* Show Named List membership in Property Box?

[arthurk]

I'm wondering if there's some way of showing in the Property Box whether a person is a member of a particular Named List.

I know it's possible to show Flags in the property box, with tick boxes to add or remove them, but can the same thing be done with list membership? I'm toying with the idea of setting up a new tab in the property box specifically for this kind of thing, and would like to know the best way to do it.

Connected with this, when customising the Property Box, is it possible to show more than two items on one line? Some of these lists (or flags) would have a single word next to the tick box, and I think there would easily be room for more than two.

As background, this has grown out of a bit of further reflection on the Property Box caption (some of my earlier thoughts are in Relationships (22113)) - I found a way to display list memberships in the caption, but when adding a new individual record, in order to add them to a list I'd either have to run the All Relatives query again, or go to the Records window, which I've customised to show the lists and tick boxes (see the 3rd post in Colour Coding in Record Box (22339) for details). But if it could all be done in the property box while adding a person, I'd find it a bit more intuitive.

[sbell95]

Others will be able to answer with regards to named lists and the property box. But I suspect that since functions are not supported in the property box (data references only), the answer will be no, since you would have to use something like the IsInList function.

See: viewtopic.php?t=22284

As for:

Connected with this, when customising the Property Box, is it possible to show more than two items on one line? Some of these lists (or flags) would have a single word next to the tick box, and I think there would easily be room for more than two.

No, the maximum number of items per 'custom item' is two, ie, part 1 and part 2. I agree that it is annoying because, as you say, a lot of the time there is definitely room for more than two items per line!

See: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=17987&p=103746#p103746

[arthurk]

Thank you, Sarah - that explains it perfectly.

I probably will now add in this extra step of setting flags for some of my named lists, so that I can display them somewhere in the property box and easily add/remove them when necessary. (Not the Main tab, though - one of the things that started this line of thought was deciding to show family lines in the caption so that I didn't need to take up valuable space lower down with two or more lines of flags.)

[Gowermick]

Arthur,
A simple way to achive what you want, is to give everyone a custom ID, to indicate which branch they belong to. I do a similar thing using a custom ID to indicate who each person descends from.
Fig 1

Modified proprty Box.jpg (38.5 KiB) Viewed 442 times

This show how my custom ID for Blanche appear in the header of the property box. I also modified the main Tab to include a Custom ID field, so it can be entered easily from the property box.
The header content is controlled from the property box preference under 'Caption'
Fig 2

Modified proprty Box Caption.jpg (47.67 KiB) Viewed 442 times

This shows what data reference I have entered in order to display the required header.

You can make up any scheme for your custom ID, it is just a text field

[arthurk]

Arthur,
A simple way to achive what you want, is to give everyone a custom ID, to indicate which branch they belong to....

Thanks - I already use Custom IDs and include them in the main tab caption, but my way of doing this doesn't cover everyone. My Custom IDs are essentially Ahnentafel numbers starting with my grandparents, so it's the first letter of the surname with the number, and obviously applies just to direct ancestors.

Rather than devising a whole new way of numbering and applying it to 3500+ individuals (which I wouldn't call 'simple') I decided to put a symbol/icon (actually a circled capital letter) in the caption box as well just to show which of the four grandparents' family lines someone belongs to. This is applied to everyone in a named list based on an All relatives query for each of the four grandparents, but I've found drawbacks with that too: when a new individual is added, the only ways I've found to get the appropriate symbol are to run the query again and repopulate the named list; or add them to the list manually via the Edit menu or the tick boxes I've put in the Records window.

With a Flags tab it could be done with 2-3 clicks in the Property Box. There's also the potential for much greater visibility: looking at the bigger picture, I can't think of a quick and easy way to see which named lists an individual might belong to, but in such a tab I could show lots of flags and see at a glance which ones apply.

[Gowermick]

Arthur,
Just extend your Custom ID scheme by appending a letter(s) indicator to indicate the relevant branch.
Your existing custom ID will have the addition, but your no-direct ancestors can just have the addition.

e.g If you decide you want to indicate your SMITH branch do the following
1. Those with the custom ID wxyz, just add SMITH so they cecome wxyz-SMITH
2. Those without a custom ID, just become SMITH,

Doing a search, you can restrict result by includeing a term that states 'Custom ID contains SMITH' or something similar. The joy of this is that you can quickly add anyone to the SMITH branch, by adding SMITH to their Custom ID., without the need to keep running a query to update the lists.

Should two branches inter marry, there is nothing to stop you adding another branch name to the ID
so wxyz could become wxyz SMITH or even wxyz SMITH+JONES

There are endless possibilities for you to explore. I'm sure you could come up with a suitable schem to suit your perpose

[arthurk]

Mike - I think you've misunderstood my Custom ID scheme, or else I didn't explain it very well. And in fact I'm perfectly happy with the scheme as it is - the question is about how to display it.

Currently the only individuals with Custom IDs are my direct ancestors - about 230 in total. My grandparents' IDs are in the format A1, B1, C1 and D1; their parents A2, A3, B2, B3, C2, C3, D3 and D4 and so on up the generations.

Running an All Relatives query for each grandparent in turn gives an overall total of about 2000 names, which will include siblings, cousins etc. I can't think of a straightforward and logical way to number each of those more distant relatives which would not potentially be disrupted by the discovery of a new child in a family who isn't the youngest, which is why I have opted to display just which of the four family lines they belong to.

Maybe if I was starting from scratch I'd think a bit harder, but my current MO has served me for 30 years and I don't feel any need to change - all the more so since adding a unique reference to each of 1750+ individuals doesn't strike me as either trivial or fun.

[Gowermick]

Arthur, I did understand your scheme, i.e only direct Ancestors have your special ID, and what I suggest doesn’t interfere with that.
What I was suggesting was to Append the family ID of everyone in that branch, irrespective of them having a current ID or not
If the family Name is Smith, append Smith to the current ID of all those in the Smith Branch. If their current ID is blank, because they are not one of you direct ancestors, the ID will simply be [blank]SMITH, but if their current ID is C128, then it will change to C128SMITH ( i.e find and replace REFN with REFN + “SMITH” for everyone in the Smith family)
Hope that makes sense.

Because REFN is a simple text field, there are no limitations/restrictions on what you put in it, leaving you free to come up with a scheme that satisfies both your criteria (Identify you direct ancestral lines A1, B1, C1 etc) and (identify your family groups).

[ColeValleyGirl]

Mike, that would still be a lot of work.

[Gowermick]

Helen, ever heard of automation
When i began creating my custom IDs, I simply did a find and replace.
I can’t remember exact details but basically For everone in direct ancestor list, replace REFN with J+Ahnentafel - simples.
Plus I think I have more direct ancestors than Arthur. It took me no more than an hour ( working out the syntax)

[arthurk]

What I was suggesting was to Append the family ID of everyone in that branch, irrespective of them having a current ID or not
If the family Name is Smith, append Smith to the current ID of all those in the Smith Branch. If their current ID is blank, because they are not one of you direct ancestors, the ID will simply be [blank]SMITH, but if their current ID is C128, then it will change to C128SMITH ( i.e find and replace REFN with REFN + “SMITH” for everyone in the Smith family)

First, my existing Custom ID (B39, D4 etc etc) already tells me which grandparent's family someone belongs to, so I don't need to add anything to it.

And for the ones that don't have a Custom ID, what advantages would there be in having the name/family line in a REFN rather than a flag? Also, how would I create all these hundreds of REFNs? You mention automation, but you can't find and replace on something that isn't already there (can you???).

As Helen says - it all looks like a lot of work, when my suggestion of going via named lists to flags will take seconds.