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Michael1001

TAG DATA ENTRY FIELDS

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Wholly genes!

 

I'm new to this program. I want to enter data into a TAG, but the data entry fields for the various TAG types all ask for just the same, inappropriate data. For example, I looked at occupation, education, census TAGS, and they all had only address and year data entry fields. Shouldn't an education TAG ask for such things as school name and location, year graduated, degree earned, etc? I selected the TAG from the NEW TAG list.

 

If I cannot use different fields I will be very disappointed, but I do think that I am missing something.

 

What is it?

 

Thanks

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Michael

 

The occupation, education, etc. information would go in the Memo field. See the tutorial below for guidance in entering your data:

 

http://tmg.reigelridge.com/data-entry-tutorial.htm

 

Also, open the Sample project and look at the tags there for examples of data entry.

 

On the Help menu in TMG is an option to download the TMG Guided Tour. The format is bit outdated, but the basics have changed little. On the guided tour menu, click on 'Record' on the left menu for info on entering tag information.

 

Virginia

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Thanks for the reply, Virginia. That is quite disappointing. The templates for the various EVENTS should be tailored to the event, or at least should be customizable.

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Hi to "another" Michael,

 

Welcome to TMG and the Forum.

 

You are quite right that the design of TMG has "generic" fields for the entry of the raw data in an event tag. However, the different tag types definitely are both tailored to the type of the event, and extremely customizable. I think the tailoring to an event type and the ability to customize are two of TMG's strongest features. In fact a large share of the posts on the separate TMG-L e-mail list for users are discussions about various customizations not only of the standard event tag types, but also of the creation of new tailored customized tag types.

 

The templates may not "look" tailored, but I suggest you explore deeper some of how TMG does things, which I suspect are different that you expect. Look especially into the separate "Sentence" templates for each tag which are tailored to the event, as well as the "Roles" associated with a tag which differ by event. To get used to TMG I highly suggest a browse through "Terry's TIps" about TMG which are on-line here. I would especially recommend reviewing his short but extremely informative explanation of TMG's "Basic Concepts" which is found here.

 

The TMG tag entry screen is intentionally very standard to enable speedy data entry of the Date, Location, Memo, and connected people. But each tag type is very different "under the covers" with what it does with this raw data.

 

Hope this gives you ideas, and don't hesitate to ask whatever you don't understand.

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Michael,

 

TMG is designed to produce "real" narrative reports - not just birth/marriage/death in narrative followed by a bunch of bullet points, which has been traditionally the case for other programs that offer "narrative" output. A few others now have something like what TMG has had for decades, but still not as flexible.

 

TMG does this with "Sentence Structures," often called just "Sentences," which assemble the data in the date, place, memo, and name fields together with other text and punctuation in very flexible ways. There are standard Sentences for each Tag Type, and users can modify those, or design their own Tag Types and Sentences, or modify the Sentences in individual Tags. The result is you get real narrative output, complete sentences, for all events. If you use only the defaults it gets pretty repetitious, but if you want to invest the effort you get "handwritten" text. See, for example, this page on my website for Robert Cobb. The body of the narrative there is directly from TMG.

 

By using a couple of standard Tag Entry screens with only the standard elements instead of customizing the tag entry screen for each Tag Type, TMG lets users create unlimited numbers of Tag Types with great flexibility. The power is in the highly customizable Sentences.

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