* TNG and FH event witnesses standoff

[ADC65]

Here's an example of where something might not be going quite correctly in the plugin.

Vincent Frame JOHNS was a Groomsman at a marriage. He has no other witness events in FH, just this one. His TNG page is showing this with a date in a separate box, with the event below, as expected, but with no place.

Screenshot 2023-12-07 225759.png (15.46 KiB) Viewed 878 times

This ties in with the GEDCOM code that was produced, shown below.

Code: Select all

1 EVEN
2 TYPE Marriage Groomsman
2 DATE 6 OCT 1928
2 NOTE Principal	 <a href="familygroup.php?familyID=F1547&amp;tree=ADC">Family</a> of <a href="getperson.php?personID=I1367&amp;tree=ADC">Haydn JOHNS</a> and <a href="getperson.php?personID=I4679&amp;tree=ADC">Leah JONES</a>

However, the marriage does have a date and a place, which TNG shows correctly on Haydn & Leah's page:

Screenshot 2023-12-07 230134.png (16.93 KiB) Viewed 878 times

And the GEDCOM code for the Family Record confirms this:

Code: Select all

0 @F1547@ FAM
1 MARR
2 DATE 6 OCT 1928
2 PLAC Cwmaman, Glamorgan, Wales
2 ADDR St Joseph's Parish Church
2 SOUR @S56@
3 PAGE Dec 1928 / Merthyr Tydfil / 11a / 1301
2 SOUR @S3126@
2 NOTE Bridesmaid	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I1366&amp;tree=ADC">Lilian May JOHNS</a>
3 CONT Best man	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I1368&amp;tree=ADC">Clifford Oswald JOHNS</a>
3 CONT Groomsman	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I4658&amp;tree=ADC">Vincent Frame JOHNS</a>
1 HUSB @I1367@
1 WIFE @I4679@
1 CHIL @I4680@
1 CHIL @I4681@
1 CHAN
2 DATE 10 OCT 2022
3 TIME 23:18:58

I have not investigated further than this yet, so I don't have an answer why some appear with a hyphen and some in a box, but it appears there might be a bug in the plugin that is not adding the place to the witness event in some cases.

[OlivierM]

I checked with my data, and all the marriage witnesses are missing their "place" .

[tatewise]

Yes, sorry, in adding the Min option alongside the Max option, which involves filtering out some of the Witness Role data it has mistakenly filtered out some of the other data too. I am on the case...

[OlivierM]

Yes, sorry, in adding the Min option alongside the Max option, which involves filtering out some of the Witness Role data it has mistakenly filtered out some of the other data too. I am on the case...

I hope it is not too complicated. If you need a check, let me know.

[tatewise]

After a rethink I realised I'd complicated the logic and came up with a much neater solution for the 'Min' option.

Attached is the Export Gedcom File plugin Version 5.5.4 Date 08 Dec 2023 compressed ZIP file.

I think it implements everything we have discussed.

Role labels now end with a colon, e.g. Witness:

The Principal label can be customised or erased on the Labels Set A tab.

Also a Family label can be customised on the Labels Set A tab. If erased then the Family hyperlink is omitted.

If a person has multiple Roles for one Fact then they are all appended to the Fact Witness fact name, e.g.
Marriage Best Man and Witness and Photographer but the principal fact name is unaffected.

The Fact Witness details for Date, Place, Address, Note, etc, now mimic those of the principal fact except for Age.

[OlivierM]

Thank You Mike !

Your plugin works perfectly.

It is GREAT !

[ADC65]

That's great, thanks Mike, all the previous requests and issues seem to have been addressed.

I'm also pleased to report that I have resolved the issue with some dates/places appearing with a hyphen and some others appearing in separate boxes. This was a problem within TNG and not with the data the plugin was producing (I suspected as much since the gedcom code was the same but the output was different).

For reference, in case anyone else stumbles across this, it was caused by a 'mod' file called 'group_custom_events', which is a relatively popular 'mod' for TNG. (Mods are changes to the core code of TNG loaded via a built-in TNG function.) The author of this particular mod is very reliable so it was unusual to find a small problem with it. Some people load a lot of mods; I tend to avoid them.

A couple of observations, just for reference or discussion:

1. I have noticed one small thing which is not really a fault but makes the witness event look a little odd. It is related to Death Informant. Please see the screenshot below.
   
   

   

   Screenshot 2023-12-08 232741.png (10.4 KiB) Viewed 767 times

   You can probably see that having the Cause of Death of the deceased listed looks a little odd on the witness's page. Also the address (and the place probably) here is the address of the deceased, not of the witness. The witness's place/address has it's own RESI fact. I don't know if there are any other witnessed events that would look slightly odd.
   
   EDIT: After reading your post again, I can see you state "The Fact Witness details for Date, Place, Address, Note, etc, now mimic those of the principal fact except for Age." and I therefore assume that this is what is causing what I have just mentioned and what I describe in my next section. After reading what I have written, do you think this is the right way to go?
2. Where a witnessed event has a note attached, this note will appear in the witness's page even if the note really has nothing directly to do with the witness. See the example Probate entry below. I'm not sure if this is by design, or if the note would be better suppressed in the MIN version at least.
   
   

   

   Screenshot 2023-12-08 234346.png (12.59 KiB) Viewed 767 times

3. Finally, and this is really just a note for anyone organising their FH data, if a person has multiple witness roles in an event, for example a witness and a bridesmaid, you will need to keep that order of witnessing the same across different events. Otherwise what happens is two different events are generated - "Witness and Bridesmaid" and "Bridesmaid and Witness". This is not an issue for the plugin to solve I wouldn't have thought, as the titles can be changed in TNG, and the order can be amended in FH to prevent it in the first place.

Thanks again for your continued support.

[OlivierM]

You can probably see that having the Cause of Death of the deceased listed looks a little odd on the witness's page. Also the address (and the place probably) here is the address of the deceased, not of the witness. The witness's place/address has it's own RESI fact. I don't know if there are any other witnessed events that would look slightly odd.

EDIT: After reading your post again, I can see you state "The Fact Witness details for Date, Place, Address, Note, etc, now mimic those of the principal fact except for Age." and I therefore assume that this is what is causing what I have just mentioned and what I describe in my next section. After reading what I have written, do you think this is the right way to go?



[*]Where a witnessed event has a note attached, this note will appear in the witness's page even if the note really has nothing directly to do with the witness. See the example Probate entry below. I'm not sure if this is by design, or if the note would be better suppressed in the MIN version at least.


Thanks again for your continued support.

Hello Adrian . I am glad you found the cause of this inconsistent display was due to the group_custom_events mod. And I hope it is solved.

Regarding the cause of death displaying in the witness page, I agree this is odd.

My understanding is that the witness fact takes over the attribute of the original fact as attribute. So if the original fact for François says "occupation: general manager of hospital" and the witness says "was the secretary of". the witness fact will display Charles was the secretary of ", "general manager of the hospital", note: "François". It is the same with the "cause of death", that is in fact an attribute.

I thought it could be better to put the original subject (François) as attribute of the witness fact, and drop the original attribute, but Mike explained it is impossible to do so: the original subject must appear in a note field to the witness fact. In the example below, the original attribute will be displayed as attribute of the witness, just like your cause of death will appear. It does not make the whole very readable (see screen copy 1), and in some reports where notes are not shown, it will simply be very hard to understand. (see screen copy 2).

But overall, I am very happy with the plugin and its logic.

I agree with you that in the MIN version, all other notes of the original fact could be dropped. Maybe make it an option ?

image.png (21.23 KiB) Viewed 744 times

image.png (8.64 KiB) Viewed 744 times

[ADC65]

Hi Olivier,

Everyone works differently, but I think in your example I would have been more likely to create an Occupation fact for Charles and cited the witnessed document as a source, rather than working it the way you have. It seems you have had to do a lot of adjusting and custom tags in TNG to get the occupation showing when a direct Occupation fact would have done it directly.

On reflection of what I wrote last night, it probably does make sense to have the date and place of the witnessed event showing. However, I'm not sure about the Note field or the ancillary information (such as Cause). I'll wait to hear from Mike.

[tatewise]

Thank you for the ongoing feedback.
FYI:
There is a distinction between an Attribute fact Value and the Cause field of any Fact.
Only Attribute facts have a Value, whereas Event facts (in FH and strict GEDCOM) cannot have a Value.
Any type of Fact can have a Cause field but it is only popular on Death Events.
So an Attribute such as Title could have a Value of MBE and a Cause of Charitable work and a Fact Witness to that being presented would probably benefit from all the details.

The plugin mimics FH which reproduces the fields discussed in the Fact Witness entries (those with a blue arrow) copied from the principal fact (excluding Age). I'm not keen on adding even more options!

The plugin could be changed to exclude such fields but whether that helps or hinders the display in TNG probably differs from fact to fact. I would prefer to retain them and offer suggestions borrowed from the FH approach.
Have a look at how FH presents a Death Informant fact witness:
John SMITH was informant on the death certificate for ... followed by all the principal fact details.
In TNG the fact name could transform to such as Informant on the death certificate for which would read better.

Regarding the Note text where the Principal is listed, would it be better if the Principal name came before the Note text from the principal fact? If so then set that option in the Labels Set A tab for Witness Role.

[ADC65]

Thanks Mike. Your explanation of the Cause in gedcom makes things clearer.

I agree that it would be too complicated to add more options, and what you have supplied is configurable in TNG and an excellent advance on the present situation. I understand what you say about how FH presents the information, and it 'makes sense' in FH. When shown in TNG though, it can need some interpretation if not presented properly. However, this is fine - TNG and FH are very different products and trying to make them the same would be an exercise in futility. I am VERY happy that I can now have the witness events show up in TNG at all.

I won't have time to try out the options you suggest today, but I will have a go tomorrow. I have also found an option in TNG (actually, the same 'mod' I was talking about previously) which allows the fields to be 'collapsed' and this makes the flow look better as well as avoiding the impression to the untrained eye that someone has died rather than been a death informant! A rough example is shown below, I have yet to fine tune it. Clicking the down arrow will open the witnessed event to show all the detail.

Screenshot 2023-12-09 114837.png (77.69 KiB) Viewed 720 times

[OlivierM]

Thank you for the ongoing feedback.
FYI:
There is a distinction between an Attribute fact Value and the Cause field of any Fact.
Only Attribute facts have a Value, whereas Event facts (in FH and strict GEDCOM) cannot have a Value.
Any type of Fact can have a Cause field but it is only popular on Death Events.
So an Attribute such as Title could have a Value of MBE and a Cause of Charitable work and a Fact Witness to that being presented would probably benefit from all the details.

The plugin mimics FH which reproduces the fields discussed in the Fact Witness entries (those with a blue arrow) copied from the principal fact (excluding Age). I'm not keen on adding even more options!

The plugin could be changed to exclude such fields but whether that helps or hinders the display in TNG probably differs from fact to fact. I would prefer to retain them and offer suggestions borrowed from the FH approach.
Have a look at how FH presents a Death Informant fact witness:
John SMITH was informant on the death certificate for ... followed by all the principal fact details.
In TNG the fact name could transform to such as Informant on the death certificate for which would read better.

Regarding the Note text where the Principal is listed, would it be better if the Principal name came before the Note text from the principal fact? If so then set that option in the Labels Set A tab for Witness Role.

Thank you for the information, Mike. As far as I am concerned, I am perfectly happy with the plugin in its latest version, and I will put the principal name before the note text like you propose.

Again, Thank you very much for all your efforts.

Olivier

[tatewise]

With that compressed format available as presented by Adrian do we now even need the 'Min' option?

[ADC65]

Let me try it with the MAX option and I'll post the results. The format isn't native TNG though, it relies on a mod.

[OlivierM]

With that compressed format available as presented by Adrian do we now even need the 'Min' option?

Yes, at least I do want the Min option. . Because not everybody (me for instance) likes or uses this compressed format add-on
.
and because I do not want to see all the other witnesses displayed in the "uncompressed" format.

[jclifford]

I am sorry to report that I am having a strange problem with Export Plugin version 5.5.4.

I get the same effect using Min or Max.

All the Principal events are OK, as are the Witness events for witnesses with 2 roles in the same event, but there are no witness events for those with a single role.

[tatewise]

John, as usual with problems, please post some examples, as I cannot reproduce my interpretation of your description of the problem.

[ADC65]

With that compressed format available as presented by Adrian do we now even need the 'Min' option?

I have tested the MAX option with the compressed format in TNG. It does work successfully, in the sense that the resultant TNG page actually looks no different from the MIN option, since all the witnessed events are compressed.

On opening the drop-down, it seems to successfully show a MAX version of the data. I say "seems to" because I have not gone through line-by-line to see if there are any problems.

I'm afraid I still do not like the look of the MAX option, even when tucked away and opened on demand. I much prefer the MIN output. So to answer your question, I would agree with Olivier and ask you to leave the MIN option please.

I would turn the question round and say is the MAX option required? I haven't read the entire thread closely enough to know if this was specifically requested.

[ADC65]

Regarding the Note text where the Principal is listed, would it be better if the Principal name came before the Note text from the principal fact? If so then set that option in the Labels Set A tab for Witness Role.

Thank you for suggesting this. It makes the TNG display much clearer.

Another option in your plugin that I had never really thought about!

[tatewise]

FYI: The MAX option was the only 'Move to Fact Note' option previously, so is needed for backward compatibility.
For all other products that don't support _SHAR Fact Witnesses, it is the default setting for the (+) Full Data mode.
In the Fact Witness Fact Note all the Witness Roles are listed, otherwise how would the user find them?
Manually switching to the Principal person/family and finding the principal fact is usually quite awkward.
Remember, TNG is the only product (so far) to offer a hyperlink back to the principal fact where they are all listed.

[ADC65]

Thanks Mike, makes sense!

[OlivierM]

FYI: The MAX option was the only 'Move to Fact Note' option previously, so is needed for backward compatibility.
For all other products that don't support _SHAR Fact Witnesses, it is the default setting for the (+) Full Data mode.
In the Fact Witness Fact Note all the Witness Roles are listed, otherwise how would the user find them?
Manually switching to the Principal person/family and finding the principal fact is usually quite awkward.
Remember, TNG is the only product (so far) to offer a hyperlink back to the principal fact where they are all listed.

Thank you for all your efforts. I think that everything works fine now. Sometimes I forget that you plugin is also used for export to other programs But if possible, I would really like if you could maintain the MIN option.

May I ask you what this setting in Label A Set is meant for ? "Witness role role 2_SHAN Name only to fact note. "

[tatewise]

May I ask you what this setting in Label A Set is meant for? "Witness Role 2_SHAN Name Only to Fact Note."

I think you are actually referring to the Other Options tab not Labels Set A.

That tick option converts Name Only Fact Witnesses (2 _SHAN tag) to Fact local Notes regardless of other settings.
So even if Extra Options for Witness Role 2 _SHA%u says Remove entirely or Keeps Custom Tags, the Name Only Witnesses will be listed in the Fact Notes of the principal fact, and only Individual Witnesses will be removed or retained as 2 _SHAR tags.

[ADC65]

Sorry to drag up another issue, but I thought you might want to be aware of it.

I followed your advice about changing the order of the Witness Role from 'After other notes' to 'Before other notes' to possibly improve the readability of the output, and this worked well where there was one witness to the event.

However, there appears to be a GEDCOM error when there is more than one witness to the event, for example, godparents.

When the Witness Role is 'After other notes', (nearly) all works well (see note at the end of this post). The GEDCOM code produced is as follows:

Code: Select all

1 BAPM
2 DATE 23 AUG 1916
2 PLAC Birmingham, Warwickshire, England
2 ADDR Christ Church, Sparkbrook
2 NOTE Godparents were her grandmother (Elizabeth Harriet JONES nee BRADFORD nee HAWKINS), and her aunt Elizabeth Gipsy HEARN nee BRADFORD (listed as Vera HEARN), and her father James FERRIER.
3 CONT Godparent:	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I3797&amp;tree=primarytree">Elizabeth Harriet HAWKINS</a>
3 CONT Godparent:	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I3802&amp;tree=primarytree">Elizabeth Gipsy BRADFORD</a>
3 CONT Godparent:	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I3855&amp;tree=primarytree">James FERRIER</a>
3 SOUR @S2459@
3 SOUR @S2459@
3 SOUR @S2459@
2 SOUR @S2459@

However when the Witness Role is 'Before other notes', the following is produced:

Code: Select all

1 BAPM
2 DATE 23 AUG 1916
2 PLAC Birmingham, Warwickshire, England
2 ADDR Christ Church, Sparkbrook
2 NOTE Godparent:	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I3855&amp;tree=primarytree">James FERRIER</a>
3 SOUR @S2459@
3 CONT Godparent:	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I3802&amp;tree=primarytree">Elizabeth Gipsy BRADFORD</a>
3 SOUR @S2459@
3 CONT Godparent:	 <a href="getperson.php?personID=I3797&amp;tree=primarytree">Elizabeth Harriet HAWKINS</a>
3 SOUR @S2459@
3 CONT Godparents were her grandmother (Elizabeth Harriet JONES nee BRADFORD nee HAWKINS), and her aunt Elizabeth Gipsy HEARN nee BRADFORD (listed as Vera HEARN), and her father James FERRIER.
2 SOUR @S2459@

I don't think the CONT lines are allowed to follow the SOUR lines, but I'm not an expert. The result in TNG is that only the first NOTE line is shown. I would guess the CONTs should now be NOTEs.

I have decided that I'm fine with the original 'After other notes' anyway as the difference is minor, but I thought I would point this out in case the problem exists with other Label Set options that can also choose Before/After other notes.

I should also point out that the three source lines at the end of the first block only produce one actual source in TNG, which appears after the third person. This is not strictly correct either really but it actually avoids duplication in the display.

If you want any screen shots I'd be happy to provide them.

[tatewise]

Thank you Adrian. Something certainly looks wrong there.
Can you tell me what those four identical Citations are linked to? I guess each Godparent witness and the Note.

Theoretically, tags on the same level such as 3 CONT and 3 SOUR can occur in any order according to GEDCOM.
However, it looks very odd in the middle of a Note.