Root Box Alignment in Charts/Diagrams

jeemo · Post by **jeemo** » 29 Mar 2012 12:25

I've just gone to update a diagram in v5 and find the boxes are now out of alignment (bottom image) versus how they used to be (top image). I've experimented with the box dimensions but can't find any way to have the tops of the boxes level the way they were. Any suggestions on how to resolve this would be appreciated.

ID:6055

Post by **tatewise** » 29 Mar 2012 13:45

I don't see that problem.
Can you give some more details about how the Diagram is constructed.

Is it obtained by using one of the four Diagram Icons on the FH toolbar?
Is it obtained from a predefined Custom Diagram Type?
Is it obtained form an existing Family Historian Chart?

Is the misaligned box for Elisabeth CARLY a standard Diagram Box or is it a separate Text Box overlaid on the Diagram?

jeemo · Post by **jeemo** » 29 Mar 2012 22:39

- (Edited) It is obtained from an existing Family Historian Chart i.e. View > Saved Charts...
- It is a standard diagram box not an overlay

I've just tried regenerating the diagram from the Chart and the result is OK so this might be the way to go but I hope I don't have to do this too often. (I've over 1000 diagrams)

jeemo · Post by **jeemo** » 03 Apr 2012 21:53

I have found that the problem arises whenever the box has additional data to display in it. When first loaded all is OK but as soon as an attempt is made to expand the box at the bottom or the right it expands on the top of the box itself. While my previous comment about redoing the chart itself does work, if I have to redo it each time, it defeats the whole purpose of having saved charts.
In consequence, I now see this as a bug which should be fixed by Calico. I shall let them know about it.

Post by **LornaCraig** » 04 Apr 2012 08:18

Does this only happen when the box in question is already quite big? I wonder if the reason is that expanding the box downwards would mean expanding the width of the whole generation stripe. That in turn would shift all the boxes below the generation stripe, so that some might no longer fit on the page. Similarly, expanding sideways might shift other boxes off the page.
Is it possible that FH is being quite clever in minimising the disruption to the existing chart? Just a thought...

Post by **LornaCraig** » 04 Apr 2012 22:11

I have spent some more time looking at this and have tried to reproduce the problem. I have used a family where an individual with no siblings and no children has a spouse whose box contains a lot of text (as in your original example). I created a diagram (I used an All Relatives diagram) and saved it as a custom chart.

I then added more facts and notes for the spouse, so that more text would need to appear in the spouses box. I re-opened the Chart and it displayed correctly: all the extra data showed in the box, and the top of the box was correctly aligned with the husbands box. It also displayed correctly if the Chart was re-opened before the extra data was added: the box expanded at the bottom.

I have tried the effects of ticking/unticking the options for Align with others in same row and Box size affects row size. Neither of these produced the effect you describe when extra data was added to the spouse box. (So I think my suggestion in my previous post was wrong)

I have also tried adjusting various dimensions of boxes and lines using Diagram Options>Dimensions, but still could not produce the misalignment.

Saving the Chart with or without page boundaries set made no difference.

Whatever is causing the problem, I dont think it is simply a case of needing to display more data in the box. I cannot find any way of getting a married couples boxes misaligned at the top. There must be some other cause but I have no idea what. Are you having the problem with just one chart or several?

jeemo · Post by **jeemo** » 04 Apr 2012 22:22

Lorna
Thanks for your efforts. I'm contacting Calico today about the issue. Whatever the problem is it's not occurring on every chart.

Post by **LornaCraig** » 04 Apr 2012 22:25

OK, if Calico come up with an explanation I'd be interested to know what it is!

Post by **tatewise** » 04 Apr 2012 23:29

John, presumably you have customised the Standard Diagram Options in some way?
Take a careful note of them and try the following...

Does the problem go away if you set your Diagram Options to Installation Settings?
If so, then the task is to find which customisation is causing the problem.

I assume you are using a custom Text Scheme.
If you then just apply your Text Scheme does the problem stay fixed?

If so, then work through your customisations until the problem reappears.

Family Historian User Group