* Frm instead of From in Narratives

[allenawilson]

Why is the word "From" abbreviated in narratives to "Frm?" The sentence shows correctly, but is abbreviated in the narrative.

[tatewise]

That date format is the default chosen by the Report > Options > Format > Format for Dates: Compact setting.
Change that to Long and words like after, from and between are spelt in full but also month names are displayed in full exactly like the Sentence in the Property Box Facts tab.

Alternatively, the Sentence Template in Tools > Fact Types... can be changed from {date} to {date:LONG} and that will override the Report > Options > Format > Format for Dates: setting.

[LornaCraig]

Narrative reports used the long date format for many years, which always seemed sensible in a narrative. I noticed the change last year and I raised this with Calico Pie. They replied pointing out that when FH V7.0.20 was introduced the release notes included the following:

The “Format for Dates” field, on the Format tab of Report Options, previously had no effect on how dates appeared in the body of narrative reports. It now does. So users are recommended to check, with all your narrative reports, that they are showing dates in the format you want, and adjust the setting if not.

I responded suggesting that the default date format for narrative reports should be Long. I think the majority of users (and readers) would expect this in a narrative, particularly because ‘btw’ and ‘frm’ just look like typographical errors in a narrative, and even the abbreviation of months looks odd in a full narrative. It would also mean that the standard sentence displayed in the Property Box would accurately reflect the output produced by the default report settings, which is the natural assumption. The user shouldn’t have to change the either the standard sentence definition or the default report options to make them match. Calico Pie did not respond to this.

[tatewise]

I wonder if it would help for allenawilson to report the problem (again)?

[LornaCraig]

Yes, perhaps if someone else raises a ticket with Calico Pie, referring to this thread, C.P will respond. I did wonder whether C.P. thought they had 'dealt with' my issue by pointing me towards the V7.0.20 release notes, and didn't read my follow-up response.

[allenawilson]

I will submit that. I appreciate the responses. Thank both of you.

[allenawilson]

Ticket submitted. And a bit of a follow-up. I didn't know about using {date:LONG}. So I think I have the sentences in question corrected. But I agree that when you see the word "from" in the sentence of a fact in the property box, you would expect it to display that way in reports. And I suppose that the word "between" could be an issue sometimes (although I'm not sure where), but saving one letter in the word "from" seems a little silly to this user.

[allenawilson]

I received two emails in response from Calico Pie. The first said:

"Thank you for your email, we have passed it over to our development team for review."

The second said:

"Thank you for raising this issue.  We agree that the default date format for narrative reports should be long.  We will fix this in the next update."

I was pleased with both the speed of the replies and that they agreed.

[LornaCraig]

That's great. I makes me think they didn't read my previous feedback!