The compact chart as research aid

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

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A compact chart can be helpful when researching and also when documenting the research. The attached one-page chart shows the participants in what may have been a contentious guardianship event (a father's will) resulting in a law suit upholding the father's wishes. I have included the pertinent source information in the chart. The full chart is 15-1/2 inches wide and is compacted to 10-1/2 inches, fitting landscape on letter-size paper.

 

I can often squeeze in one more generation in a one-page chart by moving the subject box up and to the right - and using that as the chart title, appropriately emphasized. The accompanying video describes this technique, illustrating a number of toolbar features.

 

Video is here.

 

Some things to look for in this video:

 

The toolbars are moved down onto the chart so you can clearly see the toolbar name. Moving a toolbar onto the chart temporarily, however, can come in handy when you are working on a large chart and find yourself going back to the same toolbar at the top of the page.

 

I use the up/down, left/right arrow keys to move objects, finding it easier than the Nudge toolbar.

 

The dashed rectangle selecting an object or objects (title boxes for example) is called the 'marquee' method. Hold down the left button and drag the mouse from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner of the selected region to select the group.

 

When using the no-spousal-line technique, either box can be moved up or down _except_ when there is a children connector line. In that case the top box is moved down so the connector line is not displaced. You can see that in the beginning of the video as the spousal lines are deleted and the boxes moved using the Alignment toolbar. When you align boxes, the first selected boxes are aligned with the _last_ selected box.

 

The 'title boxes' are connected to the next generation with an Orthogonal line (right angle). In VCF the orthogonal line has a mind of its own in the direction it takes. I always try it first - but if it is not what I have in mind I go to plan B - the connection point and 2 straight lines. That is what you will see here. Positioning the connection point to maintain straight lines - even with the grid - is not always precise. I was lucky in this case. However it is a simple matter to straighten the lines if they are jagged. Use a marquee to select the connection point and move that point up or down, right or left to straighten each line in turn.

 

When drawing a rectangle, draw from one corner to the opposite corner. Rectangles are opaque, ergo the need to move them to the back so they do not hide the contents - or to the front for editing. You can do that with the rightclick menu or the Structure toolbar.

 

I identified the participants in the guardianship with an arrow icon from my palette chart. The palette arrow was pointing right so I used the Rotate toolbar 'flip vertical' to make it left-pointing. Another example of Rotate is in the forum message 'VCF Chart border'. In that case I used 'flip horizontal' to make the bottom border the reverse of the top border.

 

Anyone can make a 'palette chart'. It is simply a saved chart with boilerplate info that you can open concurrently with your working chart and cut and paste colors, icons, numbers, text, etc. My palette can be downloaded from the forum Palette message. There are links to both the chart border and palette message in the pinned one-page chart message at the top of the VCF forum.

 

Re the source box on the chart. I typed the source text in Word, clipped it as an image and inserted the image into a box on the chart. I also did this for the chart legend in the thread 'Printing Country of Origin Flag Images in Ancestor Box Chart?'. It is often easier to do the typing in Word and save as an image than use the VCF text box feature. The icon to insert an image is the little yellow box on the Drawing toolbar (same toolbar as the Rectangle).

 

A couple of my chart conventions:

- In the finished chart I manually color the boxes of deceased infants or children a light gray. How to color manually is explained in the Palette message. Not only is it a timesaver, it allows for more creativity.

 

- I use a shortened name style for the saved chart. The VCF default is Descendants_of_Daniel_Brown(231).vc2 - which with a few deleted characters - I shorten to DescBrown(231)a.vc2. When heavily editing a chart it is a good idea to save the chart with a new name before any major edit, so you have a backup if something does not work out. I use a,b,c.

 

Videos:

My videos have no sound. The message accompanying each video explains what is happening - so it is best to access the video from the message rather than directly from Screencast. The one-page pinned message has links to most of those messages. When viewing a video, first click on 'Full Size' at the top of the video. To download the videos to your computer for future use, click on the Details tab below the video and then click on Download (the first item is the video file).

 

Editing charts: When copying boxes from one chart to another, use Window / Tile on the VCF menu to open both charts together. This can also be convenient when using the palette chart and a working chart.

 

Virginia