Ancestor+

Ancestor+

Other features

Changing 'stack' order

If you click on the button with the up and down arrows by the spouse stack or the similar button in the Children section of the Family window a window opens with the names of all the spouses or children. You can drag these up and down the window to re-order them.

If you click 'Sort' they will be sorted by date of marriage for spouses or date of birth for children

When they are arranged to your liking click on 'OK' to have the new order recorded. If you close the window without clicking on OK the changes will be lost.

Database Choices

The Database Choices window sets choices for that database. It is opened via the main menu Choices or by clicking on the button like a circle with radiating spikes. Everything in this window is saved as part of the database, so can be set for each databases.

The top item, Database title, is the name shown on the title bar of the main window when it is loaded. The Resources Directory was explained earlier.

Below this are the names given to the five User fields in the Details window.

The GEDCOM tags are used to define whether a User Field is included when a file is saved in GEDCOM format. See that section for more information.

Start up record' defines the record shown when you load the database. This can be a fixed number, set in the writable icon, or if 'Last record' is selected then the last record viewed when the database was saved will be the one displayed next time it is loaded.

As these are saved with the file if you intend to create a series of files with the same User Fields and other settings (eg. Macros) you could set all of these and then save an 'empty file' which you could use as a template each time you start a new file.

The main Choices window

The main choices window is accessed from the icon bar menu. These choices are saved in the 'User' sub directory, and let you set how you want names to be shown in the main boxes, the default field names and GEDCOM tags for User Fields when starting a new database, the separator characters in dates and the age limiters, and various other things.

The 'Possibly dead' age sets the point at which a person's age is shown as number of years followed by a '?' to indicate that they might not still be living. 'Assumed dead' is the age at which the age icon is left blank (see the next section for more details).

At the bottom left are factors used to check dates when a Family is created or added to. 'Age difference' warns if you link people as partners with an age difference greater than the number of years set. Min Mother's age, Min father's age, Max Mother's age and Max Father's age warns if you link a child whose date of birth is outside these parameters. If any of these fields are left blank the comparison isn't made.

The User Field names in the main Choices window would be the ones you normally use, and are transferred to the Database Choices window when starting a new file. The ones in the Database Choices window are saved with the file. This means that if you use the same (or nearly the same) user fields all the time you don't have to type the whole lot into the Database Choices window each time you start a new file.

The 'Show names' section lets you choose how you want the three name fields to appear in the boxes in the main window. The default is Title, Forename, Surname. However, you may wish to show Byname, Forename and Surname, or, where you want both Title and Byname to appear, Title, Byname, Full Name. The chosen option is shown at the top left of the main window.

You could use the Title and/or Byname fields to hold different data (eg. military rank) where this is more suitable for your purpose and this lets you have that field visible in the main window.

The 'Left align names' option makes the three names fields in the boxes in the main window left aligned instead of centred. If the names are centred then with very long names, or when the full name is shown instead of Surname/Forename, if the name is too long to fit in the box it will be 'chopped' at both ends. Left aligning won't stop the name from being truncated, but the 'cut off' part will be at the right hand end, which is usually much less important and looks better than having letters at both ends invisible.

'Filename on title bar' means that the database filename is shown on the title bar of the main window. If this isn't selected then the title bar will show the database title.

As with all other windows closing the window without clicking on 'Set' or 'Save' doesn't record the changes. (Save will 'Set' the options before saving them).

Directory position

You have seen how clicking the 'filing cabinet' icon in a Family or Details window opens the appropriate Resources directory. Normally directories open at a position determined by the Filer, and with the display style you have chosen for normal use. However, these settings might not be the best when opening a Resources directory.

If you click the 'Directory position' button on the Choices window a small window will appear. Drag this to where you want the Resources directory to open.

There are two other configuration options. Buttons labelled 'Large icons', 'Small icons' and 'Full info' set the display option for the window. 'Sort by Type' will ensure that files are displayed by filetype rather than in alphabetical order. When you have it positioned and set as you wish click on 'Set'.

Although the options take effect immediately they will not be Saved to disc until you click 'Save' in the main Choices window. If you click 'None' then no options are set, and the directory will open wherever the filer decides and with the standard options set on your machine.

Note that when you click the 'Directory position' button if a position has been set already the window will open in that position. This might be inconvenient if you have changed to a smaller screen, so if you hold down the SHIFT key when clicking on 'Directory position' (or if no options have been set) the window will open within the confines of the Choices window.

Window positions

When you first open the Main, Details, Family, Database Choices or Reports windows they appear in the centre of the screen. You can move them around and, if you close them, the next time they open they will appear in the new position.

You may prefer to have windows open for the first time in your chosen position. If you click on 'Save windows' on the icon bar menu the current positions of all these windows is recorded in a file 'Windows' in the User sub-directory. The next time you start the program the windows will open for the first time at these positions.

Beware of this if you change your desktop screen mode as the windows might then open completely 'off screen'. If this happens just delete the 'Windows' file.

Age and Age at Death

In the Details window there is a field to the right of Date of Birth and another to the right of Date of Death. These show either the person's current age or age at death respectively. Obviously for these to function certain criteria must be met.

If Date of Birth and Date of Death are shown with both Month and Year and without any prefixes indicating uncertainty then the person's age at death is shown in years and months. If the month is missing from either date but both years are complete then the age at death will be shown in years. If either date has a complete year but a prefix indicating uncertainty (a, b, c, or +) then the age in years will be shown but followed by '(?)' to indicate that it is imprecise. If the year of either date is not complete then no age at death is shown as the calculation would be too inexact.

If there is no date of death but a full date of birth and this would make the person's age less than the number of years defined as 'possibly dead' in the main Choices window the person is assumed to be alive and their age in years and months is shown. If the date of birth is just a year age is shown in years only. If there is a prefix then, even if the date is complete, age is shown in years followed by '(?)'.

If there is no date of death but the date of birth would make the person more than the 'possibly dead' age but less than the 'assumed dead' age age is shown in years but followed by '(?)' to indicate that the person may no longer be alive. If there is no date of death but the person would be older than the 'assumed dead' age they are assumed deceased unless the 'Q' prefix has been set when they are assumed alive no matter how great their age.

Age or age at death is also shown in the main display. However, because this only shows years a slightly different system of calculation is used which can lead to a discrepancy between the age shown here and in the Details window. Where full dates are given age in the Details window age is calculated to the day, Thus a person born on Dec 30th 1990 would be 4 years 11 months old on Dec 29th 1995. In the main display the dates show only the year so days are not taken into account when calculating, and in the above example the person would be shown as 5 years old.

Macros

If you click on the button to the right of the 'Save' icon on the main button bar the Macro window will open. This has ten icons in which you can type strings up to 50 characters long. If you click on one of the buttons (labelled 1-10) to the left of these icons then the string will be 'typed' wherever the caret is when you click on the button. As usual if you just close the Macro window after having altered or entered any of these strings the changes will be lost, you must click the 'Set' button first.

This is particularly useful if you are entering data and need to repeatedly type a long surname or place name, as might happen when entering details about many people who were born, died or married in the same place. To make it even quicker, when entering data into either the Family or Details window pressing CTRL with function key F1 to F10 will also type the respective string. This is often more convenient than using the mouse and you do not need to have the Macro window open for this to work.

All strings are passed through GS_Trans first. If you don't know what this means don't worry, but it lets you insert certain special codes like '|M' to mean the RETURN character, etc.

Because they are likely to be specific to a particular tree or file Macros are part of the file, and are saved with it.

Although primarily intended to save typing when entering often repeated names and phrases into Ancestor+, because the text appears wherever the caret is it can also put the text anywhere you can type. For example, you can insert the text directly into a wordprocessor, which can save typing if you are creating a series of reports.

The Names window

This is in addition to the Macro window, and although it performs a superficially similar function it works rather differently. If you press F1 while the Details window is open and has the Input Focus then the Names window will open. This has 20 icons, and each can contain a string of up to 23 characters. If, with the caret in either the Surname, Forename, Byname or Title field, you hold down the ALT key while you type a number between 1 and 20 on the numeric keypad then the name in the Names window that corresponds with that number will be entered into the field which has the caret in the Details window. Using the keypad in this way lets you enter the names without having to use the mouse to click on a button as is the case with the Macro window.

If you'd rather use the mouse you can click on the number beside the name.

Note that, unlike when using the Macro window, the string will replace any text already in the field, not be added to it. Also, you do not actually have to have the Names window open to use the function, just holding down ALT and entering the number will work, even with the window closed.

Data is entered in the Names window in the usual way by placing the caret in the required icon and typing the name. The window can be closed either by clicking on the 'Cancel' button or pressing F2. The names are automatically saved and re-loaded with the Ancestor+ file. To wipe out all the names you can click on the 'Clear' button.

Instead of typing in the names, if you create a Textfile containing the names, one per line, and drag this file to the Names window the names will be entered into the icons, replacing all previous data.

APDL