Chapter 7: The Project Explorer and Focus Groups

[7.1]

As described briefly in an earlier chapter, the Project Explorer displays the names of all people in the project in a format which makes it easy to view and navigate in powerful new ways. You can open the Project Explorer with a toolbar button or with an option on the Window menu.

As you move the focus within the Project Explorer, the other windows are updated with the new data. The focus person is highlighted in dark blue.

In this sample screen shot, the Accent feature shows people with one unknown parent in light green and those with two unknown parents in darker green. (Once you use Accents, you'll wonder how you got along without them!)

[7.2]

You can optionally unlink the Project Explorer from other windows using an option on the right-click menu.

Once unlinked, you can navigate the Project Explorer without affecting the focus on other windows. You can link them again using the same right-click menu.

[7.3]

Another option on the right-click menu will allow you to enable Item Tips in order to display data that may otherwise be invisible because it flows beyond the current borders of the window.

As previously described in the context of the Details window, Item Tips will pop up a window containing the expanded version of the text in question simply by pointing to it with the mouse.

The right-click menu also includes an option to wrap the data onto multiple lines rather than let it be truncated by the borders of the window.

[7.4]

The top of the Project Explorer window has a number of buttons with which you can navigate, search, and filter that window. The Project Explorer supports all of the same options for filtering and sorting that were previously described for the Picklist ... plus a few more.

For instance, this screen shot shows a sorting option which lists all of the unique surnames in the project. Clicking on a plus sign produces a list of all individual names in that group, sorted by given name.

[7.5]

The Project Explorer and the Picklist share the same filter (*.FLT) files.

So you can design a filter on one of those windows and apply it later to the other.

[7.6]

The Easy Search toolbar (shown here docked on the left side of the screen) is a convenient way to jump directly to the first name that starts with a specific letter.

In this case, the Project Explorer is sorted by given name.

[7.7]

You can also click and drag the mouse (or click in combination with the CTRL and SHIFT keys) in order to select more than one person on the Project Explorer.

Then a right-click menu option allows you to add the selected people to the Focus Group.

[7.8]

The Focus Group window can be opened from the Layout toolbar or from the Window menu. It can hold a user-defined subset of the names in the project. Once a Focus Group has been designed, you can perform some operations on all members of the group at the same time.

For instance, you can search the web for all people in the Focus Group at one time.

The number of records in the Focus Group is noted at the top of the window.

A later chapter discusses web searching in more detail.

[7.9]

You can highlight one or more members of the Focus Group and then click on a button to add the primary name of ancestors, descendants, and/or spouses to that group.

You can also add the name variations of selected people to the group. If you performed a subsequent web search on the group, for instance, then it would automatically search for primary as well as non-primary spellings, married names, etc., maximizing your chances of finding matches online!

[7.10]

You can even base accent conditions on membership in the Focus Group.

So, for instance, you can make all members of the Focus Group show up in orange whenever they appear on other screens.

[7.11]

You can also save and load Focus Groups, making it easy to preserve and switch between groups.

[7.12]

The tight integration between the Accent, Picklist, Project Explorer, and Focus Group features provides some extremely powerful tools for analyzing and navigating your data.