* Amendment to Marriage Fact

[Ossie57]

Hello, I am trying to see whether it is possible to make an amendment to the auto-generated Descendants report.
The order of the report when a couple is married reads something like this:

John Smith was born on 12 February 1875 at Somewhere, England

He married Eliza Jones on 15 June 1896...

It then goes on to describe their appearances in various documents (census returns etc.)..

Following on it then states that Eliza Jones was born on 15 April 1876....

Is there a way to change the order of this report to show something like:
'John Smith was born on 12 February 1875 at Somewhere, England

He married Eliza Jones (born 15 June 1896) on 15 June 1896...?

In other words, to include the bride's date of birth within the sentence of their marriage date?

Hope this makes sense and someone is able to help.

thanks

[NickWalker]

Edit the sentence template for Marriages by going to Tools->Fact Types->Marriage and then click the Edit button.

You need to put this into the sentence in the correct place:

<(born {%CUR_PRIN2.BIRT.DATE%})>

This will display in brackets the word 'born' followed by date of birth of the spouse in () round brackets. The <> angle brackets around the whole thing means the text within the angle brackets won't be displayed if the spouse doesn't have a date of birth recorded.

So in the sentence you would want to put it here:

{individual} married {spouse/her/him} <(born {%CUR_PRIN2.BIRT.DATE%})> {date} {place} {their ages}. <The best man was {role(single)=Best man}. ><{role(single)=bridesmaid} was a bridesmaid. ><{role(plural)=bridesmaid} were bridesmaids. ><The marriage was witnessed by {role=witness}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=minister}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=priest}. ><The ceremony was conducted by {role=rabbi}. >

[davidf]

{individual} married {spouse/her/him} <(born {%CUR_PRIN2.BIRT.DATE%})> {date} {place}

Being picky shouldn't the space before {date} be within the angle brackets to avoid a double space if there is no birth date?

So it would read:
{individual} married {spouse/her/him}_<(born {%CUR_PRIN2.BIRT.DATE%})_>{date}
to give either:
He married Eliza Jones_(born 15 June 1896)_on 15 June 1896
or
He married Eliza Jones_on 15 June 1896
Where the blue underline is the "optional space" and the red underline the non-optional space?

Or do I need to swot up on sentences?

[NickWalker]

Being picky shouldn't the space before {date} be within the angle brackets to avoid a double space if there is no birth date?
...
Or do I need to swot up on sentences?

No there aren't any double spaces. As the FH 7 Help says:

Smart Spacing
In the example above, it might seem that you would get two spaces after the word 'born', if there were no address. In fact, you only get one. This is because Family Historian intelligently handles spacing for you. If it didn't do so, you couldn't use expressions like "{date} {place} {age}". Instead you would need to use (don't do this!) "< {date}>< {place}>< {age}>". By managing spacing intelligently, Family Historian makes it possible for expressions to be simpler and more readable; and there are other advantages. A common mistake is to try to manage spacing yourself when using angle bracket expressions, by leaving a space after the first angle bracket, and no space before it. Doing so, will disrupt Family Historian's ability to manage spacing for you. Instead, to ensure normal spacing with an angle bracket expression, you should leave a single space before the first angle bracket, and no space after it

I guess strictly reading this there shouldn't be a space after the angle bracket, but it seems to work OK.

[davidf]

Thanks I do (or will) need to swot up. Comparing the online V7 help to the online V6 help this looks like one of the unannounced(?) quiet improvements to V7.

In V7 Help searching for "Smart Spacing" brings up the page with your quote. V6 Help is silent.

So in V6

you would need to use (don't do this!) "< {date}>< {place}>< {age}>"

?

I guess strictly reading this there shouldn't be a space after the angle bracket, but it seems to work OK.

Not having V7 I am not so sure. Won't you get:
He married Eliza Jones (born 15 June 1896)on 15 June 1896
without a space either inside or outside the closing angle bracket?

[NickWalker]

To be honest I've never really edited the sentence templates before (I don't really use FH very much except for recording data - I rarely need to use reports) but I noticed this question had gone unanswered and thought I'd have a quick look at it rather than being lazy and waiting for Mike (or someone else) to answer it. I noticed the reference to smart spaces (but didn't really read it) and I made an assumption that spaces would be handled correctly and did a few tests which seemed to show it produced the expected result.

Yes it does indeed mess up if the space is removed after the bracket so it looks like the answer I've given is correct, I misread what the last sentence in the help was saying.

[Ossie57]

Thank you for the very quick and useful reply. It is very much appreciated and works fine for me. Thank you!

[davidf]

...
Yes it does indeed mess up if the space is removed after the bracket so it looks like the answer I've given is correct, I misread what the last sentence in the help was saying.

Yup, your original answer is V7 correct and compliant. My response prompted your musing about just how Smart "Smart spaces" are - and we have discovered not quite that smart!

(Presumably to allow for the case where tight concatenation between conditional text and the following text is required. Trying to think of where that might be required - where we might want to tightly prefix a relationship with "step-"?)

[NickWalker]

I've not really thought about it, I'm sure CP know what they're doing though. It may just be as simple as an automatic behind the scenes search that replaces multiple spaces with 1.

[AdrianBruce]

Re the "smart spacing" - virtually all my narrative sentences are a hangover from v6, where (as far as I know) I had to control all the spacing myself. Under v7, I had an instance where I had a double space appearing despite my careful (as I thought) control of the spacing. When I raised a call with CP they explained the "smart spacing" angle, and lo, this particular situation resolved itself when I stopped trying to explicitly control the spacing. I have not gone through my sentences trying to remove my explicit spacing - I've only done it if I've found extra spacing or (sometimes) if I've added extra items - otherwise, it's too much like hard work. I may have double spaces in various reports and not seen them, of course.

So "smart spacing" does work where I've tried it (except maybe not in every case, it seems). Explicit spacing still seems to work under v7 (except when it doesn't...)