* Notes or Sentences?

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E Wilcock
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Notes or Sentences?

Post by E Wilcock »

I have just read again the chapter in Simon Orde's Getting the Most book on reports.

In TMG one wrote notes by a fact and then designed a sentence to output those notes in a report.
Working at a computer I prefer to have the note visible on screen in the note field - but should it be added to the sentence?

If one sets up a Report in fh to include notes, will it include the note for each fact, or must I add {note} to each sentence?

And should I be doing this by adding a data reference as shown on the Help page, Template codes?
Thus: {%FACT.DATE%}

I understand that one can insert code like data references when editing a Fact type. But can one add data references locally? I cant see how?

I suspect my problems outputting narrative reports for e.g. complex census entries arise from my confusing my Note fields with information in fh Sentences and their codes. And I need to sort it out.
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tatewise
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Re: Notes or Sentences?

Post by tatewise »

Most Reports have an Option to Inc. Event/Attr Notes.
Some have it enabled by default, and some have it disabled by default.
When enabled, it will include the Note text exactly as written against each and every Event/Attribute Fact, except that [[private]] text in square brackets will be excluded unless Inc. [[private]] Notes is also enabled.

However, I suspect you are talking specifically about Narrative Reports that support the following features.

They have the Options as above, but they apply to EVERY Fact, and the Note will be added as a separate sentence following the sentence produced by the Sentence Template, and will reproduce any white space, tabs, or new line characters exactly.
Obviously, you must enter the Note text so that it forms grammatical narrative sentences.

Alternatively, you can add the {note} code to any Sentence Template to embed Note text anywhere within whichever Fact Types you wish.
The Inc. Event/Attr Notes option detects that code to avoid producing the Note text twice.
The Inc. [[private]] Notes option also applies to every {note} code output.
The {%FACT.NOTE2%} data ref (added in FH V6) is identical to the legacy {note} code available for many versions.
You will have to enter the Note text so that it makes grammatical sense wherever it is embedded.

Another technique is to use labelled Note text, which is the way to add extra data fields.
Within a Sentence Template they are referenced by such as {=GetLabelledText(%FACT.NOTE2%,"Minister: ")}
where the label is Minister: and would appear in the Note text as:
[[
Minister: Rev John Smith
]]

You can have as many of those labelled Notes as you like, and use any of the options above too, because the [[brackets]] will exclude those labelled Notes (unless you tick Inc. [[private]] Notes).

See how_to:narrative_report_fact_sentence_templates|> Narrative Report Fact Sentence Templates that covers most of the above features.
See the Custom Fact Fields section for examples of the labelled Notes technique.

In addition to all that, the specific Sentence Template can be edited for any one Fact, to adjust its specific sentence.

No, you cannot add data references to the Note text itself.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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