Undated Tags

[John K 0]

My database has a large number of tags with no dates or sort dates. Currently, these are listed and print before all other tags. Is there any way to have them print last (after all tags with sort dates)?

 

If there is no way to have TMG change the sort order, one way to accomplish my goal would be to give all undated tags a sort date of 2500. Is there a way to do this automatically, either within TMG or using John Cardinal's utility?

 

With the TMG Utility, I can use "set sort dates" and give all undated events a range of sort dates that start one day after the date of death or burial. But this does not give any wiggle room to add later events in that time frame. (It also could be potentially misleading to show a death date of 8-2-1878, and then show a series of events ranging from 9-2-1878 to 15-2-1878, whereas a date of 2500 would be clear that it was totally arbitrary.)

 

One thought I had was to use "add events" in the TMG Utility to add a new "TAG 2500" for every person, give it a date of 1-1-2500, and then use "set sort dates" to date all undated tags later than the new Tag 2500. However, I cannot figure out how to use the TMG utility to add this new tag to everyone in my database at one time, rather than to each person one at a time. (Also, in a perfect world, my preference would be to have all undated tags share a common sort date of _-_-2500, while the TMG utility will give each tag a different date beginning with 1-1-2500.)

 

Does anyone have any advice?

[Jim Byram 0]

My database has a large number of tags with no dates or sort dates. Currently, these are listed and print before all other tags. Is there any way to have them print last (after all tags with sort dates)?

File / Preferences / Program Options / Tag Box / 'Undated tags sorted' list box / Choose 'Bottom'

[Paul Lawrence 0]

My database has a large number of tags with no dates or sort dates. Currently, these are listed and print before all other tags. Is there any way to have them print last (after all tags with sort dates)?

File / Preferences / Program Options / Tag Box / 'Undated tags sorted' list box / Choose 'Bottom'

 

That will control where they display in the tag box....to control where they print you must use sort dates...

[Michael Hannah 0]

My database has a large number of tags with no dates or sort dates. Currently, these are listed and print before all other tags. Is there any way to have them print last (after all tags with sort dates)? ... one way to accomplish my goal would be to give all undated tags a sort date ...

John,

From your request to "print last" (assuming you mean in reports) reports will always print undated tags first, so for report printing as Paul said you must give all undated tags a sort date.

... Is there a way to do this automatically, either within TMG or using John Cardinal's utility? ... With the TMG Utility, I can use "set sort dates" and give all undated events a range of sort dates that start one day after the date of death or burial.

That feature in John Cardinal's Utility is the only automated method I know of. As you noted, these arbitrary sort dates of only one day after BMD events can cause later problems when you want to insert other events. There are two solutions to inserting a new tag in the list:

• when you add the new event modify all the sort dates of that person to something more reasonable, or
  
• use a qualifier on the new sort date so that it will fit in between other arbitrary sort dates. To see the options for date qualifiers see an earlier post here that lists them in their sort order.
  

Does anyone have any advice?

Sorry, John, but my advice is to first use John's Utility and then as you find you are editing a person's events use that as the time to create your own more reasoned sort dates that make sense to you for this person's tags. Probably not what you want to hear, but I really believe it will be best in the long run.

... my preference would be to have all undated tags share a common sort date of _-_-2500

Realize that if you do that you cannot predict the order of multiple undated tags in a given person's output. The print order of tags with a common sort date is totally unpredictable. I would guess that you would care about their order and would therefore want them to have different/unique sort dates. However, you could use the date qualifiers I mention above to have all your undated tags have a common "base" date but have unique sort dates as a result of the qualifier.

[John K 0]

Thank you Jim, Paul and Michael,

 

I finally figured out how to use create the .txt input file I needed to add my TAG 2500 to all 43,000 people in my database (creating one line of text in Excel and then using "+1" for 42,999 lines). After that, it was an easy matter to set sort dates for all undated tags, giving the ones that I want to relegate to the end of any report a sort date on or after January 1, 2500. Michael is correct that for some of these I will need to think about a better sort order, but for most of them, simply having them lumped together will be a big time saver.

 

Michael, thank you also for the link to your sort order page. I had not seen it before, and it is very useful information.

[Michael Hannah 0]

You are welcome, John, glad you found a way to customize your tags to sort as you wish. Isn't John's Utility great!