* Can all place names in narrative reports be shortened

[natashahouseman]

Again, I think this is confirmation of what I already suspect.
I have decided on using four place names in my address field: 1) village or town/city region or Reg Dist or similar, 2) town/city or nearest big place that is normally referenced, 3) county, 4) country. It works super well for me in research terms as I can easily group by that second field and the first allows me to differentiate whether a fact relates to the actual village/town/city or within a parish or registration district of the same name.
However, it's really ugly in individual narrative reports as even ticking the shortened version can leave me with several different place names being fully listed eg Horbury, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England - Horbury Bridge, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England - Wakefield City, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England - Wakefield Registration District, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England.
My ideal would be to use the full location for birth and death only. Note fields in a residence (move) custom fact I have created and in immigration facts would be a sufficent and easy way to indicate signficiant moves in a narrative. But i'd be happy to forgo all full locations in narrative reports if that was an option?

Actually in writing this i've just had a brainwave (perhaps). Is there a code for the shortened verion of place that I can use in fact sentences? I was kind of hoping it might be {place:SHORT}, but that didn't work. That way I could adjust all my intermediary fact types and reduce the duplication in reports.

[tatewise]

Near the start, you refer to the "address field" whereas you actually mean the Place field.
The Address field is something else. That misuse could be confusing.

You are correct that the :SHORT qualifier cannot be applied to the {place} code (whereas qualifiers such as :COMPACT can be applied to the {date} code).

Instead, you can use the TextPart(...) function which extracts comma-separated parts from Place fields.
See the FH Help page TextPart for details.
e.g. {=TextPart( %FACT.PLAC%, 1 )} would extract the first comma-separated (i.e. :SHORT) part.

[LornaCraig]

But i'd be happy to forgo all full locations in narrative reports if that was an option?

Perhaps we need an option for reports similar to the existing the option for diagram text schemes, where the user can select a Place Format of Short, Medium, Tidy or Full. One for the Wish List?

[tatewise]

That is a nice idea Lorna, and satisfies the OP alternative request:
"But i'd be happy to forgo all full locations in narrative reports if that was an option?"
but does not meet the OP ideal requirement that specifies:
"My ideal would be to use the full location for birth and death only."
i.e. The Place formatting is dependent of the Fact.
Key facts like Birth, Death, and others that were mentioned, would use the conventional Report settings.
All the other facts always need SHORT or no Place names.

[natashahouseman]

Thanks both. It's actually also given me some additional ideas about how I use both places and addresses in reports now I know I can pick up certain text parts as I can add in the first part of an address too to certain facts.

Given that the second part of my place name is largely for searching and sorting, and that the third part (the county) can be useful to repeat I am pondering on an extended function <in {=TextPart( %FACT.PLAC%, 1)}><, {=TextPart( %FACT.PLAC%, 3 )}>. It's personal preference of course, but thought i'd share for future reference.

I do think the idea of being able to select a short place name in narrative reports (like with dates) is a useful one though, as basically I am now going through editing lots of fact type sentences. And the lazier me might have lived with all of the places being short!

[Vyger]

My ideal would be to use the full location for birth and death only. Note fields in a residence (move) custom fact I have created and in immigration facts would be a sufficent and easy way to indicate signficiant moves in a narrative. But i'd be happy to forgo all full locations in narrative reports if that was an option?

I am happy with the current default of Use Short Form for Repeated Place Names under options however further Fact/Attribute specific reporting options would be welcome and allow the user to specify the detail they desire.

From a reader perspective they only need to look back to the first instance of a Place notation to see the full context so in my example the first reported instance may be "Derryloran Parish, Loughinsholin, Londonderry, Ireland" and then subsequent mentions of the same Place are "Derryloran Parish". For local readers the inclusion of the Country in the first instance is superfluous so I would welcome more options.

Where I find FH disappointing is the lack of quality Place Indexing, firstly the printing of Place Media inline with the narrative is not ideal in my opinion. I have Place Index selected and that is where I believe Place Media, Geocoding and Place Notes should be included, and in future versions this should be expanded to include the same components for Address information thereby creating a quality and informative Appendix explaining location whereabouts, the question I am alway asked by any report reader.

Currently there are no additional Place Index options so my Place Note explaining "Derryloran was a small but very boggy parish not well suited to farming....." is lost and not beneficial to Narrative reporting.

[tatewise]

I don't understand how most of this is relevant to the foregoing discussion.
Would you like me to move your posting to a new thread on the subject of Place Indexing?

[Vyger]

Would you like me to move your posting to a new thread on the subject of Place Indexing?

You could do that if you feel it would be beneficial, I know you and I differ on fragmentation of "like" discussions.

The essence of the OP was providing better quality narrative reports, I believe I was adding something of value to that discussion, but then I could be wrong in someone elses eyes.

[tatewise]

IMO a Subject title involving shortened place names does not indicate to users that Place Indexing and Media were being discussed. What do you think?

[Vyger]

Mike, I only mentioned it as shortened Place Names are naturally less informative to the reader and that should be picked up elsewhere in a report or book imo.

My personal experience, even with full Place Names in reports, is almost invariably being asked "were was that...?". Less informative (shortened) Place Names only makes that worse. Again, personally, I would see a Narrative report including ALL available Index options needing to supply all necessary information to the reader. I see the report as a whole and not section by section.

You are quite correct that Indexing and Media were not specifically mentioned in the OP but if I remove some material from a technical manual then I need to provide a Reference Manual for when that material IS required.

Perhaps leave things as they are and see if my comment raises any further objections, it matters not to me.

[natashahouseman]

So I had a quick follow up in relation to using text parts. They seem to be doing pretty much what I want in narrative reports. I've used text parts to shorten places in most facts leaving me with just birth and death (if different) in long form. I've also added in an address part to the baptism, marriage and burial sentences so I can pick up the church name (and changed how I format churches as places too, to help with this) and, as I am adding residence facts for my direct ancestors at least to indicate the full period of time where I have them in a particular property, I've added an address to that sentence too.
However, I wanted to check one last thing with text parts. What i'd ideally like to do with places in births and deaths is include parts 1, 3 and 4 ie miss out the 2nd part. The only way i've found to do this at present is to add in the different parts seperately.
<in {=TextPart( %FACT.PLAC%, 1)}><, {=TextPart( %FACT.PLAC%, 3, 4)}>
Just wanting to check I haven't missed anything that could bring these two aspects together?
Thanks

[tatewise]

Yes, that is the way to exclude just the 2nd Place part.

See Working with Places and Addresses which has advice on handling Church names.