Tabbed views

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:08 am

Originally posted by Douglas

As presently configured, iFamily has a row of 12 tabs located across the bottom of the GUI.

A) of what practical use is the " comments" tab? Doesn't the " notes" tab perform the very same function, i.e., to store random comments?

B) suggestion: because it seems redundant, why not eliminate the comments tab altogether. In its place, insert a cascading index of every individual contained in the file. Place this tab named " index" where it seems most intuitive, which would be located adjacent to the " ancestors" and " descendants" tab.

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:42 am

Originally posted by Chris Knight

Douglas,
You already have a cascading list of every one in the file - just hit the space bar after clicking in the search box at top right. You can order the list by ID or name.

It would however be useful to be bale to choose first or family name as the sort parameter - at present it seems locked to first name.

Chris

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:02 am

Originally posted by Douglas

Actually, the proposed " tab-view" option would be more user friendly, providing a much richer array of data than the pull-down view. Names compiled by the pull-down view presently are confined to a very small viewing area. Moreover, one must manipulate the pull-down each and every time one wishes to view the index of names.

By contrast, an optimally configured tab-view index of all names, located within a static pane located at the base of the GUI, could be designed to portray, in a single glance, the names, the associated user ID, PLUS other vital data, including each individual's date of birth, place of birth, place of death, relationship to the focus person, to name but a few of the possibilities. For a good, general idea of how another company has achieved this rich functionality, take a look at Legacy Family Tree's index view. I'll bet that a Mac application could achieve comparably rich functionality, perhaps much more elegantly that has been achieved in the PC realm.

The existing roster of names and user ID's alone, which is not accompanied by additional biographic data, and which must continually be toggled to drop down the list of names, seems of limited practical value.

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:19 am

Comments

In the iFamily for Tiger database each person has a Comments field as well as a Notes field. The Comments field is intended to be used as a scratch pad to record information that is suspect, unconfirmed or whatever. When you are happy that a piece of data is valid you can then cut and paste it to the Notes field. For instance, if I find some info in the IGI index that looks interesting but which I cannot confirm then I initially drop it in the Comments field.

Rich Text Format Reports
In the textual reports for Ancestors and Descendants you will find that blocks of info are in different colours. This generally indicates that a separate style sheet has been used when writing this data to the RTF file so it also means that you could, for instance, modify the style (Format - Style in your word processor) and change its colour, font, bold it, italicise it, or set the style to be a Hidden style. So, if you have generated Comments into the report and later decide not to print them, you could set the style to Hidden before printing.

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:24 am

Hi Douglas,

Putting a full list of people in one of the tabViews is not really appropriate because all of the other 12 tabviews in the bottom half of the main window are related to the current Selected Person in the context diagram. I will have a look at making it a floating window that is a child of the main window and see if that works.

Keith

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:32 am

Originally posted by Douglas

The Comments field is intended to be used as a scratch pad to record information that is suspect, unconfirmed or whatever

The two pane approach used to distinguish between suspect vs. confirmed data potentially results in confusion. Why not follow the prevailing industry standard, which is to have a pane of information containing individual " notes," and located adjacent to each " note," a numerical value that denotes the confidence level? Example: assign a value of " 3" to an assertion that consists of confirmed information, and a " 1" to information deemed highly suspect/undocumented.

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:37 am

QUOTE The existing roster of names and user ID's alone, which is not accompanied by additional biographic data, and which must continually be toggled to drop down the list of names, seems of limited practical value. UNQUOTE

The Search Field in the Toolbar is intended to be used to select a new Focal Person. It is very conveniently located and works well. It does its search based on " words that start with" so with a few key strokes you can find a person very quickly.

Search Filter Options
If you click on the disclosure button at the LH end of this Search Field you will see that you can filter the search to be Name, Name + Title, Notes, Comments, Birth Year, Birth Place, Death Year, Death Place, Cause of Death, Numeric Id, Reference No or a list of Unconnectred People. So this search field is quite powerful AND it is very convenient.

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Keith Wilson
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Tabbed views

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:55 am

QUOTE The two pane approach used to distinguish between suspect vs. confirmed data potentially results in confusion. UNQUOTE

It may result in confusion for some but clarity for others.

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