Wish List: Option to remove sentence in report

[kathytabb 0]

In the Journal, and probably other, Reports, when no children have been entered in a marriage, the report automatically generates a sentence about there being no children. This may or may not be true. Often times, I do not include children of distant relations, but do make a tag for Number of Children, and do name them in that tag. But then the "no children" sentence is still generated. I have tried making "dummy" children but it's messy and distorts the indexes. Instead of arbitrarily adding this sentence, would the developers consider making it an optional one? Like, 1) There were no known children of..."; 2) Any known children have not been included in this database...; 3) User defined....

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

I'd prefer just dropping it altogether. Saying there were no known children isn't correct since you said you had them listed in another tag.

[nrbsr 0]

This question has popped up so often over the years that I'm surprised it is still with us. There have been many requests to eliminate the "there were no children" sentence and I don't recall anyone making an argument for keeping it yet it is still with us.

 

My own preference would be that the "there were no children of" sentence be completely eliminated.

[Excalibur 0]

This question has popped up so often over the years that I'm surprised it is still with us. There have been many requests to eliminate the "there were no children" sentence and I don't recall anyone making an argument for keeping it yet it is still with us.

 

My own preference would be that the "there were no children of" sentence be completely eliminated.

Well said! You've said it all.

[kathytabb 0]

I hope that lots and lots of us will add to this message in order to emphasize the need for this change, in the hope that the decision makers at Wholly Genes will take action. I've spent hours and hours trying to figure an easy way to eliminate that sentence without resorting to another language. It really should be an option as so many other elements of TMG are.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Even using another language, you can not delete the language. Each text line in the language file has to have some kind of data, so even though you can CHANGE the sentence, you can not DELETE it.

[Pierce.Reid 0]

Even using another language, you can not delete the language. Each text line in the language file has to have some kind of data, so even though you can CHANGE the sentence, you can not DELETE it.

 

If we can change the sentence, can we change it to a single space? Or if not a space, just a period? If so, could someone give us simple instructions for making that change?

 

Pierce

[Donald Joseph Schulteis 0]

In the life cyle of a project, two of the of the many phases might be characterized as "gatherine facts" and "producing the family historical book." Each phase has a distinctly different requirement when producing reports. In the "gathering facts" phases. the user is identifying his/her findings, requesting confirmation, and is soliciting for contributions. In this phase, the user wishes to be precise and open about the facts. Having the sentence present in the report identifies to the reader that no research action "has been taken" regarding the presence of children. If the sentence were not present, the reader needs to question this fact. So, in this phase, the presence of the sentence is a valuable asset to the report.

 

On the other hand, in the "producing the family historical book" phase. the user is no longer researching nor does he/she wish to highlight "researching." In this phase, having the sentence in your "heritage book" is a negative. Your book identifies that John and Mary were born, they married, and possibly they died and were buried. This is what you know and this is what you are telling the reader. There is no beneficial reason to identify that you do not know, that is, you did not research for their children.

 

When I do know, I use a custom tag to identify this fact in the report. It is called "no-children" and has a sentence which reads "The famly reports there were no children." Please note it is not "I" who determiend this but the "family", that is, others beside myself who confirm it. Use it mostlly for living families, after child bearing age, and for near ancestor families.

 

I both "need" and "do not want" the sentence. Theredore, I need control of producing this sentence as a runtime option.

 

I see having the sentence in the "producing the family historical book" phase to be no better than if the program automatically produced the sentence "John Doe was buried." if there was a death group tag but no burial group tag, or, if the program automatically produced the sentence "John Doe died and was buried." if no death/burial tag was present and the person was identified as older than the "assume maximum age lifespan" value.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

If we can change the sentence, can we change it to a single space? Or if not a space, just a period? If so, could someone give us simple instructions for making that change?

 

Pierce

 

 

No at the present time you must have something in the sentence field. You could put in a character and then search and replace it in a word processing program, but you can not get rid of it via TMG.

[Terry Reigel 0]

If we can change the sentence, can we change it to a single space? Or if not a space, just a period? If so, could someone give us simple instructions for making that change?

Yes, you can change it to just a period, or to any other character string that would be easy to search for and delete in a word processor.

 

But, no one can give you really simple instructions for doing that. You cannot modify the standard "English (US) language that is used by default. In order to change the string that creates this sentence, you have to change to an alternate language, like English2. Then, in that language, find the string and replace it with the string you would like to search for.

 

The difficulty of changing to English2 depends on whether you have customized any sentences, either for tag types or for individual tags. See the Language Overview article on my website for help - look in the table near the bottom, then follow the links to the specific steps required.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Actually it wouldn't be just a period, but rather, you would get two, one for the period you made the sentence string and one for the period at the end of th sentence. Then you could search for a double period. Like Terry said, it's not an easy process to do unless you are already using an editable language.

[Terry Reigel 0]

Actually it wouldn't be just a period, but rather, you would get two, one for the period you made the sentence string and one for the period at the end of th sentence.

You can get just one period, if you make the string a non-breaking space - [:NB:]. Then you get the space and the automatic period. But if you wanted to search for and remove the sentence remnant, it would be easier to use a string like "XYZ" and then search for "XYZ." and replace it with nothing.

[John Moran 0]

You can get just one period, if you make the string a non-breaking space - [:NB:]. Then you get the space and the automatic period. But if you wanted to search for and remove the sentence remnant, it would be easier to use a string like "XYZ" and then search for "XYZ." and replace it with nothing.

Is this the "Seinfeld" method? Do you have to pay royalties?

[kathytabb 0]

Yeah but... instead of using an alternate language which would force anyone that doesn't want to have this sentence appear in the report, to learn how to use alternate languages and concern themselves with the custom tags, sentences and what-have-you, wouldn't it be simpler to ask the developers to make it an optional sentence like they did with other things like the prepositions for locations? Then it becomes a very easy thing to choose. Of course I know nothing about the details of programming this requested option, but would think it is a lot easier for an experienced programmer to do this, than having users totally frustrate themselves trying to figure out language changes. Kathy

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Actually Kathy, that was the original request. Let's hope it will make it into the next version.

[nrbsr 0]

Yeah but... instead of using an alternate language which would force anyone that doesn't want to have this sentence appear in the report, to learn how to use alternate languages and concern themselves with the custom tags, sentences and what-have-you, wouldn't it be simpler to ask the developers to make it an optional sentence like they did with other things like the prepositions for locations? Then it becomes a very easy thing to choose. Of course I know nothing about the details of programming this requested option, but would think it is a lot easier for an experienced programmer to do this, than having users totally frustrate themselves trying to figure out language changes. Kathy

 

Kathy, I think you've nailed it. When I KNOW there are no children I add "without issue" or "leaving no children" in the memo of the death tag.

If necessary make it optional but I don't see why it shouldn't be eliminated altogether.

[Michael Hannah 0]

I agree that there should be an option to completely eliminate this sentence. And echoing Donald Schulteis' comment about the two phases of a project, for the "gatherine facts" phase I feel a sentence like "no children separately entered in this database" would at least be more accurate.

[efcharvet 0]

Just adding my name to the list...

 

This is a "pet peeve" of mine about TMG.

 

Eliminate it, but it it must be kept, make it a report option.

 

Earl