Source Elements

[Terry Reigel 0]

Is there a way to move the new 'field' to another position in the list?

Or do I have to create them in the order of use?

Douglas,

 

Sorry, but you cannot, for all practical purposes, control the order of the Source Elements on this screen.

 

They appear in the order of the internal numbers assigned to their Groups. You can discover that order by experimentation, and then, in theory, create custom Source Elements assigned to Groups such that they will appear in the desired order. The problem with that, other than its inconvenience, is that all the "name" elements are grouped together in the middle of the list, and thus you have limited flexibility in arranging name and non-name elements.

 

Making the order user-controllable has been suggested as an enhancement, but so far that feature has not appeared.

[ggilbert1 0]

Quite some time ago I developed a list of TMG Source Element Groups by Group Number http://gilbert-genealogy.info/tmg/2.html

There is a HTML table, and you can download an Excel or Open Office spreadsheet.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Thanks Glenn for the list, but you still won't be able to product good source templates AND have the elements in order on the screen because the elements simply aren't in order for you to do so. It's best to just create good source templates that work with your source, define your custom template names in a way that make really good sense to you and use the Source Type Reminder Screen to remind yourself of what each element is for and what to put there in the future and a sample source output for that source type. This is one of the greatest features TMG has ever added to it's software, and I'd say probably one of the most underused (at least by me).

[ggilbert1 0]

Thanks Glenn for the list, but you still won't be able to product good source templates AND have the elements in order on the screen because the elements simply aren't in order for you to do so. It's best to just create good source templates that work with your source, define your custom template names in a way that make really good sense to you and use the Source Type Reminder Screen to remind yourself of what each element is for and what to put there in the future and a sample source output for that source type. This is one of the greatest features TMG has ever added to it's software, and I'd say probably one of the most underused (at least by me).

For the most part I don't bother trying to arrange the source elements in any particular order anymore. I did when I was developing my census source types, well before we had the reminder window. Back then I had a two page instruction sheet so I knew where and what to enter in the source and tag. Having the fields in a certain sequence seemed more important than it does now

Anyway I thought a table showing the order of the source groups would be helpful to other users.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

It did when I was like you and was trying to get them in order, then I realized that it just wasn't something I was going to be able to do on a regular basis, and I decided that it was better to have good source templates, at least for me. I did (and still do) use the table you created when setting up my source templates. I mean if you have a choice between a and b, why not make it knowingly, but for the most part, I found it was just better to set up a good template and use the reminders to tell me what went where.

 

Oh and yes, I used to have post-its all over my monitor before the reminder windows. LOL When we got the reminder windows, I set up for days and put all those into the reminder windows so that I could get rid of all those little pieces of paper.

 

I didn't want you to think that your list wasn't helpful. It was very helpful to me, it just made me realize that trying to create a good source template, and keep the source elements in order was going to be very difficult (unless you weren't planning on using all of them) and that a good source template was more important to me.