* Media

[Nana-G36]

Hello, a silly question from an newbie please: how many photos does everyone typically add to each person and how do you decide which ones to include? Also, Is there a limit to how much media can be added in total? Thank you

[NickWalker]

Personally, as a general rule I just add one picture of an individual. But then if I have some group photos of family gatherings that may be the only pictures I have of a distance relative I'll use the 'Link to Face' feature for all people in the picture, so in this way some end up with more than one image linked to them. I'm not aware of a limit to how many images you can link to an individual.

[Nana-G36]

Thank you Nick

[LornaCraig]

Hello, welcome to FHUG. I have moved this topic from the Importing/Exporting forum to the General Usage forum because it is not about importing or exporting from/to another program.

For direct ancestors and anyone else of particular interest I add more than one picture because it is interesting to see what a person looked like at different stages of their life. You can choose which one to make the main picture which will appear in diagrams by changing the 'preference' order on the Media tab of the Individual's Property Box. The first preference will be used in diagrams.

There is no limit on the number of pictures you can add, but the number which can be displayed across the top of the Focus window can't exceed 30. To exclude selected pictures from the Focus window, use the 'Exclude from Diagrams' option which will also exclude them from the Focus window. (In practice you will probably not be able to see more than about 15 in the Focus window)

If you don't want all the pictures to appear in reports you can use the 'Exclude from Reports' option for selected photos.

[Nana-G36]

Many thanks Lorna, that's very helpful

[davidf]

Hello, a silly question from an newbie please: how many photos does everyone typically add to each person and how do you decide which ones to include? Also, Is there a limit to how much media can be added in total? Thank you

If a "very newbie" to both FH and Genealogy Software you may not have realised

• Pictures of people you can add through the media tab of the person concerned
• Other "pictures" which may be portraits (e.g. Graduation portrait) or photos/scan/downloads of documents supporting particular facts can be attached to one of:
  • The fact itself - in the property box select the fact and then use the "media" icon below the fact window. I now tend not to use this because the next two options are usually more appropriate.
  • The citation - if you are a "lumper"* this is probably the best place to put for instance an image of a baptismal record
  • The Source - if you are a "splitter"* this is probably the best place to put such images
• (You can also add pictures to Place records etc.)

The Citation and Source Media can be selected via the media icon in the Sources section of the Property Box - when you do that you are given radio buttons to choose between adding Media to Citations or Sources. If a fact has multiple sources or citations supporting it, adding the image to the relevant source or citation rather than directly to the fact helps make clear where you got the image from.

* If you have not come across the splitter/lumper debate (you will - many times!) - what you are depends on what you see as a "source":

• If you are a splitter almost every thing is a separate source - every census schedule is a distinct source, every entry or page in a parish register is a source.
• If you are a lumper you "group" such items - you may see the "1861 England and Wales Census" or the "Beaumont Parish Register" or "The Yorkshire Marriages Collection on FMP" as your source ("it's where you looked to find the information") and you say exactly where you found the specific information (which specific schedule or page) in the "Where within Source" and "Text from Source" fields (which are in effect the citation).

You may be a splitter for some things (e.g. Birth Certificates - where the certificate is the source) and a lumper for other things (e.g. A Census or A Parish Register - where you are looking at a specific page within the thing you feel is the source)

For more details look in the Knowledge base (link at top) under sources and citations.

But if not that level of newbie, you may know all this!

[HoagyM]

Interesting discussion - also a “sort of newbie” here (this is my first post)…. as in I’ve been researching my family tree for decades, been using FH for circa 15 years, but only in last few months have started attending courses on genealogy / use of FH and so discovered the (invaluable) FHUG. So much that I didn’t know and/or have been doing very wrong for years!

Anyway - thanks for the bit about adding a photo to the source record. I’d been trying and failing just this week to find a way to add a photo of a house to a Residence Fact… never thought of creating a source citation for that Fact and adding the photo there.

And in answer to the original question - I try to limit myself to a max of about half a dozen photos per person, ideally from childhood to old age. I’ll prioritise them in date order, except that the one I want to use as the main one for charts etc is flagged as Prio 1.

And I also plan to make sure I have at least one group photo for each family, so that FH will use that on the Family Group pages of reports etc.

[tatewise]

You don't even need to create a Source Citation to add the Media because you can add the Media directly to the Residence fact.
In the Facts tab, select the Residence fact, then click the Show Media icon in the middle of the toolbar below the Fact list.
The Media for Fact dialogue has an Add Media for Fact... button which does what it says.

[Nana-G36]

David, thank you for your informative reponse. No, I didn't know any of that so found it very helpful. I appreciate any and all advice

[tatewise]

Check out the FHUG Knowledge Base > Media topics.

[HoagyM]

Yes thanks Mike - all clear now, and media successfully added to my residence fact!

Went back and looked at the FH screen to see why on earth I didn't find that straight away.

I think the fact that there is a row of icons underneath the list of all the various facts, including icons for things which are not specific to an individual fact (like "show timeline facts"), led me to sort of ignore that row of icons, thinking they could not include anything which would be specific to the individual fact that I'd selected (the Residence Fact).

I was expecting (and looking for) such a "media" icon to be in or underneath the "Residence Fact" window somewhere. So expecting that the layout would help to distinguish between actions which affect that fact only, and actions (like "show timeline facts") which would apply to the whole table of facts above.

Basically, I don't think that this aspect of the layout is particularly intuitive. I've been using FH for years, but this was the first time I'd tried to add an image to a fact, and it really wasn't obvious (to me at least) how to do it.

Don't know whether that makes sense? Always found in my working life that sometimes newbies can spot things which are not quite right, that old hands have just got used to. Maybe this is a case in point, or maybe I was just being a bit slow on the uptake - it happens!

Either way - I know what to do now, and thanks again.

[tatewise]

HoagyM, your comment about the toolbar below the Facts list is fascinating.
All the icons there affect the current selected Fact(s), except the Add Fact button and Show Timeline Facts that you mentioned.
So I don't really follow your argument about the layout not being intuitive when only one button and one icon do not apply to the current selected Fact(s).

Also the FH Help page Property Box: Facts tab makes it quite clear what the toolbar icons offer.

[davidf]

Don't confuse "intuitive" with "familiar"!

Microsoft tried to say a Mouse interface in Windows was intuitive - as if dragging a thing across a mat alongside you PC to make a pointer move on your screen was intuitive. I spent ages explaining to my mother that the pointer on (Windows 3) would not work by dragging your finger across the screen!

The fact that that icon bar has mixed functions must make it "less easy to discern" what its overall purpose is. It is not as if the "global" icons are all at one end with a clear separator between them and the "fact specific" icons. The fact that they are below a scrollable screen of facts could argue that they apply to the contents of the screen - wholesale. We might expect the icons to the right of individual facts to be linked to fact specific functions?

I suspect the arrangement is the result of creeping development from V1 to V6 or V7 and wanting to stick with what is familiar to existing users rather than evolving best practice User Interface standards.

[AdrianBruce]

... I spent ages explaining to my mother that the pointer on (Windows 3) would not work by dragging your finger across the screen! ...

She was just ahead of her time...

More seriously - I can see where HoagyM is coming from - they have a certain model of what's going on in their mind, a reasonable model, I think, and that determines where people look for things - never mind the manual.

I'm not sure, however, that the "below the window" and "below the fact" split is quite as easy as one might first think. The "copy" icon clearly refers to an individual fact line - the "paste" icon doesn't - it refers to adding a new fact line to the full list. So in a sense, the logic says "copy" belongs below the fact but "paste" belongs below the window. But it would be, I suggest, disastrous to put the copy and paste icons on different levels...

Just to illustrate the complexity, I have to say that I personally don't find anything odd in having a line of icons at that position applying to both individual facts and the list of facts as a whole - in the same way that the line of icons at the top of a spreadsheet can be used to operate on both the spreadsheet as a whole and individual lines... Does the position above or below the list make a difference? Don't know... Tricky...

[NickWalker]

Microsoft tried to say a Mouse interface in Windows was intuitive - as if dragging a thing across a mat alongside you PC to make a pointer move on your screen was intuitive. I spent ages explaining to my mother that the pointer on (Windows 3) would not work by dragging your finger across the screen!

Interesting fact (to me at least ) is that Microsoft included the Solitaire card game in Windows because in order to play it people would learn how to drag and drop with the mouse. Using a mouse was a new concept for most new users of Windows even up to the early 2000s and this game encouraged them to learn to use it correctly.

[tatewise]

David, IMO saying the toolbar has mixed functions is overstating things.
The purpose of the Add Fact button is glaringly obvious.
The only other "global" icon is Show Timeline Facts which is well to the right.

David FYI, in FH V7 the icons to the right of each Fact are linked to fact specific functions.

Adrian FYI, the Copy, Paste & Delete icons actually apply to any set of selected Facts.

However, I agree that there is some creeping development from V1 to V7 that impacts the UI.

[davidf]

Interesting fact (to me at least ) is that Microsoft included the Solitaire card game in Windows because in order to play it people would learn how to drag and drop with the mouse. Using a mouse was a new concept for most new users of Windows even up to the early 2000s and this game encouraged them to learn to use it correctly.

I remember it well. In the 1990s I developed a "skunk works" 123 application, that grew beyond the abilities of 123, and Excel 4/5 was just coming in with Windows so I was asked to "convert" it (initially I think to Excel macros then to VBA), and whilst the users liked the better visuals of Excel, they were very "off-put" by the "WIMP" interface. (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer?)

I had to persuade IT to allow those staff to have solitaire and minesweeper installed on their machines and then to get their boss to not hit the roof when he caught them "playing games" in their breaks.

Within a few weeks all were "converted". And they quite like always having the most powerful PCs in the business!

[ColeValleyGirl]

I well remember teaching power station crane drivers (coal handlers) how to use a PC in the early 90s. A keyboard was a new concept for them -- a mouse just blew their minds. A classic example of an IT strategy department staffed by nerds who didn't understand their users.

As the only use these particular users had for a PC was to understand their work rota, I strongly suggested to the HR department that they printed out the rotas and put them on the notice board in the drivers' locker area.

Problem solved.

(I will add that one of said crane drivers was made redundant a year or so later when a power station closed down. He became one of my best Desktop Support people because he came from 'the other side of the problem'.)

[Woodg]

Totally OT, but...

I taught adult education courses in the early 80's. We used Apple IIs. One of the students was a secretary with fantastic typing skills, but to see her use the Apple keyboard was painful. Turns out she was worried she might hit the Break key and literally break the PC!