Private Notes - a question and a cautionary tale

billor · Post by **billor** » 21 Oct 2009 11:32

Before using FH I used FTM to record a private note about the cause of death of a relative. To my horror I have just realised that this private note has been published in the FH generated web pages. As a result the younger members of this person's family now know the manner of his death, a matter that has caused them much grief. Others may care to check their own notes to ensure they are content for the information to be published!!
Now my question - It looks as if FH is unable to flag notes as being private. Is this correct?

ID:4080

Post by **hsw** » 21 Oct 2009 12:51

If you enclose the note in double square brackets it is private.

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[[Like this]]

billor · Post by **billor** » 21 Oct 2009 13:25

Helen,
Thanks for telling me about this facility. I thought I'd go and try it out just to make sure so I played with the sample project, went to generate the web pages and spotted the hint on the 'choose privacy options' window.

I must have been through that process 20+ times but never bothered to read all the words on the screen!

Thanks,
Bill

makfai · Post by **makfai** » 26 Oct 2009 19:56

Cole Valley Girl said:
If you enclose the note in double square brackets it is private.

[[Like this]]

If you are happy to include part of the note but want to exclude another part will this work? - e.g.
'Accident at work. [[Fell into machinery]]'

Or do you need to divide the note into two?

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 27 Oct 2009 09:29

Yes you can mix the public and private sections of a note. And you can have multiple private sections in the same note.

Bilko · Post by **Bilko** » 22 Nov 2009 14:30

I've just had a little surprise on this subject.

I had inserted a Private note in square brackets against the Citation for a Death Registration as ->

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[[Death Cert ordered 16 Nov 2009]]

However, when I came to print a Report where the individual was included, the note was present in the list of Sources. I could not get the note removed from the Report using the Options tabs and only succeeded in having the note hidden by removing it from the Citation and creating a Note set against the individual.

Can anyone confirm which Notes may be made Private by use of the square brackets and where this cannot be done? IE Event/Attr Notes, Media Notes, Local or Family Notes, in Reports or Webpages.

Bilko [confused]

PeterR · Post by **PeterR** » 22 Nov 2009 16:55

Bilko,
I agree that it appears that the use of double square brackets to hide the 'private' (parts of) Notes is not univerally supported. As well as the citation/link Note that you mentioned, Source Notes and any Source-Note Notes cannot be 'private'. I don't know whether this is a bug. Either way it would be useful for the documentation to clarify when double square brackets can be used in this way. Probably Individual, Family, and Event Notes are OK, as the problem may be confined to the Sources footnote of a report. The 'private' parts are excluded from the 'Record Detail - Sources' report.

On the plus side, it seems that 'private' material is by default excluded from exports, apparently for all kinds of Note & Source Note, and also for Source Actual Text and Source-Citation Text From Source, which I don't think is documented anywhere.

PeterR · Post by **PeterR** » 22 Nov 2009 21:32

The problem of visible 'private' notes need not be confined to the Sources footnote section of reports. It is possible to use the Report Option to Add... Main Section Items. For instance, a Source Note (or citation Note, etc.) thus reported in the Main section will display any 'private' passage even if the Inc. [[private]] Notes check-box remains unticked.

makfai · Post by **makfai** » 28 Nov 2009 11:49

Is there ANYTHING on this subject in th manual 'Getting the most from Family Historian'?

PeterR · Post by **PeterR** » 28 Nov 2009 12:15

I don't think so, apart from Fig.50 (v3) or Fig.71 (v4) which show the Report Options dialog, including:

However, FH Help does include the following:
'You can mark a section of any note as private by putting it in doubled square brackets - e.g. [ [secret] ]. Tick this option if you want private notes to be included when displaying notes in boxes.'
Unfortunately, as mentioned above, this isn't entirely true.

Post by **Anonymous** » 28 Nov 2009 18:43

[message withdrawn]

JonAxtell · Post by **JonAxtell** » 29 Nov 2009 21:50

I agree. I consider this lack of full support for private notes to be a major bug. It should be one of the things fixed in the new minor version which should be issued within weeks if not months and not years.

I know I do go on about the lack of consistency in FH, but I'm afraid this just shows why I consider this aspect of software development to be so important.

makfai · Post by **makfai** » 30 Nov 2009 10:26

I agree that there should be a straightforward and consistent way of ensuring privacy in respect of some entries the compiler does not wish to be seen. This should be clearly and fully explained in the help function and the 'manual'. Maybe someone should add this to the wish list.

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