* Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

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ColeValleyGirl
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Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Does anyone have/is anyone working on a plugin to help 'lumpers' replicate changes to Citations (e.g. Text from Source, Notes, Media and maybe Entry Date and Where Within Source)

One of the issues for lumpers using FH is the difficulty in keeping Citations consistent when a change needs to be associated with a lumped source, and a plugin could go some way to help with this.

(Take as read that ideally Text from Source and Media, at least, should be distinct across Citations to avoid unnecessary duplication; we all know that this doesn't always happen).
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tatewise
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by tatewise »

The Where Used Record Links plugin already offers some help in that context in its Result Set report.

For Citations of Source records, there is a unique Key column that identifies Citation variants for the same Source record.
i.e. For any particular Source record, Citations with identical cell values to the right will have the same Key number.

So by reviewing the Key number and the cell values for such as Entry Date, Where Within Source, Text From Source, and templated Metafields it is possible to see where each lumped Citation variant is in use.

There is a Media column that identifies the number of Media records linked to Citations but not the specific Media records.
However, that could easily be added as another Result Set column on the right listing Media Record Id.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

I'm thinking of a plugin that actually does the replication (under the control of the user, of course).

Background: the DEAs I'm working on create Text from Source, and offer the option to save it in the Source or the Citation. Ideally, I'll be able to offer the user the option to review TfS before any data changes are made; and to tweak it if necessary. However, I haven't yet identified how to present the rich text for editing rather than just displaying it, and I'm not sure its possible. For splitters, the capability exists to tweak the TfS 'afterwards' by editing the source, but for lumpers (if they've chosen to add TfS to the Citation, which is a bad choice but will happen unless I prevent it, which I'm not convinced it a good idea) it is significantly more difficult -- hence the question.
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by Mark1834 »

My splitter plugin currently under development gets around this problem by combining duplicated lumped citations into a single unique split source. Doesn’t help those who want to stay lumped though...
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by tatewise »

The fundamental challenge with lumped Citations is identifying each 'logical set' of replicated Citations.
That relies on all the fields of one 'logical set' of Citations having identical values.

BUT if one or more fields in the 'logical set' have been altered/deleted/added then that disrupts the set into multiple sets.
i.e. The 'logical set' of Citations no longer has identical field values.

With Mark's plugin, that would result in two (or more) splitter Source records instead of one.
That is fairly easily resolved by merging the Source records.

For Helen's plugin, that makes identifying the 'logical sets' rather complicated.
If only interested in the Text From Source field then maybe list every variant Text From Source value in a table and let the user choose one master entry that must be applied to any other selection of entries to synchronise the set.

It gets rather more complex if you want to synchronise all possible Citation fields, both generic and templated.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

For my purposes, Text from Source would be sufficient, as that's the thing the DEA creates. I'd still rather let the user tweak the TfS before it's saved, but I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion it isn't possible.
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by tatewise »

Likewise, I can't see any feature that allows a plugin to present the user with a rich text editor dialogue.

I presume the DEA is being applied to a Prepared Citation.
So can the user adjust the Text From Source in the Citation (as well as the Source record) before assigning it to facts?

If the user changes the Text From Source (or any other field) in lumped Citations after assignment to facts then that is where a general-purpose resynchronization Plugin would be useful.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

tatewise wrote: 15 May 2021 14:26 So can the user adjust the Text From Source in the Citation (as well as the Source record) before assigning it to facts?
The DEAs generate the TfS from a template (unless the user decides they don't want this done, which is an option). As with Ancestral Sources, the automatically generated TfS will never be perfect and the user may want to 'tidy it up' or add additonal text -- which can't be done with FH UI before the facts are created because the DEA is modal. Not an issue for splitters, because they can edit the Source (single place) afterwards, but definitely an issue for lumpers.

A two-pass approach might be possible (create TfS, drop out without creating facts to edit it, rerun the plugin part 2 to complete the job, but I don't think the complication in the user interface/process would be justified.

Hence the query about a plugin that would help them tidy up afterwards. In an ideal world, it would work from the Result Set, but that's something else the API doesn't enable.
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Possible plugin to help maintain citations to lumped sources?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

tatewise wrote: 15 May 2021 14:26 Likewise, I can't see any feature that allows a plugin to present the user with a rich text editor dialogue.
fhPromptUserForRichText !!!

I thought it was too obvious to have been missed out.
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