* Long Text Field - Text From Source

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KevT
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Family Historian: V7

Long Text Field - Text From Source

Post by KevT »

Hi
Newbie here, just getting to grips with FH sources & data entry, and using the Text from Source field to record notes of information supplied directly by individual relatives. I have set up a new source template for a source entitled "Personal Recollections of ..." and created Autotext to be used in the Text from Source field that consists of tables of 3 columns headed Relationship, Name, and Personal Recollections.

All well and good so far but I appear to have hit a limit on the number of characters that can be entered in the Text from Source field when my understanding was that such long text fields were unlimited. There are no error messages reported or anything to indicate a problem other than no further text being recorded as I continue to type.

Copying and pasting the field content to Word reveals the following data:
5,247 Words
26,775 characters (no spaces)
31,722 characters (with spaces).

So am I mistaken and there is indeed a limit on the size of such long text fields.

Kevin
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tatewise
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Re: Long Text Field - Text From Source

Post by tatewise »

Welcome to the FHUG Kevin.

As far as I am aware there is no limit to the length of long rich text fields such as Text From Source and Notes.

Can you describe the symptoms in more detail, and perhaps provide a screenshot.
e.g. Are you typing inside a table cell or outside the table?

To attach a screenshot see FHUG Knowledge Base Forum Usage Tips under Attachments and Taking Screenshots because you must use files whereas the clipboard will not work.

Another user had reported a similar problem, but they were copy & pasting text, so it was probably a rogue control character. When they repeated the process with plain text it reached 26 pages and 12,462 words according to MS Word.

BTW: Be aware not to make the table too wide or it may NOT be able to be reproduced in Reports that have a limited standard page width.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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KevT
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Family Historian: V7

Re: Long Text Field - Text From Source

Post by KevT »

Thank you for the welcome.

I am adding text within the Text from Source field directly into cells within tables. I have reached a point where no more text is being added as I continue to type. This occurs regardless of which table cell is selected, or even if trying to add text outside the tables. All that happens is that the screen stops accepting any further text. There are no associated messages or warnings.

I have copied and pasted the Text from Source to a dummy Source entry in the FH Sample Project with the same result so it does not appear to be project specific.

I have attached the associated Autotext file being used as an example (FHUG advice suggests that any custom FH file can be attached but this may not have worked when looking at the status for the file which shows a men at work sign). This Autotext was designed such that the full table width fitted into reports when landscape orientation was set.

I have also attached a screen shot of an extract of the actual Text from Source being worked on.

Kevin
Attachments
Text from Source Extract.jpg
Text from Source Extract.jpg (80.99 KiB) Viewed 1295 times
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KevT
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Re: Long Text Field - Text From Source

Post by KevT »

Autotext file content attached as a pdf.
Attachments
Autotext File.pdf
(77.51 KiB) Downloaded 59 times
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tatewise
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Re: Long Text Field - Text From Source

Post by tatewise »

Apologies regarding the AutoText file. It seems that the new FH v7 filetypes have not yet been approved as attachments.

I have been able to reproduce your symptoms with about 8,000 words and 40,000 characters.
Interestingly, if the GEDCOM database file has even more than that in a Text From Source field it loads OK.
But it then cannot be enlarged within FH.

The text does not need any formatting. Just exceptionally long plain text does have a limit.
I presume it is a limit to the size of the FH internal editing buffer.

The only workaround is to split your 'Personal Recollections' into more Source records.

Can you please report the problem to Calico Pie via their http://www.calico-pie.com/osticket/open.php support ticket system.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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KevT
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Family Historian: V7

Re: Long Text Field - Text From Source

Post by KevT »

Thank you Mike for confirming the limitation on long text fields. I will report this to Calico Pie.

As you say, the workaround is to split my source into two separate sources.
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KevT
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Re: Long Text Field - Text From Source

Post by KevT »

A ticket was raised for this issue with the following response received from Calico Pie :

"Thank you for reporting that. The intention was these long text fields should be sufficiently big that no-one is ever likely to hit the limit in a real-world situation. The current maximum size is clearly much too small. We will correct this in the next update."
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