Property Box Customisation

annettelindahutton · Post by **annettelindahutton** » 16 Oct 2010 00:39

I have continued to play with Property Box customisation since my first attempt at a Military Tab last year (there is a lengthy discussion earlier in this forum). I find adding these tabs makes life much easier when you are entering the same type of information about a whole batch of ancestors/relatives.

I have uploaded the PB-INDI file for my latest amendments to the downloads page, along with new Fact Sets to make it work (I forgot to do this last year - thanks to the various people who helped out when others got stuck).

This time I have a tab for Military, Census (with added Electoral Roll info to bring the address information further into the 20th Century) and a new tab for Wills, Admons and Probate (useful for the new Probate Calendar Index on Ancestry!).

The Census/Electoral Roll tab:

You will see that I have added a source for each Register of Electors and I have used the 'Where within Source' field on the citation in my tab for clarification and comparison from year to year. You will need to upload the Electoral Roll fact to make this work.

The Wills tab:

This uses a lot of existing facts, but I have added a couple for clarification (so upload my Deaths & Burials Fact set for the additional facts). The field 'status' is actually the note field on the Will fact, I have used this to make the wording in reports and in the sentance box at the bottom of the fact page make sense. If he made a will put 'made a will' here and if you only have an Admon put 'died intestate', leaving the date and place field blank and it should all make sense.

Best of luck
Linda

ID:4829

Post by **hsw** » 16 Oct 2010 20:31

These look useful. Thank you!

MarkW · Post by **MarkW** » 31 Jan 2011 19:41

Hi,

I'm maybe being a little dense here but I cannot get your Property Box customisation to appear at all. I have installed the Fact Sets first as your instructions say and they are there but even after I have replaced the PB File the Property Box customisation's are not. What am I doing wrong?

Mark Whitton. [confused]

MarkW · Post by **MarkW** » 31 Jan 2011 19:41

Hi,

I'm maybe being a little dense here but I cannot get your Property Box customisation to appear at all. I have installed the Fact Sets first as your instructions say and they are there but even after I have replaced the PB File the Property Box customisation's are not. What am I doing wrong?

Mark Whitton. [confused]

MarkW · Post by **MarkW** » 31 Jan 2011 20:07

Went over it again and realised I had replaced the wrong file! Not the most auspicious of starts to my membership......

Mark Whitton.

willowherb · Post by **willowherb** » 12 Feb 2011 13:26

Sorry, but I am being dense too!

I have downloaded the fact sets and changed the PB-INDI file for the new one

So why can't I see the new tabs on the Property Box please?

Fiona

Post by **tatewise** » 12 Feb 2011 14:40

In which folder did you change the PB-INDI.fhdata file?

Windows 2000 & Windows XP
C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataCalico PieFamily HistorianProperty Box

Windows Vista & Windows 7
C:ProgramDataCalico PieFamily HistorianProperty Box

Do NOT use the C:Program FilesFamily HistorianProperty Box

willowherb · Post by **willowherb** » 12 Feb 2011 16:52

C:ProgramDataCalico PieFamily HistorianProperty Box

I am on windows 7

Renaming is working fine as when I renamed the new one and put the old one back (I had already made a mod to it) it picked it up OK.

FH knows about the new FACTS OK.

All I did was put the new one in the file above and restarted FH - no new tabs appeared - I am worried that there was something else I should have done?

Post by **tatewise** » 12 Feb 2011 19:52

Full details of this Property Box customisation download are at:
http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... nsus_wills

Did the Property Box > Main tab only display the Spouse: tab?
If so, maybe you forgot to unpack/extract from the downloaded PB-INDI.zip file to get the PB-INDI.fhdata file?
You cannot simply rename the PB-INDI.zip file

If you open PB-INDI.fhdata in a text editor like Notepad it should look like this:

If you open the PB-INDI.zip file (or a renamed version of it) in Notepad it will look like gibberish.

Also the size of the PB-INDI.fhdata file is 9KB whereas the PB-INDI.zip compressed file is only 2KB.

willowherb · Post by **willowherb** » 13 Feb 2011 20:48

Hi Tatewise

Got it sorted!

a blank character had appeared between the I of INDI and the . and I just couldn't see it.

Works fine now and have customised it to my needs

Many thanks - perhaps I need computer glasses!

Fiona

willowherb · Post by **willowherb** » 14 Feb 2011 16:00

PLease bear with me , but I have another question....

Everything is working fine, but I cannot find the attributes Census1, date, place, address etc from the new census tab on the custom fact list (under working with fact lists) and yet when I click 'customize' on the property box it is listed as census 1 date (custom) etc and can be edited with 'edit custom item'

I have created 2 custom attributes using tools > and added another new tab to the property box, but my attributes CANNOT be edited in this way

what is different here?

Post by **tatewise** » 14 Feb 2011 17:17

The answer to the first question is easy.
The Census Event is a Standard built in FH Event not a Custom Event.

To answer the second question could you please post a copy of the Data Reference of the customisation field.

willowherb · Post by **willowherb** » 14 Feb 2011 18:14

Is this what you need?

%INDI._ATTR-FAMILY% and
%INDI._ATTR-REF%

If census is a STANDARD then why can it be edited under EDIT Customized item? ?

Post by **tatewise** » 14 Feb 2011 21:39

I think I understand your problem.

Let's start with Standard Census Events.
The Census Event properties are accessed using Tools > Work with Fact Sets > Census > Properties.
Despite being a Standard Event it can be changed to alter its appearance in the Individual Property Box on the Facts tab.
Its default properties can be restored using the Installation Settings button.
Several different Census Events can appear on one Facts tab; one for each Census Return INDI.CENS[1], INDI.CENS[2], to INDI.CENS[8].

The Property Box Customization does not define Facts (Events & Attributes).
It defines how Facts and Data are presented on the Property Box tabs.
The Customization of the Census tab defines Items (Rows) of Census Event details for up to eight Census Events.
So Item Census 1 defines where the 1st Census Event INDI.CENS[1] Date INDI.CENS[1].DATE & Place INDI.CENS[1].PLAC appear.
Item Census 1 address defines where the 1st Census Event INDI.CENS[1] Address INDI.CENS[1].ADDR appears.
Items Census 2 and Census 2 address define where the 2nd Census Event INDI.CENS[2] details appear.
And so on for 3rd Census Event INDI.CENS[3] to 8th Census Event INDI.CENS[8].

Now lets look at your Custom Family Attribute INDI._ATTR-FAMILY which you have create using Tools > Work with Fact Sets.
When you Customize your new tab your Family Attribute is not listed under Available Items.
Untick Show most commonly-used items only and your Family Attribute will appear in the list and can be selected.
Use > and it is added to Selected Items in a default presentation that cannot be edited.
Instead, select (for advanced users) at the top of the list and use >.
Now you can specify a Custom Item Name and add Label and Data Reference fields in a similar fashion to the Census tab.
Please click the Help button and read the advice for more details.

willowherb · Post by **willowherb** » 15 Feb 2011 22:17

Thanks again for all your help!

After having 'cruised' with Generations for so many years I didn't realise what a shock to the system using new software would be!

Family Historian User Group