Selecting siblings and spouses

[johnliddle 0]

Greetings,

 

I have been playing with VCF again and I find that when I use the edit function "Select siblings and spouses", only siblings are selected.

 

I have searched the forum for this, but to no avail.

 

Is it just me? or is there a bug in VCF?

 

Regards,

 

John Liddle

[RobinL 0]

I have rechecked as I was not aware of any problem.

 

In a descendant box chart this operates as I would expect (selecting siblings, spouses, and spouses of siblings) and not select any other persons from other families at the same generation.

 

In what type of chart were you trying to use that operation?

[Mike Talbot 0]

Greetings,

 

I have been playing with VCF again and I find that when I use the edit function "Select siblings and spouses", only siblings are selected.

 

I have searched the forum for this, but to no avail.

 

Is it just me? or is there a bug in VCF?

 

Regards,

 

John Liddle

Using TMG 7.03 VCF, this feature worked as advertised on right to left or vs.vs. descendant charts for me, as it did for Robin. (I never use top to bottom or vs.vs. charts.)

 

As a work around, until your problem can be resolved, try using group selection with your mouse.

 

View, zoom to fit (needed for charts larger than the screen, only).

 

Then position mouse cursor just outside any corner of the components to be selected, hold down left mouse button, move mouse cursor to just outside opposite diagonal corner enclosing all desired components. When you release the mouse button all components in that temporary rectangle will be selected.

 

I always use this method of component group selection by mouse rather than the menu entries. It's quicker. more versatile and more intuitive.

 

I do not do charts larger than 36 x 48 inches. VCF hand editing is slowww and impractical on larger charts. You can always find a way to break a large chart into multiple smaller charts or be satisfied with a report.

 

Good luck,

Mike

[RobinL 0]

Mike,

 

There two side effects of using the marquee method selection (enclosing objects witha dragged out dashed rectangle)

 

1) You select more objects than you expect (including the floating connection ports and spouse connecting lines), whereas the menu item only select the boxes.

 

2) if you select using a marquee and then use right-click Properties, your action will apply to all objects in your selection, so changing the line thickness or colour, will apply to all lines in your selection, e.g. the outline of the box and the spouse connectng lines.

 

John,

 

Which version of VCF are you using? (Help > About) - sound like you may have to re-install VCF. I am not that is a seaprate option on the TMG installer.

[Mike Talbot 0]

Mike,

 

There two side effects of using the marquee method selection (enclosing objects witha dragged out dashed rectangle)

 

1) You select more objects than you expect (including the floating connection ports and spouse connecting lines), whereas the menu item only select the boxes.

 

2) if you select using a marquee and then use right-click Properties, your action will apply to all objects in your selection, so changing the line thickness or colour, will apply to all lines in your selection, e.g. the outline of the box and the spouse connectng lines.

Thanks for those timely reminders, Robin. One should always make group selections with care. A little practice will keep you from unintended consequences. But do make frequent backup copies of your intermediate work.

 

Group selections are often made to delete those misleading little connectors that make spouses resemble descendants. The spouse boxes can then be group selected and jogged up to touch (or sometimes even overlap) the respective descendant boxes. There are several ways to handle multiple spouses as seen elswhere in this forum.

 

One can also group select groups of generations, etc., to shorten connectors between generations and others. VCF seems to always make boxes farther apart than configured by the user.

 

Best wishes,

Mike Talbot

[RobinL 0]

At other times, I have have wished for a little more control over what you can select in the right-click menu from a person box and then when editing properties of a selected group of components.

 

1) To be able select the whole tree from one person - e.g. descedants of the clicked person in descendant chart, or ancestors of the clicked person in an ancestor chart, so that you could group or move or edit them, etc in bulk. If this was a "Select Special" item that opened a small popup wher you could make selections then it could be made cery effective without increasing the length of the right-click menu. It could for some selections limit the number of generations involved, e.g. 1 generation would be children or parents, etc depending on the sense of the selection.

 

2) To select only the _boxes_ of the above or only the _connecting lines_, _ marriage lines_ of the the descendant or ancestor tree, etc.

 

3) When using Properties on a seleced group of objects, to be able to select which object type in the selection to act on (connection lines, marriage lines, or person boxes) and to filter on which components of a person box you want that Property edit to apply. EG just change the font look for Name line, or say, the Birth Place, etc and not every data line.