I am coming to this discussion late, but since I don't see answers to James' specific questions, let me try to address some of them.
I think the Legacy To Do feature is one of the most powerful, and probably underutilized, features of Legacy. While I'm still experimenting to determine exactly when and how I will use it, I have 3 examples of printouts directly from Legacy I'm happy to share. If interested please contact me off-list. (These example reports were printed to PDF before the bug that didn't print sources at the end of the report was fixed). (1) Research Plan (one can change the report heading to this or any other title): For FHL work (or any other repository where there is an online catalog), I copy and paste the catalog entry into the To Do Description field as part of my planning at home before I go to the repository. I like to format the report with lined Notes in case I want to print a hard copy and take notes by hand, but there are multiple ways to set up the report. (2) A few pages from a Research Log with Notes for multiple people in one locality: On this trip, I experimented with abstracting/transcribing "positive" results directly into Events for the relevant individual, and just made a brief note of what I found (or didn't find) in the Results field on the To Do item. I also experimented with extracting info regarding people of the same surname (or related surnames) about whom I know nothing (or who weren't the target of this particular search) directly into the Results field of the To Do item. I like the ability to use either the Results or the Description fields to make notes about the nature of the source, whether I carefully studied the source or due to time constraints just did a cursory check of an index, etc. I think both the Description and Results fields allow for lots of information; I've never reached the character limit and I've entered lots of info. The major problem is that they've not added the Bold, Italics, etc. buttons to these fields; if you want to italicize or bold something, you have to use embedded codes. Note: Although I didn't do so in this example, I could just as easily have fully transcribed the "positive" findings into the To Do Results field, then copied and pasted into Events for the relevant individual(s) when I got home. Or, I could attach (3) Research Log with Notes: This example illustrates a continuously printed log (rather than one item per page) for one category of record (Preliminary Histories) for a surname (not attached to a specific individual). When I find a "positive" result, I create the source citation, then copy and paste it from the citation preview screen to the Description field. I got in the habit of doing this before the source citation bug was fixed, and will keep doing it because I want to see the source on the same page as my notes as to what I found. To me, the best part of the To Do feature is the flexibility for how I pull out the data. With all the tagging and filter choices that are available, I could pull out a report for all Marriage Records for all Hancocks in all localities, or just Court Records for one person in all localities, or everything I've ever done in Centre Co. PA for everyone, etc. (BTW, if you don't like the default category labels, you can add your own). None of this will likely make much sense without seeing the examples, but yes, James, there is a way (actually multiple ways) in Legacy to do what it is I think you are asking. I find, however, that I usually have to make a physical print-out of the To Do items (both before and after I go to the repository) to clearly visualize/understand what I found (or didn't find), as opposed to just seeing them onscreen. Connie Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
