* Change Anecdotes to Notes?

[woodr2011]

Martin of CP has converted my TMG database to an FH7 project, and it is working beautifully! Just out of curiosity: The import process pulled over the Anecdote tabs that contain biographical data and placed them under the Note tab in FH, which is perfectly fine, but I would like to convert them to plain FH Notes as shown in the second line item in Notes tab in the attached photo. Is there a utility or a script that I can use to accomplish this?

[Jane]

Personally I would leave them as Notes attached to facts as you have more control about where they appear in narrative reports, you can easily customise the sentence for the Anecdote fact to only include the note.

If you still want to move them you would need to write a plugin script to copy them to a note, then to delete the facts. It is not bad to do, but I suggest you become more comfortable with FH before you convert them.

[jbtapscott]

I have used Anecdote facts quite a bit over the years and have the story / comment in the Notes field. Just as Jane suggests, I have the sentence for the fact set to only show this note both within FH and in the application I use for generating my website.

[tatewise]

Is it possible that one person may have more than one Anecdote fact?
If so, all the Anecdote fact Notes must be merged into one record level local Note, which might already have other text too.

A potential benefit of Anecdote facts is they can be given a Date so they appear in the correct chronological order amongst all the other facts.

[woodr2011]

Is it possible that one person may have more than one Anecdote fact?
If so, all the Anecdote fact Notes must be merged into one record level local Note, which might already have other text too.

A potential benefit of Anecdote facts is they can be given a Date so they appear in the correct chronological order amongst all the other facts.

I agree, however, I was using Anecdote tags in TMG to record several paragraphs of narrative biographical information. If you were to add a brief biography about your grandfather (as an example) in FH, would you use a Note?

[tatewise]

No, I would probably use a fact, because that offers more flexibility in how it is incorporated into Reports.
The record level local Note is typically included/excluded by Report > Options settings and its placement in the Report is predetermined with little user control.

I suggest you experiment with customising Reports to see where Anecdote fact Notes and record local Notes will appear.

[woodr2011]

So you would create a custom Fact tag, such as an Anecdote?

[tatewise]

IMO, yes, a custom fact is preferable to the record local Note.

Several users employ the following technique. Instead of using the Sentence Template features to produce Narrative Reports, they put the narrative text in the local Note of each fact. Then the Narrative Report is composed of those narrative Notes in the correct chronological order, perhaps interleaved with some Sentence Template composed sentences, particularly for the Birth Event. As well as standard facts that technique may involve custom facts with biological notes.

I know some users prefer one Military fact with the person's military biography in the local fact Note, instead of a multitude of military facts for every facet of their military career.