The basic issue there, unless I misunderstand, is that Source Templates do not map into the GEDCOM structure. An ESM template could be multi-layer (e.g. Source1 citing Source2 citing Source3 - not sure if there are any 3 layer citations but I can't see why not.) However, data from such a structure cannot be written into a GEDCOM structure and then retrieved back into its component parts as, in simplistic terms, the GEDCOM Source-Record is a single layer.DarrylGale wrote:... "one of the issues is that if you use the excellent FTM Shown Mills Source Templates, these do not appear to be addressed by any GEDCOM transfer as yet....." so this could be another source/citation issue for Calico Pie to consider to win over FTM users...
Overcoming this limitation is a pig. Even FTM didn't do it, as experiments in the BetterGEDCOM effort showed conclusively that even FTM couldn't round-trip its templates into its own GEDCOM file and then read it back out into templated values.
The obvious solution is - "extend GEDCOM to include the ESM template items". Any idea how many of those there are? I have - someone turned the ESM templates into an Excel spreadsheet and I did some work on counting how many unique items there were. I came to 666. (OK, I admit I fiddled it - merged obvious matches until I got that number and then stopped - but the point is that it was in the hundreds. And a new item or two possibly for every new template).
And even if Calico Pie could square the circle and work out how to store templated citations inside GEDCOM - we're stuck that FTM doesn't export them sensibly onto its own GEDCOM export.
Please don't misunderstand me - this is not dismissing the desire for templated citations. (And it's always possible you mean a different thing by them) but it really is a pain in the proverbial trying to work out how it could be done in a universally agreed manner.
