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Virginia Blakelock

VCF is not just for genealogy

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Geothermal_2.jpg

 

VCF is an easy to use tool for presentations outside of genealogy charts. It took me just a few minutes using basic VCF features - text boxes, lines, arrows, circles - to create a legal-size poster for the side of a geothermal water-heating unit to explain the rather complicated start-up procedure to a new owner of the home.

 

Simple charts - optionally including images - could also be used in school projects, say for demonstration of a science experiment.

 

Virginia

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Great idea for a topic, Virginia!

 

Examples of other non-genealogy uses of VCF:

 

Organization Charts

The first attachment shows a greatly simlified organization chart of the Allies at the Battle of Yorktown, ending the American Revolution. It is a composite of components from several ancestor charts with an imported picture and manually entered explanitory text.

 

Historical Gossip

The second attachment shows gossip concerning the alleged paramours of "La Belle" Otero, diva, entertainer and courtesan around the turn of the previous century. Otero would never confirm or deny their identities. Her alleged lovers are in my working TMG dataset linked by non-married tags in the marriage group. The basic chart is a single descendant chart with imported pictures and hand entered supporting text.

 

Provenance Charts for Historical Artifacts

The two charts that I've done are still private and show the owners and dates of possession of valuable artifacts. The first was a record of possession of a Confederate general's sword.

The second was a record of an oil portrait by J.J.Audubon's son, ca.1836. One day, these will be able to be published. They are both composite VCF charts with imported pictures of the artifacts and hand entered supporting text.

Enjoy VCF,

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Re: previous post -

 

Note: Much of the "hand entered text" referred to in the above examples was cut and pasted from other documents.

 

Errata - Under Organization Charts - simlified shoud be simplified.

 

I should learn to not compose complex messages on-line. Compose and check off-line, copy and paste on-line, dummy!

 

Mike

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I am trying to make an organization chart using the VCF descendant box chart.

 

1. The focus person and the descendants are all "male." I cannot seem to suppress the nonexistent spouses in the options. Putting a hyphen in the unknown spouse option only puts the hyphen into a spouse box. Selecting the focus person and all persons male doesn't help.

 

2. If I just delete the spouse boxes, the vertical lines are left in odd places, and there is too much space left between boxes.

 

3. VCF suppresses the first letter of "Subcommittee" in 2 out of 3 instances, even though that letter "S" is in a name field in TMG. There is sufficient space for the whole word to print. When I try to edit the text in the boxes, it plants a tiny box with the word "text" in it, but does not allow me to edit.

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I used the option in the descendant box chart to include only people with the value M for the Sex Flag; the spouse boxes still appear but can be deleted.

 

For a conventional top-to-bottom organization chart, see the editing technique for removing spousal boxes in the video here. This is straightforward on a small scale; a complex organization chart may be more of a challenge. Let me know if you prefer a left-to-right or right-to-left orientation.

 

Does increasing the width of the boxes in the chart options allow for the first letter of Subcommittee to appear?

 

To edit the text in the boxes, doubleclick on the box to select it; the text will then be highlighted for editing.

 

Hope this helps. If you have any more questions please ask.

 

Virginia

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I am trying to make an organization chart using the VCF descendant box chart.

 

1. The focus person and the descendants are all "male." I cannot seem to suppress the nonexistent spouses in the options. Putting a hyphen in the unknown spouse option only puts the hyphen into a spouse box. Selecting the focus person and all persons male doesn't help.

 

2. If I just delete the spouse boxes, the vertical lines are left in odd places, and there is too much space left between boxes.

 

3. VCF suppresses the first letter of "Subcommittee" in 2 out of 3 instances, even though that letter "S" is in a name field in TMG. There is sufficient space for the whole word to print. When I try to edit the text in the boxes, it plants a tiny box with the word "text" in it, but does not allow me to edit.

Please follow Virginia's comments. You are trying to lift a weight of 200 pounds, before you have conditioned yourself to lift even 100 pounds.

 

It is recommended to start extremely simple.

 

 

1. Start with a chart with one box (generate a one generation ancestor chart).

 

Practice editing the data in the box with VCF.

 

You can make the box larger or smaller.

 

You cannot make the box larger than the canvas nor smaller than the image.

 

Select (click on) the box, 8 dots will appear in the corners and midpoints of the box. To change the horizontal size, grab a dot at the midpoint of a side and move the mouse to increase or decrease the box size. To change the vertical size, insert or delete blank text lines.

 

 

To change the size of the canvas, select Tools>Diagram>Measurements and enter the desired horizontal and/or vertical canvas size. If you make the canvas larger than the printer page that you have defined, dashed lines will mark the printable page edges.

 

 

Move the box to another location on the canvas. To do so, select the box. Hold the left mouse button down and move the box to the desired location. For small moves, select the box and tap the arrow keys. Each tap will gently jog-move the box in the arrow direction.

 

 

2. Leave your single-box-chart open in VCF. Generate another VCF chart of your choice. Select a box of your choice from the new chart. Use Edit>Copy, then reopen the first chart and then use Edit>Paste to copy the new box to your first chart.

 

 

Move the 2 boxes until you like their positions in relation to each other. Practice generating lines connecting the 2 boxes. There are 4 basic types of connectors in the menu. Direct connectors composed of a single straight line. Connectors composed of horizontal and vertical lines that bend at right angles, only. The same 2 types with an arrow at the end. Only the right-angle connectors are recommended for organization charts. Now, delete the line and connect the boxes in a few different ways. Finally, move one of the connected boxes about and observe the effects on the connector line. You can independently change the shape of the connector lines within narrow limits. Sometimes, connector lines appear to have a mind of their own.

 

 

3. Repeat the above steps, adding more boxes (single or multiple boxes at a time) until you are comfortable with adding, editing and deleting boxes, text and connectors. You should also be familiar with the "copy and paste" of components from other charts. When editing complex charts in VCF, frequently save intermediate versions with another chart name.

 

 

4. Read a few of the earlier posts by Virginia, Robin and others on detailed techniques for modifying charts with VCF. Practice some of those techniques that might be useful to you. You should now be ready to attempt your desired task.

 

 

5. Post any questions that you might have, if you get stuck.

 

This is all easier done than said.

 

 

Best wishes and good luck,

 

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