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Wish List: Deleting unused place records

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I may be missing the obvious, but is there a quick way to delete unused place records, other than editing the master place list and deleting each component of the place record?

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I may be missing the obvious, but is there a quick way to delete unused place records, other than editing the master place list and deleting each component of the place record?

 

Optimizing will remove unused Place records providing the Start year, End year, Comments, and Short Place fields are blank....

 

File>Maintenance>Optimize

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Optimizing will remove unused Place records providing the Start year, End year, Comments, and Short Place fields are blank....

 

File>Maintenance>Optimize

 

Would like to jump in here since I am also now having a problem with the place name file. I am at the current release (6.07) and just finished doing a merge of two projects. In cleaning up the place name file, as I have often done in the past, optimize does not seem to be working. I still have a lot of redundant, same name, entries in the place name file.

 

My problem is different than the person who started this thread, as I am not specifically looking for 'unused' placenames. I am looking for 'optimize' to do what it has for me until this merge, i.e. to see that 2 (or more) entries are identical and to remove the redundant entries, relinking all tags to the remaining placename record.

 

Someone please tell me where I am failing here. I just sent in a trouble ticket to support on this. Not the end of the world, but not sure why it no longer works.

 

William

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Would like to jump in here since I am also now having a problem with the place name file.  I am at the current release (6.07) and just finished doing a merge of two projects.  In cleaning up the place name file, as I have often done in the past, optimize does not seem to be working.  I still have a lot of redundant, same name, entries in the place name file. 

 

My problem is different than the person who started this thread, as I am not specifically looking for 'unused' placenames.  I am looking for 'optimize' to do what it has for me until this merge, i.e. to see that 2 (or more) entries are identical and to remove the redundant entries, relinking all tags to the remaining placename record.

 

Someone please tell me where I am failing here.  I just sent in a trouble ticket to support on this.  Not the end of the world, but not sure why it no longer works.

 

William

 

From the TMG Help File:

 

NOTE: For two place records to be considered duplicates, all fields must be the same. This includes the Style, if one was used to create some of the entries. It is possible, for example, for two Master Place records to appear identical, but to have been generated using different Styles.

 

Optimizing will not remove unused place records for which a start year, end year, comment, or short place name have been recorded.

 

Wholly Genes, Inc.

 

Check and see if they have different place styles...

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From the TMG Help File:

 

NOTE: For two place records to be considered duplicates, all fields must be the same. This includes the Style, if one was used to create some of the entries. It is possible, for example, for two Master Place records to appear identical, but to have been generated using different Styles.

 

Optimizing will not remove unused place records for which a start year, end year, comment, or short place name have been recorded.

 

Wholly Genes, Inc.

 

Check and see if they have different place styles...

I will do that ... I thought I did already and I could not see any difference. Let's say that I do find 'differences in style' however that will be recognized, is there any way to 'globally'' change the style then so optimization will then work?

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I will do that ... I thought I did already and I could not see any difference.  Let's say that I do find 'differences in style' however that will be recognized, is there any way to 'globally'' change the style then so optimization will then work?

 

It's not differences in the styles that is of concern...they have to have the same style...

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It's not differences in the styles that is of concern...they have to have the same style...

 

Understand. however, if it is 'different styles' that are causing the otherwise similar placenames from being 'optimized' out, is there any way to 'automate the making of the 'styles' the same so an optimize will work? Quite painful to have to do each one by one.

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TMG Utility can change the place style from style "A" to style "B" for all place records that use style "A". It will not set all place records to a single style in one step, but you can achieve the same effect if you use the Change Place Style command to change all place styles B, C, D, etc., to A.

 

TMG Utility - Change Place Style

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TMG Utility can change the place style from style "A" to style "B" for all place records that use style "A". It will not set all place records to a single style in one step, but you can achieve the same effect if you use the Change Place Style command to change all place styles B, C, D, etc., to A.

 

TMG Utility - Change Place Style

Sorry to take so long to respond. I downloaded this tool, and I thank you for pointing me to it. However, when it looks at my database it cannot find any more than one style. Which makes sense since I eliminated all other styles while I started this process. Not finding more than a single style, the tool could not continue.

 

I went back and looked at a couple of my double entries and manually verified that there were no trailing spaces in one dupe and then optimized. This apparently worked and eliminated this single duplicate. Since some time went by, I did another and re-optimized and it also worked. So, it appears that my problem is that the dupes are caused by hidden spaces making them slightly different. The TMG tool, or at least the method you showed me to use it, does not seem to assist me here in this refined definition of the problem.

 

So, in net, how does one get rid of trailing spaces in fields in the place names table or any table?

 

William

Edited by agthorn

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In further analysis, it appears that many of my dupes have a short name created, versus there being any real trailing space problem. This 'short name' is slightly off the short name in the duplicate record. Not sure how these 'short names' are generated, some of them come up with Twp Unk, versus City Unk, they all seem to have appended Co after the county name. These variances, created by perhaps the different place styles that I did initially have after a recent merge, are what is causing this duplicate placename problem.

 

So the good news is that I have narrowed down my problem to a pretty precise definition, i.e. 'Short place:' variances.

 

The bad news is I don't know how to 'regenerate' these short places, or blank them, in a batch process so that I can reoptimize this file.

 

Where exactly is the 'short place' utilized anyway?

 

William

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Where exactly is the 'short place' utilized anyway?

Most reports have an option, on the Places tab, to use the "short place." The idea is you can enter a full place name in tags, but get short places in reports, especially for those reports with little space, like charts.

 

The short places come from two places. One is the short place field you have found in the Master Place List. That field is used for each place that has an entry there.

 

For places with no entry in the short place field, there is a "Short Place Template" on the Project Options > Other page of Preferences. It constructs short places for those places "on the fly," using whichever fields are specified in that template.

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As far as I know, the only way the short place field value is set is by the user keying something in the field. does anyone know if data is imported into that field when other programs (UFT?) have a similar feature?

 

Also, an FYI: the Find and Replace feature in the next version of TMG Utility will support the Short Place Field. The next version will be released soon, possibly as early as next weekend (March 11/12, 2006)

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As far as I know, the only way the short place field value is set is by the user keying something in the field. does anyone know if data is imported into that field when other programs (UFT?) have a similar feature?

 

Also, an FYI: the Find and Replace feature in the next version of TMG Utility will support the Short Place Field. The next version will be released soon, possibly as early as next weekend (March 11/12, 2006)

 

One of the options on UFT import is to import the UFT Short Place which is imported into the Short Place Field in TMG....

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As far as I know, the only way the short place field value is set is by the user keying something in the field. does anyone know if data is imported into that field when other programs (UFT?) have a similar feature?

 

Also, an FYI: the Find and Replace feature in the next version of TMG Utility will support the Short Place Field. The next version will be released soon, possibly as early as next weekend (March 11/12, 2006)

 

 

Sounds like this update of your tool may be the only way I can 'purge' this short place field, which is keeping a good number of redundant placenames in my file. I will look for it or if there is a way to get a note when its available, please let me know and I will signup to be so notified. Thanks again for your assist.

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Sounds like this update of your tool may be the only way I can 'purge' this short place field, which is keeping a good number of redundant placenames in my file.  I will look for it or if there is a way to get a note when its available, please let me know and I will signup to be so notified.  Thanks again for your assist.
I usually send a post to the TMG-L mailing list when I release an updated version of TMG Utility. If you are a member of that list, you'll see it there. I'll look around on the WG forum and see if there is an appropriate forum for that type of message here.

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