* Chart Box Sizes

[ADC65]

Can some FH genius please help me with box sizes in charts.

A typical chart of mine looks similar to below. The boxes are all the same width (12cm in this case) and the photos are all the same size (3cm). What I would like to achieve is for the boxes that do not have a photo to have a width of 9cm.

Screenshot 2022-11-10 144130.jpg (73.94 KiB) Viewed 2214 times

I have listed my current option configurations below. I have tried every combination I can think of, but I can't get what would appear to be a simple set-up. I have figured out that the 'Standard' box width makes little if any difference, it appears to be used in scaling jump sizes using the mouse wheel, and maybe other things, but not the actual box sizes.

Screenshot 2022-11-10 144159.jpg (191.55 KiB) Viewed 2214 times

Any help gratefully received.

[tatewise]

You would think that ticking excludes pictures on Maximum box width would achieve what you want.
It sort of tries but does not get it correct.
The Help suggests it should do what you asked for, i.e. set the box width to the dimension for the text and then expand it when there is a picture.

I suggest you ask CP for guidance and an explanation of what the excludes pictures setting is meant to do.

[LornaCraig]

Have you tried reducing the Minimum box width (first option) from 12cm to 9cm?
You may also need to set the Maximum box width to 9cm but with 'excludes pictures' ticked.
You will get a neat appearance, although if some pictures are wider than others there may still be a very slight variation because the larger boxes will be 9 cm plus the variable picture width.

[ADC65]

Have you tried reducing the Minimum box width (first option) from 12cm to 9cm?

Thanks for the help, Lorna. As Mike says, it doesn't quite work, although you would expect it to. What you get is shown below, and setting the Maximum to 9cm and/or ticking the box makes no difference.

SS1.jpg (101.19 KiB) Viewed 2172 times

[ADC65]

You would think that ticking excludes pictures on Maximum box width would achieve what you want.
It sort of tries but does not get it correct.
The Help suggests it should do what you asked for, i.e. set the box width to the dimension for the text and then expand it when there is a picture.

Thanks Mike. Yes, that's exactly what I was trying for - a standard width which expands when there is a picture. I have a vague memory of this working quite a few years ago, but I might be mistaken.

I suggest you ask CP for guidance and an explanation of what the excludes pictures setting is meant to do.

I'll do that and report back.

[ADC65]

I had a prompt reply back from Calico Pie. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the answer:

FH was not really designed to do different sizes dependant on images ... I will pass your request up to my manager to see if there is a way I am not aware of.

This was on Friday afternoon, so I will see if I receive another reply this week. I did reply asking (again) about the use of the 'exclude pictures' tick box as it appears to have no actual function in reality.

[ADC65]

I had a further reply from Calico Pie:

Hi - thank you for raising this issue. We think that what you're trying to do seems like a reasonable thing to want to do; so we will look at that.

The meaning of the "excludes pictures" tick box is explained in the Help: "Specifies whether the maximum width for boxes takes into account pictures at the side of boxes, or not." Suppose you specify 3" as the maximum width for a box. If this option is not ticked, no boxes will be more than 3", whether your are displaying pictures or not. If it is ticked and you are displaying a picture at the side that is 1" wide (say), the maximum width of that box may be up to 4" (i.e. if it reaches the 3" maximum, combined with the 1" for the picture).

I guess it's encouraging that they acknowledge this would be useful and they will look at it. It's maybe not so encouraging that they don't realise the 'excludes pictures' tickbox is supposed to do exactly what they describe, but in reality it does not. However I don't think I have the enthusiasm to start up a debate with them about it. If anything comes about as a result of them looking at the solution I will post back.

[tatewise]

I know it can be frustrating discussing such things with CP.

Without getting a long debate, just confirm that their "excludes pictures" ticked description is exactly what you desire.

However, that is NOT what happens. An example from the Family Historian Sample Project would help convince CP.

[ADC65]

Yes, thanks Mike, I will put an example together tomorrow and follow up with them.

[LornaCraig]

It would also help if CP could clarify what the Standard Box Width is supposed to do. The Help file says:
"This size is used for various purposes and is best kept at a reasonable approximation of a normal box width." That tells us nothinig. What are the "various purposes"?

The problem with setting maximum or minimum box widths is that they are only constraints. The actual box width can be anywhere between the two, and depends on the width of the lines of text and, in the case of boxes with pictures, the width of the picture.

You could suggest they introduce a new "Fixed Box Width" option, with a tick box to include include/exclude pictures. But even if the width excludes pictures the total width with pictures would still be variable because it would depend on the width of the picture. For your requirements what you really need is the ability to set two Fixed box sizes, one for those without pictures and a larger one for those with pictures included in the width.

[tatewise]

I got the impression that Adrian was already achieving most of that.
The Diagram Options > Pictures tab sets a Max Picture Height with options to shrink and enlarge images to that size, so if they all have the same aspect ratio they will all be the same width. In the OP Adrian says "the photos are all the same size (3cm)".
He sets all 3 box widths to 12 cm, which forces all boxes to be the same width, and works if 'excludes picture' is not ticked.
The CP description of the 'excludes picture' ticked mode achieves exactly what Adrian needs, but FH does not do that.

[ADC65]

Thank you Lorna, that's helpful.

I have figured out that one of the uses of the Standard Box width has to do with mouse scrolling for chart scaling. If you set a large Standard size (say 99cm), when scrolling the mouse wheel the chart scale will jump from 100% to 20%. If you use a 'reasonable' size, it will jump from 100% to 70%. There may be other uses, but as you say, since we are not told what they are it is unusual that we are asked to define the size!

[LornaCraig]

The Diagram Options > Pictures tab sets a Max Picture Height with options to shrink and enlarge images to that size, so if they all have the same aspect ratio they will all be the same width. In the OP Adrian says "the photos are all the same size (3cm)".

Adrian is perhaps unusual in having pre-defined all the pictures with the same aspect ratio. Most of the pictures I use in diagrams are 'frame' links and I certainly didn't set the frames with absolutely identical aspect ratios. That would have been quite a fiddle and in some cases would have meant including areas of the picture I don't want, or excluding areas I do want.

Having said that, if the pictures are indeed all exactly 3cm wide in the diagram then as far I can see you can achieve what you want. Setting all 3 box widths to 9cm, with 'excludes pictures' ticked means the boxes without pictures will all be 9cm and those with pictures will be 12cm (9cm + 3cm picture). As far as I can see from my experiments this does work. The irregularity I was seeing previously was because of different picture widths. Is there another problem I have not yet noticed?

[ADC65]

Having said that, if the pictures are indeed all exactly 3cm wide in the diagram then as far I can see you can achieve what you want. Setting all 3 box widths to 9cm, with 'excludes pictures' ticked means the boxes without pictures will all be 9cm and those with pictures will be 12cm (9cm + 3cm picture). As far as I can see from my experiments this does work. The irregularity I was seeing previously was because of different picture widths. Is there another problem I have not yet noticed?

You're right in what you explain here Lorna, but that's not what I was trying to achieve. I would like the boxes to be 9cm, but when there is a photo, the box should be 12cm. (The reason for this is if I make all the boxes 9cm, when there is a photo the text lines often run over onto second lines - which I don't want; and if I make them all 12cm then the boxes that do not have photos are unnecessarily large. So it's not the overall regularity of sizes that I was looking for, it's making boxes without photos one size, and boxes with photos a different, larger, size. It appears from the options available and the Help explanations that this should be achievable via the 'excludes pictures' tickbox, but it is not.)

My photos are all different sizes, but the frame links that I use in charts are all square-format (or as close as they can be by eye) and they are defined to be 3cm square in the Diagram Options > Pictures options.

[ADC65]

Setting all 3 box widths to 9cm, with 'excludes pictures' ticked means the boxes without pictures will all be 9cm and those with pictures will be 12cm (9cm + 3cm picture). As far as I can see from my experiments this does work.

Actually, this doesn't work for me anyway. Please see attached picture, where all three boxes are set to 9cm, and the 'excludes pictures' is ticked. The boxes with no pictures are 9cm; the photos are 3cm. But the text portion of the boxes with pictures are not even the same as each other! One being about 7cm and one being about 7.5cm.

Screenshot 2022-11-18 160245.jpg (42.91 KiB) Viewed 1794 times

[LornaCraig]

I think I'm still missing something here (sorry!). If you set all the boxes to be 9cm and that is sufficient to avoid text wrapping, then setting the 'excluding pictures' option simply means the pictures will be added on to the existing 9cm. Why does that affect the text?

EDIT: I posted this before I saw your latest screenshot. I will do some more experiments....

[tatewise]

I've run some experiments with the Family Historian Sample Project, Ian Stephen MUNRO as Root of an All Relatives Diagram with default settings except for Orientation: Left-right which makes box width comparison far easier.

The Dimensions tab, three box widths were all set to the same values in turn, starting at 2", then 3", 4" and 5".

All boxes without pictures are all the same width as specified.
Most pictures are much the same size so I expected the variability in width of boxes with pictures to be small.

• 2" ~ Boxes with pictures are all over the place just like Adrian's screenshot. I had expected the left edge of the pictures to align with each other and the right edge of boxes without pictures, but that is not the case.
• 3" ~ Boxes with pictures are sometimes no wider than those without.
• 4" & 5" ~ Boxes with pictures are the same width as those without.

[LornaCraig]

Yes, I have just been doing some similar experiments and reached similar conclusions. It must have been a lucky chance that the diagram I first used did appear to be following the rules.
Over to Calico Pie...

[ADC65]

Thank you both for your help. I will compose something to CP over the weekend and let you know how I get on. Sorry if this was a bit painful, but I'm more confident now that it doesn't "do what it says on the tin". I also understand this might be a rather niche request since nobody appears to have brought it up previously.

[ADC65]

I have had a response from Calico Pie:

We have now released a new update of Family Historian which should allow you to do what you wanted:

>> A typical chart of mine looks similar to file SS1. The boxes are all the same width (12cm in this case) and the photos are all the same size (3cm). What I would like to achieve is for the boxes that do not have a photo to have a width of 9cm. <<

To do this in a new diagram, set the minimum, maximum and standard box widths to 9 cms and tick the "excludes pictures" option in the Dimensions tab of Diagram Options.

If you want to do this in a chart that was created before version 7.0.18, you will need to upgrade that chart to use the revised layout strategy that was added in 7.0.18. To do this, click on the 'Advanced' button within the Dimensions tab, and tick "Update layout to latest standard".

I have downloaded v7.0.18 and I'm very pleased to report it appears to work as requested. Some screenshots below to compare to the ones above:

Screenshot 2022-11-24 144949.jpg (164.74 KiB) Viewed 1567 times

Screenshot 2022-11-24 145048.jpg (83.64 KiB) Viewed 1567 times

I would like to thank the staff at CP for looking at this and providing a solution, there cannot be many companies that would respond in such a positive manner, and in a very short timescale too.