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Michael Hannah

Obscure IN bugs still in Version 6.07

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I first reported these in TMG 6.04 but since then there are THREE

new updates to fix bugs (THANKS, Bob, we all appreciate the hard

work to produce these fixes!). However, my bugs with problems

with Citation Memos and Exhibit text (two different bugs?) in the

Individual Narrative report are still manifest in Version 6.07.

I am posting this to both the Forum and the TMGL mailing list.

 

As a comment to a recent posting, I am very pleased with the

stability and status of v6.07, and these bugs are very obscure.

As an aid to finding and fixing such obscure bugs, I have

identified small changes that can be made to the standard

TMG SAMPLE project that will reproduce these bugs.

 

Bug one. Under some cases two citations are printed as Ibid

without printing the Citation Memos even though the Citation Memos

are specified to print and (only) the Citation Memos differ

between the two citations. In some cases when "Combine

consecutive footnotes/endnotes" on the Source tab for the Report

Options is selected, the entire Full Footnote with memo is

duplicated inside the same combinded citation.

 

Bug two. When an Exhibit of internal text exists for an event tag,

and event exhibits are selected to print as endnotes, and "Combine

consecutive footnotes/endnotes" on the Source tab for the Report

Options is selected, either the rest of the Narrative from that

point is printed as part of the footnote/endnote for the event

Exhibit text, or construction of the entire Report file aborts.

Even if the file is produced, Word will abort with mouseover the

citation. In some cases the Exhibit (and the event citation)

prints with the footnote for the event memo even though both

are specified to be endnotes (this last may be by design, although

I believe a Sources option should not change where the Exhibit

has been specified to print).

 

==============

To reproduce these bugs starting with the TMG SAMPLE project:

Copy SAMPLE project to separate folder so you can safely make changes.

Open project to the default person: Annie Eliza Alexander.

 

Open the Master Source List and open source #1 "Alexander/Keebler Bible"

and select the Output Form tag, noting that both Full and Short Footnote

are overwritten already. Add "<.><.>" (without the quotes)

after [M1] in the Full and before the final period in the Short

footnote.

 

Double click on the primary Name tag and add a citation detail to

source #1 of "Citation detail" and a citation memo of "Name memo".

Double click on Father tag and add the same citation detail to source #1

of "Citation detail" but a citation memo of "Father memo".

Double click on Mother tag and add the same citation detail to

source #1 of "Citation detail" and a citation memo of "Mother memo".

Double click on the primary Birth tag and add the same citation detail

to source #1 of "Citation detail" and a citation memo of "Birth memo".

Double click on the primary Marriage tag and add an internal text

exhibit to this event tag with text of "Marriage exhibit text"

 

Add a new default Associatn tag, but change the sentence for Principal

to add "" (without the quotes) after "associated", give it

a date of 1880. Add person #1 and person #2 as witnesses. Add a

citation of source #6 with citation detail of "census detail" and

citation memo of "census memo" and put surety of 2 for both 1&2.

Add an internal text exhibit to this event tag with text of

"Census exhibit text".

 

Add a new default Anecdote tag, with memo "Anecdote memo", no citation,

date of 1890, and add an internal text exhibit to this event tag with

text of "Anecdote exhibit text"

 

Select report for Individual Narrative.

Leave Subject set to this one person.

Set Print to: a File of type RTF, and choose a file name.

For Options, leave all as default, except:

Memos not included in the sentence are Footnotes selecting name,

relationship or witnessed. Exhibits are endnotes selecting internal,

external, copy, reference, center, with caption, and event, with

primary image. Publication Tools Bibliography selected but not

Table of Contents.

 

For source options, always have the following options set for all the

variations tried below: do not supress CD, do not show surety, do not

show excluded citations, include Name source, include Relationship

sources.

 

Now try all the variations on the source options remaining:

Bug-Endnotes, but not unique, do not disable ibid, do not combine:

Citation memo for Name and Birth print,

but Mother and Father are Ibid with citation detail but no memo

(I believe the differing memos should either print or prevent Ibid)

Exhibits are separate endnotes embedded with the citations

Good-Endnotes, but not unique, disable ibid, do not combine:

All memos print

Exhibits are separate endnotes embedded with the citations

Good-Endnotes, unique, disable ibid, do not combine:

All memos print

Exhibits are endnotes, separate and following the citations

Good-Endnotes, unique, do not disable ibid, do not combine:

All memos print, and Mother and Father are not ibid, (but?) are Full

(I assume that unique recognizes the differing memos and prevents

ibid, but it also prevents short footnote?)

Exhibits are endnotes, separate and following the citations

Bug-Endnotes, but not unique, combine:

All memos print in the combined endnote citation

and the Source Supplement M1 memo prints only once in this citation

The Associatn exhibit text is combined with the census citation

endnote but should? be printing as an endnote

The rest of the Narration paragraph appears in this Endnote following

the text "[:MEMO] with the subsequent endnotes embedded in this one

endnote. The "mouseover" of the superscript in the Narrative text

shows that the citation and all the remaining Narrative text is

considered this endnote

[when the file is output to "Word for Windows 2000 or later" this

mouseover produces a fatal error in Word]

[alternative test: remove the Associatn exhibit.

The citation to the marriage is appended to the Marriage tag memo

as part of its footnote as is its Exhibit text, where both should?

be endnotes. This may be by design and my misunderstanding.

Remaining exhibit is separate endnote embedded with the citations]

Bug-Endnotes, unique, combine:

Conversion error # 13: Source file discrepancy.

A file is created but is Zero length

[alternative test: remove the Associatn exhibit.

Source #1 Supplement M1 memo prints three times!! in its

combined citation.

The citation to the marriage is appended to the Marriage tag memo

as part of its footnote as is its Exhibit text, where both should?

be endnotes. This may be by design and my misunderstanding.

Remaining exhibit is separate endnote embedded with the citations]

 

Bug-Footnotes, do not disable ibid, do not combine:

Citation memo for Name and Birth print,

but Mother and Father are Ibid with citation detail but no memo

(I believe the differing memos should either print or prevent ibid)

The exhibits print after the Bibliography, but have no separating

Endnotes title heading, which I believe should exist

Bug-Footnotes, disable ibid, do not combine:

All memos print

The exhibits print after the Bibliography,but have no separating

Endnotes title heading, which I believe should exist

Bug-Footnotes, combine:

All memos print in the combined footnote citation

and the Source Supplement M1 memo prints only once in this citation

The Associatn exhibit text is combined with the census citation

footnote but should? be printing as an endnote

The rest of the Narration paragraph appears in the Endnote following

the text "[:MEMO] with the subsequent endnotes embedded in this one

endnote. The "mouseover" of the superscript in the Narrative text

shows that the citation and all the remaining Narrative text is

considered this endnote

[when the file is output to "Word for Windows 2000 or later" this

mouseover produces a fatal error in Word]

[alternative test: remove the Associatn exhibit.

The Exhibit text prints as part of the Marriage citation footnote,

where it should? be an endnote.

The remaining exhibit prints after the Bibliography, but has no

separating Endnotes title heading, which I believe should exist]

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Michael,

 

You made a critical omission when you set up your test.

 

When you set up source #1, you need to tick the ibid selection 'ON - Requires same source and [CD]' on the Output form tab.

 

There is a bug and a design omission.

 

The bug is combining source endnotes/footnotes (with combine selected) with exhibit output to endnotes. This causes a recursion issue where report output is prematurely terminated and an endnote/footnote contains citations to itself.

 

Issues like whether the exhibits endnote section should have a title when standing alone is a design issue, not a bug.

 

Jim

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Michael-

That's way too much for my attention span, but in experimenting with Journal Reports exported in *.RTF format, it appeared that footnote erors in the Sample project could be triggered by a change in citation Style. That is, citations of a style that contained italics - including the Bible one -could trigger errors in OpenOffice.org Writer footnote fonts, while non-italicized text in citations caused no obvious errors.

 

When the same Sample Journal file was opened in MSWord from from *.RTF report export, it appeared that all footnotes might be superscripted. I assumed this to be an error. Do you also see superscripted footnote numbers in Word?

John

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Michael,

 

You made a critical omission when you set up your test.

 

When you set up source #1, you need to tick the ibid selection 'ON - Requires same source and [CD]' on the Output form tab.

 

There is a bug and a design omission.

 

The bug is combining source endnotes/footnotes (with combine selected) with exhibit output to endnotes. This causes a recursion issue where report output is prematurely terminated and an endnote/footnote contains citations to itself.

 

Issues like whether the exhibits endnote section should have a title when standing alone is a design issue, not a bug.

 

Jim

 

Jim,

Thaks very much for checking this. I had forgotton about that ibid selection being part of the source itself. I had fallen into the trap that the report defined all of the aspects of ibid. Obviously being able to make that selection per source is valuable. I will need to put that reminder in big bold text in my personal document on constructing reports.

 

As for the actual bug found, thanks for verifying that it is not something wrong with just me and my dataset. It is such an obscure bug that (as my tests showed) I can

choose some settings as a workaround that will give me close to the report I want.

 

And I agree that the design issue is just that, a design choice. Again, as long as I know that it is there by design, I can easily cut and paste the Word report and get what I prefer.

 

And, once more, you have been extremely helpful to the TMG users. Thanks.

 

Michael

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Michael-

That's way too much for my attention span, but in experimenting with Journal Reports exported in *.RTF format, it appeared that footnote erors in the Sample project could be triggered by a change in citation Style. That is, citations of a style that contained italics - including the Bible one -could trigger errors in OpenOffice.org Writer footnote fonts, while non-italicized text in citations caused no obvious errors.

 

When the same Sample Journal file was opened in MSWord from from *.RTF report export, it appeared that all footnotes might be superscripted. I assumed this to be an error. Do you also see superscripted footnote numbers in Word?

John

 

John,

Thanks for looking in to this obscure situation. As Jim has noted, there is a small and obscure bug, but I can choose options that work around it.

 

Yes, I do see superscripted footnote numbers in Word. I have not experimented with whether having italics makes a difference. Do you mean using the [iTAL:][:ITAL] code in TMG in the citation or source data might make a difference? I will have to experiment with this when I am off for the holidays.

 

Michael

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John,

Thanks for looking in to this obscure situation.  As Jim has noted, there is a small and obscure bug, but I can choose options that work around it.

 

Yes, I do see superscripted footnote numbers in Word.  I have not experimented with whether having italics makes a difference.  Do you mean using the [iTAL:][:ITAL] code in TMG in the citation or source data might make a difference?  I will have to experiment with this when I am off for the holidays.

 

Michael

The only Journal Report tests I have ever made in TMG were with Projects based on the Sample "as is" as far as Sources, Citations, and Memo coding goes. I occasionally experiment with language character sets other than English/Latin code page 1252 in memo fields or name fields, but I don't think that would have any effect here.

John

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Michael-

That's way too much for my attention span, but in experimenting with Journal Reports exported in *.RTF format, it appeared that footnote erors in the Sample project could be triggered by a change in citation Style. That is, citations of a style that contained italics - including the Bible one -could trigger errors in OpenOffice.org Writer footnote fonts, while non-italicized text in citations caused no obvious errors.

 

When the same Sample Journal file was opened in MSWord from from *.RTF report export, it appeared that all footnotes might be superscripted. I assumed this to be an error. Do you also see superscripted footnote numbers in Word?

John

Why use RTF for TMG Report generation? The current RTF specification has more than enough bells and whistles for most reports from a typical genealogy program, and cannot be retracted, unless MS claims some sort of patent infringement. It's out there. It is understandable to the typical TMG user. The major Word Processor applications support it. Whether they support it correctly and fully is another matter.

 

Rich Text Format, although proprietary to Microsoft, is "open" in the sense that the the current specification is freely downloadable and the file structure is not compressed. This means that any experienced user of TMG can review exported Report files as TXT and discover whether unexpected behavior of the reports, when opened in MSWord or other similar applications, is a bug or a feature. File size is not much of an issue, as far as storage space goes these days. Decryption and decompression is not an issue.

 

This is not true of Report exports in MS *.doc or most other proprietary formats.

 

TMG developers are no doubt currently at work on creating report exports in some form of open document format, perhaps XML based. If the chosen format is uncompressed and, life could be simpler for TMG users.

John M.

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Why use RTF for TMG Report generation? [because...] ...

 

For this thread I tried both RTF and Word output just to test more than one output to see if that was the cause of this small bug. However, I agree with you on your comments supporting using RTF. I choose to output my final reports in RTF as I then import them to FrameMaker for final formatting, which is the software I much prefer as a full-featured and robust document creation tool.

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