* RM7 -> FH7, lost some citation formatting, other citation questions

[thestarsatnight]

Hi! First post here and am evaluating FH7. I directly imported a copy of my RM7 file and for the most part, it all looks good and seems intact. When taking a closer look at some citations, I have noticed that either formatting has been lost...ie., a book title that was italicized in RM7 has lost the italics in FH7...or, in fields where I used <i> and </i> in RM7 to force italics, FH7 ignores and they are plain text.

In terms of the first issue, where a book title lost the italics, I had used RM7's "Free-form" template. So the italicized title is in a "master" field that contains the entire "master" part of the source, ie. author, title (place: publisher, date). So there was not a "title" field; all the data except the page number was in the "master" footnote field.

In the second issue, the use of <i> and </i> are usually surrounding a website title, ie. Archion or FamilySearch, in a citation detail field. It is mixed in with other citation details that are not italicized. Example, the field might contain: digital image, <i>Archion</i> (url : access date), path if necessary, etc.

I did generate a narrative report on one individual to check and see how these citations displayed in the report as opposed to just in the focus window and italics were still missing.

How easy or difficult will it be to "fix" either of these issues? In the case of the <i>, is there a way to search and replace to remove the <i> </i> but also italicize what is between them? Or are there other codes I should use?


I've tried to do a little bit of reading and I understand that in general, FH7 tends to favor "splitters." I seem to fall a little bit in the middle of things. I am a lumper when it comes to some things and a moderate with others. Example...for census records, I do not group things all as "1880 Census"...I split it at the county level. So I have 1880-Indiana-Knox County and 1880-Indiana-Greene County. But in another example, if I am going to have many entries from a single database, I have been known to "lump" at the database level. Example: I have a lot of Ohio ancestors and so have multiple death certificates in the "Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953" database at familysearch, so the database is my "master" and all other data such as name, date, certificate number, fall in to the citation-specific details.

Those of you who have been in a similar situation, how have things gone for you and what are the biggest changes you have made?

[thestarsatnight]

I have been trying to do some more reading. Regarding the use of italics...it looks like in a template you can have a particular field set to display in italics, but it is the entire field. In other words, you can not have just a certain word be italicized in the field it would be the whole field? Am I understanding that right?

[tatewise]

Welcome to the FHUG.
I am surprised that the many migrants from RM have not responded to your enquiries.

Regarding Source Template Definition Format rules, you are correct that italic <i> </i> codes must surround a whole item.
Those codes cannot be inserted into the content of a Field value. (Well, they can but are taken as literal text.)
However, if the Field values have well-defined components then it may be possible to isolate each one as a template item and surround such component items with italic codes.

For example, imagine you have a Field for the Name of the Principal person involved in a Source Citation.
The definition <i>{Principal}</i> would italicise their whole name.
The definition {Principal:GIVEN} <i>{Principal:SURNAME}</i> would italicise just their surname.

There are functions that could isolate and display each word in a Field separately and just apply codes to a chosen word.
We could investigate this approach further with examples of your Field values that may need this approach.

[fhtess65]

Welcome to the FHUG.
I am surprised that the many migrants from RM have not responded to your enquiries.

I just had a quick look and it appears for me, the formatting was saved - only thing is, I imported an RM8 file, not and RM7 one. Not sure if the FH importer differentiates between the two.

It's been over a year now since I moved from RM to FH, so any issues might now have been overwritten anyway as I've done a lot of work in FH to clean things up. As much as I appreciated being able to download my Ancestry tree with all its document images at one fell swoop, there were other consequences that did rather make a mess. FH has made me a lot more disciplined about how I work.

[thestarsatnight]

For example, imagine you have a Field for the Name of the Principal person involved in a Source Citation.
The definition <i>{Principal}</i> would italicise their whole name.
The definition {Principal:GIVEN} <i>{Principal:SURNAME}</i> would italicise just their surname.

There are functions that could isolate and display each word in a Field separately and just apply codes to a chosen word.
We could investigate this approach further with examples of your Field values that may need this approach.

Thanks. Sadly, most of mine are nothing so defined. In RootsMagic I created my own templates because early on, when I tested, I found that using RM's built in templates led to a jumbled, mangled mess when exporting via gedcom. So my templates had just one "master" field for the footnote and then anywhere from 1 to 3 "detail" or citation specific fields. But in those fields, they contain multiple pieces of information and so I definitely don't have specifically defined fields.

So, the field where the website name resides, which is what should be italicized, is part of a long string which may be the entire second layer of my citation.

I should probably try to do this with images, but for example, for an 1880 Census, which is "lumped" at the county level, the "Master" part of the source or "Source Record" contains: 1880 U.S. census, Franklin County, Ohio, population schedule

Then I have 3 "detail" fields or "Citation-specific Details".

The first field contains the specifics of the household: Hamilton Township, ED 9, p. 184-B (stamped), dwelling 81, family 84, William McClish household

The second field contains the online layer: image, <i>FamilySearch</i> (http://familysearch.org : accessed 07 May 2016)

The third field contains the source info: citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 1015.

So basically, the <i>FamilySearch</i> is inside a field of text.


As for the other instance, where a book title is no longer italicized, I'm assuming it is because it came from a "free-form" template instead of a "book" template so even though RM contained the codes in the text field to italicize the title, I don't think they transferred.

Now, overall, at least all my citations imported and they aren't a completely jumbled mess with items out of order or empty fields with extra punctuation. So that is good. But I would definitely be spending some time to fix or change most, if not all, of my citations as I go along in FH.

[thestarsatnight]

I've also been having a look at whether it is possible to use templates in FH7 and still get a decent gedcom export of my sources. I knew the templates themselves would not transfer, but I wanted at least the resulting footnote from the template to transfer. I was failing miserably since it was the Record Title that would export to the field that would get recognized as the footnote on import to another program; though will all the source template data in the notes.

But I did discover the plugin Export Gedcom File and initially I didn't see any change but I poked around long enough and found the Reformat metafields setting which worked! (albeit, with loss of italics in the website title field.) At least, it worked on the single test I ran. But it is a start. I don't export to gedcom a lot, but you never know if you will need to switch programs again (I've had a 10 year run on RM5/6/7); or export to gedsite or TNG for website upload.

Anyway, I'm still poking around. My choices are down to 3: keep using RM7 (for now), switch to FH7, or give RM9 a decent try (though I was not a fan of RM8 and RM9 is essentially the same). (I've tried Legacy 9 in the past but it never clicked with me; I last tried FTM in 2012, so I have no idea what kind of shape it is in these days.) Along with my personal family tree, I'm considering a One Name Study.

[tatewise]

Did you notice that the Export Gedcom File plugin caters for GedSite and allows the narrative Sentence Templates to migrate from FH to GedSite. The plugin also caters for TNG.

Regarding the Reformat Metafields setting, and exporting the Title, etc, very few, if any, products would allow italic formatting in those fields. Only a few products allow formatting italics, bold, etc, in Note and Text From Source fields, and the Export Gedcom File plugin caters for those and converts the formatting as appropriate.

[thestarsatnight]

I noticed that it had options for both of those. I haven't played with those yet though. My first goal was to see about how the footnote exported!

re: the reformat metafields...The program I am testing the import with is RootsMagic 9 which does allow the use of <i>italics</i> in the source fields. But the <></> have to get added to the export. Now, the template I was using used the style code :TITLE instead of using style code brackets. So that will be my next test of sorts.

Basically, I need this:

1 TITL 1880 U.S. Census, Knox County, Indiana, population schedule, ED 238, p. 53-A, family 23, Simon Kixmiller household; digital image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 January 2023); citing T9, roll 1015.

to look like this:

1 TITL 1880 U.S. Census, Knox County, Indiana, population schedule, ED 238, p. 53-A, family 23, Simon Kixmiller household; digital image, <i>Ancestry</i> (www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 January 2023); citing T9, roll 1015.

edit: and to be honest, there may already be a setting there for it that I missed. or it may be related to the style code thing.

edit: in the template defination, I am changing the footnote format from:

{Census_ID}, {Jurisdiction}, {Schedule}, {Civil_Division}, <p. {Page_ID}>, {Household_ID}, {Person_s_of_Interest}; {Item_Type_Format}, {Website_Title:TITLE} <({URL} : accessed {Date})>; citing {Credit_Line}.

to:

{Census_ID}, {Jurisdiction}, {Schedule}, {Civil_Division}, <p. {Page_ID}>, {Household_ID}, {Person_s_of_Interest}; {Item_Type_Format}, <i>{Website_Title}</i> <({URL} : accessed {Date})>; citing {Credit_Line}.

Then I will rerun my export and import to RM9 and see if there is any change.

[thestarsatnight]

I must still be doing something wrong. I edited the definition like I mentioned above but still did not get the <i> and </i> in the ged file.

So after export, I manually edited the ged file and added the <i> around the website title and then did my import into RM9 and that DID work. That is, in the footnote field, in RM9, Ancestry was italicized.

Am I putting the style codes in incorrectly in the template definition? Or do I have a setting wrong in the Export plugin?

Image 1: Definition

Definition

fh_mXspCRGOB6.jpg (43.05 KiB) Viewed 2023 times

Image 2: Display in FH7

Display in FH7

fh_uYFUKw6lYY.jpg (25.23 KiB) Viewed 2023 times

Image 3: Gedcom Export settings

Gedcom Export settings

fh_7sTveG4BLd.jpg (73.11 KiB) Viewed 2023 times

Image 4 in next post...

[thestarsatnight]

Image 4: the resulting ged file in notepad. notice, no <i> </i> around Ancestry. If I can get those angle brackets in place on an export, then if/when I go back and forth between FH7 and RM, the footnote at least will be properly formatted.

notepad_k0BvR95MwU.jpg (39.46 KiB) Viewed 2022 times

[tatewise]

I am the Export Gedcom File plugin author.
I was unaware of the ability to have italic codes in Source Titles in RootsMagic. Is that new in RM9 or was it in RM7 & RM8?

Whether it is possible to create the GEDCOM with those italic codes automatically and conditionally on the Source Template formatting will need a little investigation on my part.
However, do bear in mind that the objective of the plugin is to provide a way of migrating the key data from FH to other products, and not necessarily to exploit all the features of those other products, although I do try and respond to user requests for additional features.

[thestarsatnight]

ah! I hadn't made the connection yet...or hadn't paid enough attention to notice that you were the author of that plugin! awesome!

The use of italic codes has been around in RM for a long time. Definitely RM7 which I am still using as my primary software for now, but also I'm pretty sure they were present in RM5 and RM6. I switched to RM5 back in 2012 I think.

I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing a setting that would include the style codes somehow?

If it comes down to it, I could always do a couple of search and replaces on the ged file to replace " Ancestry " with " <i>Ancestry</i> ". Including the spaces should insure that the word ancestry in the URL doesn't get changed. Similar with other sites like FamilySearch and Archion and Newspapers.com, etc. The big ones would be easy to remember. Any smaller, one-off sites might be harder to remember!

I am trying to make sure I understand what I would be facing when I inevitably export to gedcom for whatever reason.

Also trying to make sure I understand what the source behaviors will be so I can decide how to proceed if I do switch to FH7.


Image 1: Manual edit of the ged file to add the <i></i> around the website title name.

image 1, manual edit of ged file

notepad++_RhOn5MratV.jpg (157.88 KiB) Viewed 1992 times

Image 2: Result in RM9

result in RM9...italics worked

RootsMagic_o7aRRZdT33.jpg (55.33 KiB) Viewed 1992 times

[tatewise]

I have investigated and found the cause of the omitted italic/bold/underline codes.
The plugin takes a copy of the Footnote Format (including any codes) and uses it as a Record Title Format, which does not support such codes so they get discarded.

I have modified the way my development plugin works by first disguising the italic/bold/underline codes and then removing the disguise from the resulting Source Title text, which seems to work OK.
That modification cannot be unconditional because not all products support italic/bold/underline codes in the Source Title.
So I still have some more development to do, but the concept potentially offers a solution to your problem.

[thestarsatnight]

Thanks so much for looking in to this and potentially developing a solution!

But also...at least I know I wasn't doing something wrong!

[tatewise]

Try the attached Export Gedcom File plugin Version 5.2.4 Date 09 Mar 2023 Zip file.
It is a ZIP file because the raw Plugin is bigger than the Forum attachments limit.
So you must right-click the downloaded ZIP file and use Extract All...
Then double-click the extracted FH Plugin (Lua) Export Gedcom File.fh_lua file to auto-install it into FH.

You may have to use Reset these (RMT+) options on the Extra Options tab to get the Source Template: Reformat Metafields option set correctly.

I have not found any other products that support style codes in the Source Title so that effect only applies to RootsMagic.

[thestarsatnight]

It will be a few hours before I can get to it, but I will try it tonight! Thanks!

[thestarsatnight]

Try the attached Export Gedcom File plugin Version 5.2.4 Date 09 Mar 2023 Zip file.

I've only run a single test, with just one source. But it did work! To be clear, my steps were:

1. Create a copy of the definition Advanced template for Census, Digitized online.
2. Edit the copy to wrap the website name in italics. ie., the footnote format: {Census_ID}, {Jurisdiction}, {Schedule}, {Civil_Division}, <p. {Page_ID}>, {Household_ID}, {Person_s_of_Interest}; {Item_Type_Format}, <<i>{Website_Title}</i>> <({URL} : accessed {Date})>; citing {Credit_Line}.
3. created the source and citation.
4. Ran the test file you provided, RMT, reformat metafields
5. Imported the ged file into a new RM9 file
6. Viewed the attached source entry

I only noticed one thing...that is that RM does strip the <i> codes on import. It uses them and italicizes the appropriate items, but also strips the codes out. So I don't think there is anything for you to do about it! That is just an RM9 thing I guess since they are present in the gedcom text.

Example, in the gedcom file the source template is copied into the note. The line for the Footnote is:
1 CONT Source Template: 1 FOOT {Census_ID}, {Jurisdiction}, {Schedule}, {Civil_Division}, <p. {Page_ID}>, {Household_ID}, {Person_s_of_Interest}; {Item_Type_Format}, <<i>{Website_Title}</i>> <({URL} : accessed {Date})>; citing {Credit_Line}.

But when you look at the image I attached, the "<<i>{Website_Title}</i>>" has changed to "<{Website_Title}>" but is italicized. So RM is using the codes and then stripping them.

Again, no big deal. The citation is displaying correctly, so all is well! And again, it is an RM import thing. The gedcom looks fine.

Thanks again for looking into this! I'm still playing with fh7 and last night watched the videos on Nick's AS program, so still trying to get a handle on how things interact and trying to ignore what I'm used to doing in RM7 and see what I like or don't like about fh7! It is still confusing and I don't always find options where I think they will be...but I've been using RM for 10 years, so I have to try to forget what I know! And Nick's new sources video definitely makes me want to become more of a splitter!

Again, thanks so much for your info and explanations! And for the code to test!

edited definition in fh7:

edited definition

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fh7 view:

fh7 view

fh_s1WZeWA1Zc.jpg (296.92 KiB) Viewed 1715 times

RM9 view:

rm9

RootsMagic_iMZpTvVtes.jpg (142.04 KiB) Viewed 1715 times

[APerson]

. . .In terms of the first issue, where a book title lost the italics, I had used RM7's "Free-form" template. So the italicized title is in a "master" field that contains the entire "master" part of the source, ie. author, title (place: publisher, date). So there was not a "title" field; all the data except the page number was in the "master" footnote field.

First of all, welcome aboard! I made the switch from RM7 to FH a year ago and have NEVER looked back. I never used RM8 with my real data as, I believe, the direction that took not only greatly impaired the useability of RM7 (and previous versions) but severely slowed down both data input. From what I can tell, RM9 has added a few "features" but most of those are insignificant due to all the issues introduced with RM8.

Anyway, enough of that. When I made the switch to FH, I absolutely needed to import the templates I created in RM. The import went surprisingly well. Please note that I also made use of Mike's "Export GEDCOM" plugin for FH.

Part of your problem is the data you imported was created with RM7's "Free-form" template - something that behaves more like a place for notes, rather than a true template that would (ideally) contain individual fields for specific elements of your data. Because of this issue, Free-form "templates" are okay if you simply lump all of your data - such as everything within your "master source" but that also greatly limits your ability to tweak things, such as an italicized title when exporting/importing.

Regardless, you'll find others on this board with far more programming skills than I have who will help you find possible solutions.

"I've tried to do a little bit of reading and I understand that in general, FH7 tends to favor "splitters." I seem to fall a little bit in the middle of things.

Regarding this, I don't believe that FH7 favors "splitters" over "lumpers." In fact, I think that FH7 is amenable to the extremes of both approaches, as well as everything in between. In fact, my own templates ("Simple Citations" - linked to my signature below) have more "lumper" tendencies with a sprinkling of "splitterness" (no, that's not a real word). When I made the switch from RM7 to FH7, I wanted to take advantage of features available in FH templates but not in RM. Again, my RM templates did transfer over well into FH and I could have left things alone. However, I'm a bit neurotic so I ended up importing my data into "new and improved" template versions in FH. I will say that the process isn't for the faint of heart so for the vast majority of users, I would recommend just leaving the data that were imported alone (as everything imported well) and then using any "new and improved" templates you might create for new data. In my case, there were a few things that I really wanted to take advantage of in FH7; some of these included:

1. FH templates can draw upon the same internal tables for places as other locations within the program, such as those entered under "Fact Types." RM templates don't do that. As a result, much greater consistency can be achieved throughout FH and data entry is MUCH faster. "Cleaning up" old data also becomes much easier in FH.

2. A similar situation also exists with "repository" information; again, this has all of the same benefits in FH as listed above.

Since I made the switch to FH, I have accomplished things in a matter of months that I had already spent years working on. I'm also spending a LOT more time on the "fun stuff" - researching as opposed to entering data.

Good luck!

[tatewise]

Regarding the point about FH favouring "splitters" over "lumpers" it may be worth your while watching the New Video: All about sources in Family Historian (21657).
Almost all the FH supplied Source Template definitions favour "splitters", so "lumpers" must design their own.
FH follows the GEDCOM model, so there is a tendency for "lumpers" to need replicated identical Citations where several facts are derived from one Source document. That duplicated data is not liked by purist database designers, and makes corrections to that data more complicated.

[thestarsatnight]

Try the attached Export Gedcom File plugin Version 5.2.4 Date 09 Mar 2023 Zip file.

Just a quick note/question?

On my first test, I edited the template definition and wrapped the website title in angle brackets and included the <i>. So in the template definition, it looked like this: <<i>{Website_Title}</i>>

I just went in and cloned the definition and created a new one where I used the field code qualifiers option instead. So now it looks like this: {Website_Title:TITLE}

I know it was working because in the source in fh7, the website title, ie. "FamilySearch" was italicized. However, in the gedcom itself, I guess the qualifiers are ignored because there is no insertion of <i></i> around FamilySearch in the line.

Is it possible to support the BOOK and TITLE qualifiers? Both do the same thing...italicize the text in the field. Or is that not possible to place <i> and </i> around the value of the field containing the style code? Although...since users can change what the BOOK and TITLE styles do in Preferences > Sources, I guess setting them to do a specific thing, like the italics, may be the wrong choice if the user had changed the preferences to have BOOK do bold or underline or something instead.

So I suppose I should simply continue editing my definitions by wrapping the fields with <<i> and </i>> instead.

[tatewise]

I had overlooked the effect of BOOK and TITLE qualifiers.
When I get a moment I'll investigate if it is possible to support them with all the possible Preferences settings.
Since they are not supported by the Record Title Format template, I suspect it involves catering for all the Preferences settings including Capitals, Single quotes & Double quotes.

[thestarsatnight]

I had overlooked the effect of BOOK and TITLE qualifiers.
When I get a moment I'll investigate if it is possible to support them with all the possible Preferences settings.
Since they are not supported by the Record Title Format template, I suspect it involves catering for all the Preferences settings including Capitals, Single quotes & Double quotes.

And I totally understand if it is too much hassle!

As long as I know to use the <i> instead of :BOOK or :TITLE, then I'm good. And of course this is apparently only for export for RM if other programs don't support it.

[tatewise]

I've reviewed the BOOK and TITLE qualifiers, and it was not too difficult to cater for them.
The settings for Capitals and Single/Double Quotes apply to all GEDCOM destination products.
The settings for Italics, Bold, and Underline only apply to RootsMagic like the <i>, <b> & <u> codes.

So try the attached Export Gedcom File plugin Version 5.2.5 Date 13 Mar 2023 Zip file.
It is a ZIP file because the raw Plugin is bigger than the Forum attachments limit.
So you must right-click the downloaded ZIP file and use Extract All...
Then double-click the extracted FH Plugin (Lua) Export Gedcom File.fh_lua file to auto-install it into FH.

Using the Source Template: Reformat Metafields option has the side effect of changing the Updated date/time stamp of every Templated Source record. So in the closing popup Memo there now is a NOTE to use Edit > Undo Plugin Updates to restore the original Updated date/time stamps.

[thestarsatnight]

I have not changed the :TITLE setting to try bold or underlined, but it did work in terms of <i></i> being placed around the website title in the ged file.

I did see the message re: Edit > Undo plugin but I wonder if there is any way to make it more prominent?

Thanks for all your help on this. There are a lot of things I am liking about fh7 so far and obviously you and the others who contribute plugins are amazing. Considering I've already been through a switch from FTM to RM and now looking at RM to FH7, I'm at least trying to evaluate how things work in case I need to switch in future.

[harold]

I have not found any other products that support style codes in the Source Title so that effect only applies to RootsMagic.

I just found this thread. As far as I know TNG will accept any HTML style code in the Source Title. It has always been a tiny annoyance to me that the source TITLE (and possibly ABBR) fields could not be formatted in FH and have that formatting carried over to the GEDCOM. Wondering if it would be a big deal to optionally extend this effect to TNG as well.