Direction arrows on Diagrams to select Individuals

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 10 Sep 2006 08:26

If you have a very large Diagram, for example a descendant tree where the root had ten children and each of these had ten children, then closely related individuals can become a long way apart and need a lot of scrolling to find. I would find it useful if there were a set of four arrow buttons on the Diagram toolbar. These would select the following individuals and cause the diagram to automatically scroll so they are in the centre of the viewed area.

Up: select parents
Down: select eldest child
Left: select next older sibling
Right: select next younger sibling

ID:1817

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 11 Sep 2006 09:33

The cursor keys already do this, do you want on screen keys as well?

ChrisBowyer · Post by **ChrisBowyer** » 12 Sep 2006 14:30

I'd vote for Tom's buttons rather than having to know the keyboard, and to look them up in the manual, you'd need to know the function exists in the first place.

But reading his problem, it occurred to me that before we invented computers I used to draw family trees like this...

It shows the lowest generation in any branch vertically and takes up a lot less paper (particularly width), but more to the point in this context, shows you more relevant information at once on a screen. I know you can construct a variety of one of diagram arrangements, but I for one nearly always work on the tree from the diagram view, and it would seem possible at a glance to envisage a diagram style ike this. If you expand below one of the bottom generation it would simply have to rotate that family.

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 12 Sep 2006 16:24

Chris, is this a separate wish? obviously you can move the boxes into this pattern on a one off basis in V3.

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 19 Sep 2006 07:09

Jane said:
The cursor keys already do this, do you want on screen keys as well?

All the time I spent Beta testing and I never noticed the hint that said you could use the arrow keys! I would still like them on a toolbar as well to avoid swapping from mouse to keyboard and back. Maybe on an optional Diagram Navigation Toolbar that could be turned on and off, with other buttons such as for moving to the other end of ribbons (I'm sure I've seen a keyboard shortcut for this but can't remember it).

ChrisBowyer · Post by **ChrisBowyer** » 20 Sep 2006 13:13

Sorry Jane, yes, I suppose that is a seperate wish item really, or more by way of a sugestion for the designers to think about some time perhaps (do you want me to raise it as such?). And yes, you can of course make a diagram like that (or any other fancy layout) on a one-off basis to print or keep, but I was thinking more in terms of a way of seeing more at once while working on the tree.

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 26 Sep 2006 10:17

Wish List Item 264

Family Historian User Group