lose that tidying because of the way I've been handling places. When I input to TNG today, I clear the entire tree, but the places are restored to keep the geocoding, which otherwise would be a very slow process to regenerate. I periodically have to redo geocoding, or do some sort of merge. Restoring the place records after import is of course not a good practice when new places are added in FH, since they are lost until I keep and not restore the places. This is a downside of recreating the entire tree each time I import. I will have to review how to avoid this in TNG.

Embarrassingly, I should have done this before, but I found the 'map' geocode function, so maybe I don't need to do it in TNG. Then I wouldn't need the procedure above and it's inherent weakness. I'm doing the 'mapping now. I see FH 6.2.5 has switched geocoders; is that significant?

Yes I did have the box ticked to avoid repeat Caption Notes, saw no issue with that, based on my comparisons.

Realize my 'base' for comparison was my v3.2 Gedcom files previously input (after manual removal of ASID's), with a full file compare noting any and all differences. With LFT, nothing needs manually be done, and with TNG, just the aforementioned prefix.

No problem whatever with the unused Media Record purge; I don't need them in TNG.

Question:With regards unclean Place records, how is the tidying ever completed within the FH Gedcom itself?

I will review the other options as well.

Thanks.

[tatewise]

Sorry, don't know why I said "in TNG". I meant in FH for export to TNG.

When the Plugin tidies the examples I gave it gets the same Place name for both.
It is illegal change the two Place Records to have that same Place name, and the Plugin dare not Merge those records like you can in TNG.
So it produces a warning popup message saying the tidying cannot be fully completed - that is what I wanted you to review.

Could you compare output from this Plugin version with Avoid Repeat Captions both ticked and unticked?
I assume you are using FILE~ABS mode.

Answer:
I think this answers the question you asked. OR are you talking about the exported Gedcom produced by this Plugin?
In FH the Place and Address fields are often 'untidy' because users have designated a particular meaning to each comma separated column part ~ say Street, Town, County, Country and if a particular column is unknown it is deliberately left blank.
That allows Tools > Work with Data > Places/Addresses to sort neatly by column for Town or County, etc.
Also the TextPart(...) function can operate consistently on those same column parts. That function also has TIDY options.
In Diagrams and Reports the Place and Address fields are tidied automatically for display by default.
There are Plugins that can tidy Place and Address fields permanently if required, but it is tricky.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Mike, FHUG threw away a long answer.

Plugin now does what I need. It advises me if there are places that can't be tidied so I can fix them in FH manually.

Looking good to me.

[ronk]

I wanted to test what you asked on similar Places and watch for the Popup (from your Plugin I presume). This will seem like a beginner question, but can you add Places independent of being assigned to an event/person? In TNG, there is a Places tab in Admin, where, if desired, new Places can be created for later use. I see the Place List, and I believe back after migration I used a tool (or plugin) to merge like places.

So, for a test, will create fictitious persons with similar Places like you mentioned and report back.
I will also try with avoid repeat Captions box ticked and unticked and compare. I actually use FILE~REL for TNG, and FILE~ABS for LFT; will that matter for the test? If so, which do you want tested?

Oh, what about the switch in geocoder in FH6.2.5? Significant? I did the FH map / geocode in FH 6.2.4 this afternoon; haven't compared it to what TNG does, but it makes total sense to let my primary input program do it and pass along to TNG.

[ronk]

Tested with LFT Export to Gedcom 3.2.3.

With ticked and unticked Avoid Repeat Captions, the Gedcom files were Binarily identical.

An individual born and died with the 2 similar places exactly as you indicated:
Fulham,London, England
Fulham, London, , England


There was no popup, and the FH Place List has an entry for both. The FACTS shows them identical, but the Property and Focus shows different Places as entered.

Both Gedcoms have these entries:

0 @I14474@ INDI
1 NAME Test1 //
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE 1 NOV 1954
2 PLAC Fulham, London, England
1 DEAT
2 DATE 11 NOV 2010
2 PLAC Fulham, London, England

Is this what you were looking for by way of testing? Or did I misunderstand something?

[ronk]

Oh, what about the switch in geocoder in FH6.2.5? Significant? I did the FH map / geocode in FH 6.2.4 this afternoon; haven't compared it to what TNG does, but it makes total sense to let my primary input program do it and pass along to TNG.

OK, updated to FH 6.2.5, and doing the geocoding again. Is there an option to just map those places that aren't geocoded, or does it redo ALL of the Places each time you Map. The options are only to Map All Places or All individuals.

OK, I have output a Export to Gedcom (TNG) file and none of the geocoding was output at all. Hopefully it's in the Gedcom standard. If so, what setting to I use in the plugin to output it? If not, I'm in the same situation I mentioned earlier of TNG doing the geocoding, but each time I import to it?

FLT has an option to export 'Gedcom for Legacy', which contains the latitude/longtitude geocoding which TNG recognizes, though I never used it. Does FH have an option through the plugin?

[tatewise]

It appears the new FH V6.2.5 geocoder is much improved. See Map Search and Geocoding (15015).

Use the Tools > Preferences > Map Window and tick Block Refresh for Non-tentative Geocodes to inhibit Refresh Geocoding.

As stated in the Help & Advice for Output Format for TNG :-
Place Record (_PLAC)
Each Place Record has its Record Ident deleted but other details retained for import to TNG.

No, _PLAC Records and LATI/LONG are NOT part of Gedcom 5.5 (but are in Draft 5.5.1 in a different form).
If the LATI/LONG data needs to be adjusted for TNG it has never been mentioned before.

You can add unassigned Place records on the Records Window in Places tab just like any other type of record.

Avoid Repeat Captions
This should apply identically to LFT and TNG in either FILE~REL or FILE~ABS.
I was assuming a significant effect based on the earlier posting Re: Export Gedcom ASID tag Errors in LFT that clearly illustrates repeated identical captions that should be purged only if the option is ticked. Presumably your Link/Note captions have changed since then.

Tidy Places & Addresses
LFT is behaving exactly as expected, but has no exported Place records so no name conflict so no popup.
I did ask for the test to be performed for TNG export. The TNG Gedcom will be different to LFT.

[ronk]

Thanks for the information on Places. FWIW.. I just installed TNG 11.1.1 which now supports Gedcom LOC records.

No, _PLAC Records and LATI/LONG are NOT part of Gedcom 5.5 (but are in Draft 5.5.1 in a different form).
If the LATI/LONG data needs to be adjusted for TNG it has never been mentioned before.]

So, ...is the Lati/Long data supposed to be in the Gedcom? Your latter sentence seems to imply that. I don't see that data. Maybe if I read this post it will have an obvious answer for TNG: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=11929 which discusses this topic.

I was assuming a significant effect based on the earlier posting Re: Export Gedcom ASID tag Errors in LFT that clearly illustrates repeated identical captions that should be purged only if the option is ticked. Presumably your Link/Note captions have changed since then.

I honestly don't know why that happened that one time, but I know we were crossing wires as to Caption Notes, vs. Caption Note: labels back then. Nothing has changed with those items in FH. It was one of the early versions of 3.2.x which had that effect, and it may have had to do with Caption Note: labels, or a setting. I honestly don't recall, sorry. In the next post I indicated only the ASID orphans were present in v3.2, not the repeated caption notes:

OK, I used a simple Text Edit macro on the Gedcom from Export Gedcom v3.2 (LFT), to find and remove all lines with ASID. The import to Legacy looks very good, no captions, no duplication, and all media and notes appear to be present, and the FIL~ABS works well.

I did ask for the test to be performed for TNG export. The TNG Gedcom will be different to LFT

I will perform the test again....I missed your TNG reference.

[ronk]

Redid the test of similar Places as you specified, this time to TNG and no popups received from Export to Gedcom 3.2.3. The spaces and extra comma were removed from the BIRT PLAC.

0 @I14475@ INDI
1 NAME Test1 //
1 BIRT
2 DATE 10 NOV 1954
2 PLAC Fulham, London, England
1 DEAT
2 DATE 1 NOV 2011
2 PLAC Fulham, London, England

[ronk]

Good News! I found the reason for no 'untidy' popup. My TNG Extra Options PLAC Record 0 was set to 'Remove Entirely'. no idea how long it has been set like that. I've changed it to 'Remove Indent' (like the post I referred to discussing geocoding and TNG) and now popups appeared for Fulham (and a couple others I need to fix), and now getting 1,881 Lati/Long items as well.
Wondering how I was getting Places in TNG; perhaps haven't been updated for awhile.

Now will see how TNG reacts to this new data being imported.

[tatewise]

Excellent!
I suggest you look through the Extra Options and check no other TNG specific settings are misplaced.
OR if you know which few are non-default, make a note of them, click Reset these TNG Options, then reset the non-default ones just noted.

[ronk]

TNG import went well, receiving ~1900 geocoded places vs. 2200 with TNG's geocode. so ~85% of what TNG deciphered.

I have nearly 1/3 not geocoded because many are very messed up with Gedcoms merged in long ago. Its possible FH wasn't finished geocoding either (how do you tell when it is finished?) . I will use the Tools > Preferences > Map Window and tick Block Refresh for Non-tentative Geocodes to inhibit Refresh Geocoding.

The reason I was still getting Place records to TNG is because I was exporting PLAC 2 records.

Agreed, this is a good time to check other plugin settings as well. I don't think I was ever putting out the PLAC 0 records, though.

The best thing came out of this long thread (for me) is getting geocoding performed where it belongs,...in the primary genealogy input software. (EDIT: see bad news in next post).

[ronk]

Well,my spirits have been dampened. Spot checking some of the geocodes I see some really far off results, especially compared to what TNG did with the same location.

Examples:
Guardian Angels, Oakdale, MN ....geocoded to West Virginia!
Bethesda Hospital, St. Paul, MN....geocoded to Washington DC!
Dublin, GA .............................geocoded to Dublin Ireland!

Whereas TNG geocoded properly to Oakdale, MN, close to the church.
and to St.Paul, downtown close to the Hospital area.
and to Dublin GA...

How could FH geocode these so badly? The PLACE isn't that bad.

I will check more, but this isn't good. FH geocoding must do a better job than this, and given the 15% loss of geocoded places, I will likely be falling back to what I was doing before (which means redoing geocoding everytime I import), unless I retain the place records in TNG and do some sort of merge from FH. I may have to drop the PLAC 0 record again. Sigh.

UPDATE:
Found too many poor geocodings compared to TNG, so falling back to TNG, but with an improved procedure.
To use TNG geocoding, the procedure which works is, before import, use TNG utility to backup the Place records, then clear the Tree, restore the places with the TNG utility, then import the FH gedcom, w/o the lati/long,, but it t will update new and corrected places. Tested it, it works!
So...may remove the PLAC 0 recs, since not really needed.

[ronk]

Mike,

Unrelated to this thread, but have run into it before, when running a plugin, in this case the Export to Gedcom, from tools/pugins/select from plugins/ then have the opening screen, depress run, indicates running, and the window with options appears behind the first screen, but I cannot get to it. Windows tray sees it in miniature, but I cannot switch to it. I think you had a term for this phenomena, but pops up every now and then. I have to 'x' the small screen showing from the window 10 bottom icon row, then can use FH again.

This time closing the program, reopening didn't resolve the issue. Having to restart the system.

Help...restarting the system didn't resolve the plugin window behind window issue. I just updated this afternoon from 6.2.4 to 6.2.5, but used plugins since then.
I did find a workaround; in the miniature bottom window, hit the 'maximise window' option, and then the hidden window appeared!

[tatewise]

Place Geocoding
Don't give up on FH yet. Use my Map Life Facts Plugin in combination with the Map Window.
Many users have great success with the Plugin because it uses Google Maps to perform the geocoding.
The Place Records can be synchronised with the Plugin Locations as advised in the plugins:help:map_life_facts:the_faq|> Plugin F.A.Q.

Modal Windows
Exactly what window is locked in front of the Export Gedcom File dialogue window?
Is it the Plugins window from Tools > Plugins with Run, Plugin Store..., Close, Help, <<Less buttons at the bottom?
If not that one, then please explain in more detail or attach a screen-shot.

When you say you "have run into it before" over what period of time?
The last few days since installing FH V6.2.5 or much earlier than that?
If only since FH V6.2.5, did you install that via the FH Help > Check for Updates or perhaps an automatic FH prompt?
If so, then I advise downloading directly from http://www.family-historian.co.uk/downl ... ee-upgrade and install the download using Run as administrator as advised in how_to:family_historian_installation_problems|> Family Historian Installation Problems.

[ronk]

Don't give up on FH yet. Use my Map Life Facts Plugin in combination with the Map Window.
Many users have great success with the Plugin because it uses Google Maps to perform the geocoding.

Will try that. I agree that Google does an excellent job in their mapping, at least in Google search and mapping directions, etc.
I will review it, but does the plugin have an option to geocode or re-geocode multiple (or all) places in the Project?

As to the 'Modal Window' issue, I did have a similar, but lesser impact, incident before, and even posted about it, but this one was much difficult to resolve. If it happens again, I will snapshot it, but will have to wait until it occurs again, since cannot reproduce it at will. It was similar to the image below, except the right thumbnail was white. Finally, after restart and still experiencing this, I hovered over the thumbnails at the bottom, selected 'maximize' icon, and then went full screen with the Export to Gedcom options screen. No issues after that.

2017-05-25_8-16-06.jpg (170.42 KiB) Viewed 11138 times

I updated to FH 6.2.5 from the Check for Updates.

Will post my experience of testing the Map Life Facts Plugin.

[tatewise]

I think this is your previous posting Re: Gedcom Export to Legacy FT Feb 2016.

Those symptoms have happened to me with various Plugins from time to time.
It seems to be associated with some disruption to the Plugin Data folder Export Gedcom File.dat file that holds the settings.
In Oct 2016 the settings data load function was updated to detect and report errors, but that was not triggered this time.
If you can take a backup of the Export Gedcom File.dat file from time to time that can be used to recover.
It will be in any FH Project Backup ZIP file or be part of the usual Windows backup regime.

HOWEVER, before doing anything else, please take a copy of the disrupted Export Gedcom File.dat file and attach it to a posting here, so I can analyse its contents to discover what may be going wrong.

[ronk]

OK Mike, the file is attached. Could this phenomena happen because during comparison testing of recent, I have been switching back and forth between various versions of the Export to Gedcom plugin, which I renamed with version numbers to make them unique? It looks like there's only one .dat file for all.

There were a couple of the .dat files, one in the FH programs area (1k) and one in the project area (14k); I attached the latter. I had to zip the file since dat wasn't approved extension.

Ron

[tatewise]

Ron, is that attachment is a zipped copy of a potentially disrupted Export Gedcom File.dat file that freezes the Plugin?
It looks OK and works OK with the Plugin for me.

What I need is a .dat file that causes the freeze.
So when the freeze happens, before doing anything else, take copy of the .dat file and attach here, so I can analyse it.

Switching back and forth between versions might be the cause of the problem.
But I need to understand the failure mechanism so I can counteract it.

Adding a suffix to the Plugin name keeps them unique, but will continue to use same .dat file.
That is a deliberate part of my design to allow me to easily perform regression testing against old versions.

[ronk]

It is the current dat file that's in use. I have no other since that hidden window phenomena. I have not changed it; nor restored it. I can't reproduce it at will, as I said. But I will be certain to capture it next time Mike.

[tatewise]

Regarding the .dat file, the Plugin regularly updates it before you hit the Export GEDCOM... button.
In fact as soon as the Plugin starts up it loads, checks, and saves the .dat file.
This caters for changes in the version that need changes to the .dat file.
It must be at that stage it freezes when about to create the GUI window.
So when it freezes, it is important to capture the .dat file before unfreezing, otherwise it could get updated.

Regarding, my Map Life Facts Plugin, why not give it a try, as it has many options to choose what to geocode.
Would you expect anything less from me? (Sorry, I missed the question.)
Take a look at the plugins:help:map_life_facts:map_life_facts|> Map Life Facts Plugin ~ Help & Advice

The Map Life Facts discussion continues in Using Map Life Facts Plugin (15026).

[ronk]

Some posts were lost late yesterday, apparently. I notice FHUG site is very slow at times, particularly yesterday, but I usually to see posts disappear. Anyway, the messages lost were about hitting the Google limit, and will try again today.

[tatewise]

They are not lost, the Map Life Facts discussion continues in Using Map Life Facts Plugin (15026) as I did not want to 'muddy' this topic with a different Plugin discussion.

[tatewise]

Ron, I have found and fixed the Window freezing problem.

I have added a new bulk Media ZIP file upload to FindMyPast mode, but that has involved some minor redesign of some Media rule coding internally. It should not have affected the LFT and TNG export of Media but I would value any checks you can perform.

See Export Gedcom File new features (15049) for the new version.

[ronk]

Mike,

Great. Will give it a test for any impact on functionality I use. Of course, as to the freezing/hidden window issue, you know how hard it can be to make something break when you want it to.

Thanks for letting me know.

Ron