* Quick Child/Family Snapshot

[tatewise]

See attached Quick Child Snapshot Plugin Version 0.1 Date 29 Nov 2016.
[Attachment deleted as now in Plugin Store under the title Quick Family Facts.]

This is similar to the Quick Child Lookup Plugin in thread Children with Place of birth etc (14381).

This variant includes more facts about the children (Birth, Baptism, Christening, Marriage, Death, Burial, Cremation).
To avoid popup window being to large with many children, it is more compact, numbers children, and truncates long facts.

I am thinking of publishing one of these two Plugins in the Plugin Store.
Does anyone have any preferences as to which is more suitable?
Or perhaps some hybrid of the two?

[PeterR]

I prefer the extra details provided with this Snapshot version, but it cannot fit more than 12 children into the pop-up window on my 1600×900 screen; and I don't think there is any way to scroll the contents of the fhMessageBox window.

[David Potter]

Hi Mike

Yes this version is nice but have the same problem with 13 children - can't scroll to see past 11 child.

David

[tatewise]

Ok, so assuming the extra details are preferable, I will look at providing a scrollable window using the IUP GUI instead of fhMessageBox.

[David Potter]

Thank you Mike

[tatewise]

In response to Extra Windows (14404) and thinking laterally I have extended the Plugin to a Quick Family Snapshot.
[Attachment deleted as now in Plugin Store under the title Quick Family Facts.]

It now includes the Father, Mother, root Individual, their Siblings, and their Children, all presented in a standard resizeable, movable Window with the usual Minimise & Maximise controls, plus scroll bars in each pane.

In the SIBLINGS pane the root INDIVIDUAL is listed against I) but without any Events.

You can close the Window using the Close Snapshot button, press Return, Enter, Escape keys, or the red X.

It has an inactive Choose Options button, that could later be used to choose which Relatives to include, and what Events to include, plus perhaps default Window & Pane size & position.

Over to you guys for your reactions.

[PeterR]

Very impressive, Mike, and I'm sure it will be very useful. Does the window have to be modal? There is a bit of a problem if the window is minimized: the main FH window also disappears, and apparently cannot be restored by using alt+tab, but only by clicking on its icon in the Windows taskbar.

The only improvements I can think of would be to add some sort of divider to both the Siblings and Children panes to separate half-siblings from full-siblings, and to separate children of a different father or a different mother.

[tatewise]

That the IUP dialogue windows have to be modal is one major drawback of Plugins.
The best I can do is disable the Minimize (but it is still visible), or disable & hide both Minimise & Maximise.

From the Focus Window, it is fairly clear which Children belong to which Parents.
But I will have a look at some sort of divider when I a get moment to spare.

[rodit]

Mike
This is a very impressive plug-in, but I may have found an omission/bug.
The central Individual panel does not show all marriages.
I only spotted this as I was checking it out with my own family and came upon my son who is into his third and it only showed the first!)
After that I checked an ancestor with 3 husbands to find that the first 2 marriages were listed.
Others with 2 marriages show both.

Regards
Roger

[tatewise]

@Peter: First I need to correct my earlier reply about modal windows.
IUP does allow modal windows and my Plugins with Help & Advice windows use that feature.
It is the Plugin itself that is modal and the first IUP (or other) window is locked into that modal task.
Plugins must be modal because they can change the database, and thus must prevent the human user from making changes at the same time, otherwise there could be a data change race hazard. The only safe way to allow Plugins to be non-modal would be to restrict them to read-only access to FH data once non-modal state was selected, but that would need an update within FH.

@Roger: Yes, it lists Marriages only for the 1st two Family partnerships per person, but that could be extended.
Are you sure that your son has a Marriage Event recorded in both his 1st two Family partnerships.
Check each Spouses tab in his Property Box, or his entry in the Focus Window.
Do the 1st two both have a Marriage Event?

[PeterR]

Thanks, Mike, that all makes sense.

I think it may be best to disable & hide both Minimize & Maximize buttons.

[rodit]

Thanks, Mike
You spotted it. His second was what one would call a 'relationship', rather than a formal marriage.
I had set their Status as 'never Married'.
Your explanation also explains the lady with 3 husbands.
Regards

Roger

[Valkrider]

Mike

A little problem with this plugin and FH running on Wine on a Mac. This is a limitation I suspect of Wine and the windows dialogs.

Once the plugin is invoked from Tools > Plugins the 'Plugins' dialog box cannot be closed moved etc. This also means that nothing can be done in the 'Focus Window'.

I suspect this is a problem with Wine and so may just be something for the Knowledgebase once the plugin is finalised.

[tatewise]

Colin,
That is NOT a Wine problem. It is the same for any Plugin in any OS while it is running. It is what is meant by the earlier discussion about Plugins being modal. It is why for this Plugin (or any Plugin) it is recommended to add it to the Tools menu and use Alt+T and Q to run it. Then at least the Plugins window does not exist, but FH is inactive until the Plugin is closed.

[Valkrider]

Thanks Mike, thought it was a Wine issue as I don't have a Windows PC any more.

[E Wilcock]

I am one of those who stand to benefit from these plug ins - Thank you so much Mike.
I have been using the Quick Child Look up. And thanks to you Mike, it is on my Tools menu.

However as a new user of FH this thread has thrown up things I havent met before.

What is the keyboard short cut<Alt, T and Q> mentioned as leading direct to the window?
And are there other short cuts I should know?

And what is a modal window?

[tatewise]

Use FH Help > Search Help enter Shortcuts and click List Topics.
Double-click Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts for a comprehensive list.

In FH (and many other programs) press the Alt key on & off and the menubar command initials are underlined.
Press a matching underline letter key and that menu is opened.
In that menu any underlined letter can be pressed to select that option.
In the Tools menu (Alt+T) any Plugin initial letter will run that Plugin.
BTW: If more than one command or Plugin start with same letter then pressing that letter will cycle through options, and Return will invoke it.

A modal window is one that inhibits its parent window until it is closed, like the Quick Child/Family Snapshot display.

A non-modal window is one that allows its parent windows to still be used, like a floating Property Box, or its cog Menu > Witnesses dialogue, still allow the Focus Window to operate.

[E Wilcock]

Thank you for explaining that . I didnt know that about the Alt Key and Plug ins. Nor about the Windows.
(Tho I had already studied the Help list of short cuts.)

[Wilfreda99]

Would it be possible to export or save this snapshot as .pdf or jpeg, for example? I am thinking it would be useful for putting into a Word document, for example, for village histories of various people, and families. I did it as a clip on the attached so you can see what I mean. It was much quicker to write the information underneath than trying to find the best report, layout etc. (I wrote it off the top of my head from info in FH and from various village display sheets I have produced over the years so might not be totally correct). Also seems to take up a lot less room/pages.
The screen dump works fine as you can see but a proper saved version might be neater? - but not necessary if it is fiddly to do.

[E Wilcock]

These are both very nice.
But to get the info that was there on screen in TMG, (which Mike has made me within a tree diagram) one needs to add the surnames of the marriage partners of the siblings and children too.

It is this family network of names that matters so much to me. The relationship between two women may be concealed several times over by them taking their partners surname names. Same with cousins. A census shows unknown surnames within a household or on a shipping list and they may turn out to be cousins.

I may be confused about the difference between a Snapshot and a Query.

[tatewise]

This family summary popup is produced by a Plugin that I just chose to call Quick Family Snapshot.
A Plugin can work through this type of Window dialogue, create a Result Set like a Query, read & write text Files, modify the Project database, access the Internet, and more...
For examples of Plugins see Tools > Plugins and the Plugin Store.

A Query can only create a Result Set for one type of record at a time, i.e. Rows of Individuals, Rows of Sources, Rows of Media, rather like the Records Window tabs of Rows and Columns.
The difference is that a Query can filter which record Rows to include.
For examples of Queries see View > Standard/Custom Queries and the fhugdownloads:index#family_historian|> Downloads and Links Query Type: lists.

I could have called the Plugin anything, and I can create a Query called Quick Family Snapshot too (but would look rather different), so there is nothing special about the word Snapshot.

There are various improvements for the Plugin suggested here, that I will consider in due course.
But some will be much easier than others.

[Hanning]

Thanks so much for putting time and effort into this one Mike - its already very useful to me.
For the future, if both possible and desirable for others... can the individuals shown be clickable ie. click or double click changes the property window to these individuals?

kind regards
Marlene

[E Wilcock]

Apologies Mike. Overnight I realised that your extending the Child snapshot to include Family and inviting comments, prompted me to confuse what had originally been two separate "wishes".
When looking at the Facts for an individual woman, I wanted to be able to see the birth places of her children, for instance on her time line. You kindly responded by giving me the Quick child snapshot.

My wanting to survey the surnames of spouses of both siblings and children of the selected individual was a separate request. One can see the forenames and surnames of both, listed on TMG but this is view is without dates and places. And has been criticised here as showing only one (primary) partner. It never bothered me.

I need to reference these surnames because I am using archives and dealing with dozens of families that are unfamiliar to me.

I will give you an example. A woman writes a letter, signing it only Granny. We know the recipient and the research finds first her birth name, then the birth name of her mother, next the spouses of her three children, and the husband of one of her granddaughters. So I soon have ten different surnames connected to this one, previously unidentified woman.
And that is not to mention her husband's family.
On a USA census or the 1939 Register, one may discover a whole hotchpot of surnames, people living in the same household, and if I have a list of ten surnames to refer to, I hope to recognise who is and who is not extended family.

I see what people mean about the snapshot window, preventing further data entry. That could be why out of the alternatives you gave me, I have tended to use your diagram option, as that link stays in the margin. Because I am dealing with tiny family groups with screen space to spare, I altered the tree you gave me to provide for dates and places of birth and death, and saved that as default.

I began to use the chart for another reason. I am coming from TMG which used lists. But the attraction of FH from the start was that it gives you a family tree on screen. Family trees drawn on paper was how people used to explain genealogy to their children. And when I asked for examples of screen layouts preferred by FH users, the examples showed people working from the Tree diagrams.

I much appreciate these snapshots you are providing. I love these lists, both of them! But is that because I am used to lists in TMG? I ought to force myself to learn to use FH through its visual diagrams, as the software was intended?
At the moment I have (your) diagram for both husband and wife on buttons in the left margin and can click on either.

The only draw back so far has been that the focus button in the tool bar was greyed out and as a new user, it took me ages to understand that clicking on the magnifying glass on the left above the tree buttons would return me to the person on whom I was working , regardless of which diagram was open. My solution till now was to click on Home or accidentally close the program altogether. Even if one goes through all the tutorial and videos on line for the Sample Project (which I did), and the Knowledge Base, when one is deep in work, one may plough on regardless.

For instance I have just found(by accident) that I can have the two treelets open on screen, with the focus window and Property box, The view is equivalent to my 4 windows in TMG. And depending on what windows one is allowed in FH, I guess one could generate a list or two and produce a replica of TMG info, tho I havent time to experiment more today.

[tatewise]

I have updated the Quick Family Snapshot Plugin to Version 0.2 Date 07 Dec 2106.
[Attachment deleted as now in Plugin Store under the title Quick Family Facts.]

It now includes all partnerships and Marriages.
The partner/spouse is included after an equals ( = ) sign, on the line prior to the Marriage fact (if any).

Each Individual has their (life dates) after their name.

Hopefully, that provides enough details to work out which Siblings & Children are step relations.

The block headings now correctly say NO SIBLINGS, or NO CHILDREN, or just CHILD as appropriate.

It is not easy to export as PDF/JPG, but it now auto-hides the scrollbars, so by enlarging the window a screenshot is neater.
(I plan to move the buttons, so they can be excluded from the screenshot.)

It is not easy, and may be impossible, to make the Individuals clickable links.
As E Wilcock says, a small family Diagram is often more convenient.

[E Wilcock]

Mike, That is lovely. Absolutely.

I dont really grasp the import of your plans for the buttons and scroll bars - and I am looking at the snapshot only in the context of small family groups - but all the information I need is right there. Unbelieveable - Thank you so much.