(Aside: It was not my intention to trigger a rant about bugs and versions. For the record, I think Legacy is a quality product and that the number of open defects for this type of software is not unreasonable. The product is functional and flexible. It is stable – rarely crashing and with extremely rare reports of possible data corruption. The latest version is the place to be, unless you happen to have a very specific issue with it. Bugs are being fixed. We all have our pet peeves that are not being fixed soon enough.)
John and David, I think it would be reasonable to make minor enhancements to the Legacy GEDCOM export, in order to support BOTH of the following use cases: (1) The traditional use case of sending everything you have to a fellow researcher, who will import it in whole or in part and integrate it into their system (perhaps rechecking all the facts first). By ‘everything’, I do not mean to include sensitive personal information that should always be within privacy brackets. I do mean to include text and comment fields in sources (master or detail), which merely expand on the content of the source. (E.g., the details of a census page – you wouldn’t want that expanded in a footnote citation, but it is helpful to a researcher.) (2) The more recent use case of sending data to an automated system for online presentation (Ancestry, TNG, etc.). In this case, you want the content to be more like what you would see in a Legacy-generated report. You are somewhat at the mercy of the functionality of that target system, though, and therefore you might need to restrict just how much data you put into that GEDCOM. For example, if the target system only reveals source Text/Comment fields when the user drills down on that citation, you might find it acceptable to export these fields. Regarding source Text and Comments fields, (assuming that we choose not to override source options) one might already expect that they not be exported if the box that says to include them in citations was not checked. But they are, currently, so a reasonable enhancement request would be to add another option to the export screen, below where we decline to override source options. The new option would more specifically enable/disable the export of all source Text and Comment fields. >From the Legacy end, the only other export problem is the source detail fields >from SourceWriter sources. To me, this is more of a bug than a design feature. >I have long been campaigning for an improvement in the way that Legacy creates >GEDCOM basic-style sources from SW sources. It doesn’t have to result in >scrambled or missing fields. The export process can pre-format the citation as >if it were on a printed Legacy report before committing it to the GEDCOM. >(True, some master fields would then end up in the detail section of the >GEDCOM and be repeated for each detail citation.) This is a bigger request, >but it is overdue. Ward From: John Lisle Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 1:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Source Comments in GEDCOM [WAS: Details text showing up in Footnote citation] David, Your point is well taken, but... 1/ Gedcom was last updated in the late 1990s. In my opinion, it will never be updated significantly again because (a) too many applications depend on the current implementation and from a development viewpoint are static. For instance, RootsWeb's WorldConnect has not had any development work done in almost 15 years, yet it is used every day and has an enormous inventory of data that no one would like to see disappear. And (b) too many Gedcoms exist in physical inventory. No one would accept making those unusable. 2/ Gedcom has several mechanisms for extending its functionality. Legacy has many more functions than Gedcom designers ever imagined when it was released, yet with one big exception, almost all Legacy functionality can be exported and then re-imported into Legacy. (I think the one big exception is SourceWriter sources. They are re-imported as Basic sources.) The problem between products is that each product has a different data model and often different limits to functionality. For instance, two features mentioned on this list recently between Legacy and TNG. Legacy supports adding media to Source Citations and having Shared Events. TNG does neither. I am sure there are dozens of other items. You cannot blame Gedcom because TNG does not support those features. If you are, like I am, using TNG for Web Publishing, you know that you have 2 choices: accept the limitations and either not use Legacy functionality that TNG does not have or accept that some of your data is not viewable in TNG. --> In place of TNG, I could also have said Family Tree Maker and the same considerations are in place. What is a problem with Legacy is when Legacy does not export any of its data OR it exports the data in a fashion that cannot be accepted by the receiving software. Such is the case we discussed recently with Child Status in Legacy. john. At 12:00 PM 3/31/2015, David Abernathy wrote: One needs to remember that GEDCOM is a very old standard and has not been up dated since the early 1990âs. It was never designed to do a lot of things it is being forced to do today. It was designed to convert ALL of the data in one product so it could be used in an another product. Now we have people complaining that an GEDCOM is showing too much and at the same time others complaining that data is being left out. Why not just use these tools for what they were designed to do. Thanks, David C Abernathy Email disclaimers ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message represents the official view of the voices in my head. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.SchmeckAbernathy.com == All outgoing and incoming mail is scanned by F-Prot Antivirus == From: Ward Walker [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 12:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [LegacyUG] Source Comments in GEDCOM [WAS: Details text showing up in Footnote citation] See below... From: Brian L. Lightfoot Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2015 2:15 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Details text showing up in Footnote citation. ... Now for the really bad news that nobody has yet caught. I seems this info on the Comment tab of a Master Source is always included on a GEDCOM submission which kind of negates my idea of keeping it private. Brian in CA ---------------------- Brian, I agree that there is bad news here, especially when the target system for the GEDCOM is not well-behaved. I ran into this with my TNG experimentation. I have just run some additional tests in order to sort out what is happening. Results are below. In summary, I always uncheck the export box that says âoverride source optionsâ. Otherwise, TNG bloats the source citations with unwanted text/comments from the source Detail, and also displays citations that were unwanted. But this is a compromise, because now Sourcewriter detail fields are missing (at least for the templates that I tested) a Legacy issue. There are other TNG source-handling issues no matter which override option you choose. Ward ******* Legacy Sources On Export to GEDCOM **************** (Export to 'Legacy' GEDCOM was selected for most of these tests.) If choose to override source options: - Sourcewriter Sources: - Master source Text/Comments: Included in GEDCOM - Detail Fields: Included - Detail source Text/Comments: Included - Basic Sources: - Master source Text/Comments: Included - Detail Fields: Included - Detail source Text/Comments: Included - The source is included in the GEDCOM even if the box 'Include this citation on reports' was unchecked on the source detail panel. (There is a _CIT No tag that Legacy probably uses on re-import, but a non-Legacy target system would not.) If choose not to override source options: - The Entire citation is missing if you do not check 'Include this citation on reports' on the edit Detail panel. Otherwise... - Sourcewriter Sources: - Master source Text/Comments: Included - Detail Fields: NOT Included!! - Detail source Text/Comments: Included only if had checked 'Add this text/comments to the Source Citation on Reports. - Basic Sources: - Master source Text/Comments: Included - Detail Fields: Included only if had checked 'Add this Detail to the Source Citation on Reports' - Detail source Text/Comments: Included only if had checked 'Add this text/comments to the Source Citation on Reports. TNG Import: - Displays the source list name first, in the citation (i.e., the name that is supposed to be for internal use, only!!) - Displays no master text/comment text in the citation, or if click on the source number. - But DOES expands all the master source text/comments under the citation in the PDF report!! - Displays master source media, when click to drill down on the source number. - Displays available source detail fields in the citation, although not when drill down on the source number. (Master info only.) - Displays source detail text/comment data, if present, right in the citation!! - Displays no source detail media. (No media link.) - Displays the Description field of the Detail Media file, in the citation!! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://support.legacyfamilytree.com Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
