24 replies to this topic

[Shiro]

I have a minor problem and a question.  First the problem, when I add a photo I can give it a caption, date, and description and I can "tag" it at that time or at other times.  However, I can't edit the photo, I can only delete it and repost it if I want to make a change to the caption or the description.  When I hit "edit" the only options I am given is to resize it or rotate it.

 

Now the question:  Why tag it when there is a description field?  What is the purpose of tags?  Is it just a quicker link than adding the URL?

[TomH]

Terminology can be confusing.

 

When you "Add new media" to the Media Gallery, the path to a media file is added to to the database and associated with that path is the Caption, Description, Date and Reference Number which you can edit by selecting the item and clicking the Properties button. In some places in the program dialogue, you will see the word "link" used to indicate that the media file is connected to the database.

 

Each linked media file can have but one set of RootsMagic "properties" but it can be used in the database in many places. It cannot appear in any report until it is "tagged" to a Person, Family (couple), Fact/Event, Master Source, Source Detail (Citation), Place, Place Detail. A "tag" may also be called a "link" by some people, in this case, a link/tag from the an item in the Media Gallery (the item is a link to a media file) to one of these database entities. A Media Tag is not to be confused with a Web Tag which is a URL hyperlink to a web page - it is merely an internal record pointer with its own "properties" or fields under the Edit Tag button including Comment, Primary Photo?, Use in Scrapbook?.

 

A web URL cannot be used in RootsMagic to "link" the Media Gallery to a media file. The media files must reside on a lettered drive (A: to Z:). The URL showing the source of the media file can be stored in the Description.

 

So you can have a different Comment for each Tag of a media item but the Caption and Description are common and can be edited from either the Media Gallery or from a Media Album (the collection of tags for that particular Person, Family,...) by clicking on the Properties button.

 

An earlier version of RootsMagic supported different captions and descriptions for each tag (then called something else, maybe "link"). We wish for a return to that capability while supporting a default common set in the absence of a custom one. 

[Shiro]

Great!  That explains it quite clearly and I will go back and "tag" my entries.  I appreciate your quick answer.

[Renee Zamora]

We have a webinar that demonstrates how to work with Media. It was created for version 5 but it's the same in version 6.

 

30. New Media Tagging in RootsMagic 5

http://www.rootsmagic.com/webinars/

[Jerry Bryan]

Just to confuse things further, there is also an older style of adding media to RM that's still supported. For example, instead of going into the Media Gallery, adding media, and tagging the media to an item in RM, you can go to an item in RM and connect the media from there (in the opposite direction, if you will).

 

If you start with the media and connect to the item, it's usually called tagging. If you start with the item and connect to the media, it's often called linking. But it's the same thing.

 

An "item" in RM that can connected with media can be a person, a fact (birth or death, etc.), a place, a source, a citation, and several other things that I can't think of right now.

 

Jerry

[Vyger]

Just to confuse things further, there is also an older style of adding media to RM that's still supported.

 

And long should it remain so

[zhangrau]

c24m48, on 16 Jul 2014 - 11:39 AM, said:
there is also an older style of adding media to RM that's still supported.

I rarely use the Media Gallery, because the folder structure on my hard drive is so much more convenient for finding and linking an image to an Individual or Fact. It would be nice if the Media Gallery could be arranged into folders or groups to mimic my organization. According to my File Properties, I have over 14K multimedia files, with over 32K links. The Media Gallery places these items into a single list, with only the ability to sort by Filename or Caption. Sorting by Date, Folder, Group, etc. would greatly improve the Media Gallery's usefulness.

[Jerry Bryan]

I rarely use the Media Gallery, because the folder structure on my hard drive is so much more convenient for finding and linking an image to an Individual or Fact. It would be nice if the Media Gallery could be arranged into folders or groups to mimic my organization.

 

I understand and agree. Nevertheless, if you are going to be able to peacefully co-exist with the Media Gallery, at a minumum you will have to be sure that all your media file names are unique. You cannot depend on being able to have two files with the same name in different folders. That issue typically doesn't arise for me for photographs. But for documents I had to change my naming conventions to include things like the state and county of census images in every file name even though I also have a folder structure for such documents that is organized by state and county.

 

Jerry

[Shiro]

OK.  I understand most of this discussion and I have been using the property button to edit the media.  I have another confusion and I think it is best explained if I go thru the steps I have been taking.  Maybe I am missing something.

 

I want to enter a source for my daughter's birth.  I go to her page and click on the birth fact and enter the data.  I click on the source button and enter a new source for her birth registration.  Once I have entered all that I am still on the source form and I want to attach the scanned registration form.  I hit the media button and add the new media.  Now I am doing all this after starting from the birth fact line on my daughter's page.  When I hit ok and go back to her page the media does not show up.  I have to go to the media gallery and tag the media to this fact. 

 

Next, I added the birth certificate and while in the source entry form I attached the media and from the media entry I tagged back to my daughter's birth.  But even from there I had to go back to the people index and choose her and back to the fact index and choose birth.  I find this very awkward.  Am I missing something?

 

Al

[Laura]

You have to tag the media to the fact separately.  You only tagged the media file to the source.  It is not clear from the post whether you tabbed the media to the Master source or Source detail or both.

 

You did not have to go to the Media Gallery.  You can tag a media file to multiple places from any Media Album just as you do from the Media Gallery.

 

When you tagged the media to the source from the source Media Album, you could have also tagged the media to a fact [and any where else you want the media tagged to] on that same Media Album screen before you closed the screen.  Fact is labeled as Event on the Tag type dropdown menu.

 

Then, you could have closed all the screens to go back to the Edit person screen.

 

Please watch the Webinar at the website posted by Renee.

[zhangrau]

On 20 Jul 2014 Laura said:
Fact is labeled as Event on the Tag type dropdown menu.

Here's a source of confusion !! Why use different names for the same thing in different places? Perhaps this kind of inconsistency can be corrected in the upcoming RM7?

[Jerry Bryan]

Yes, the terminology is very inconsistent. The most consistent way to handle it would probably be to declare that birth is a "fact type" and that John Doe's birth is an "event". Hence, in a consistent genealogy software world there would be "fact types" and "events",  but no "facts". But we human beings are not consistent, and we can easily identify "facts" as being the same as "fact types" in one instant and we can easily identify "facts" as being the same as "events" in another instant. We users do it, and it seems that the RM developers also do it.

 

To further elaborate on Laura's excellent discussion of tagging media in this thread, there are two very confusing aspects of the user interface. One of these confusing aspects is the ability that I mentioned earlier in the thread to start with an object in RM such as a birth event or a citation for a birth event and connect to a media file via Add New Media or Add From Gallery, or alternatively to start with a media file and to tag the media file to an object in RM such as a birth event or a citation to a birth event. I wouldn't want to remove either capability, but the fact that you can do it in either direction can make it very confusing.

 

Even more confusing, I think, is that no matter in which direction you do the connecting, media files can be connected to a birth event or to a source for a birth event or to a citation for a birth event (and the same for any other type of event). It's a common question from beginners (and sometimes from experienced users) as to where is the best place to do such connecting of media files - to an event itself or to a source or citation for an event.

 

It seems to me that the most logical place to attach a media file as documentation is to attach the file either to a source for an event or to a citation for an event. Of these two choices, which makes more sense has a great deal to do with whether you are a so-called lumper or splitter of sources and citations. But there are idiosyncrasies in the user interface that can lead you to attach documentation to the event rather than to a source or citation for an event.

 

If you are at a media file and are tagging it to something, it's just as easy to tag the file to a source or citation for an event as it is to tag the file to an event itself. In this case, I don't think the user interface leads you astray and my personal recommendation is certainly to tag a media file which is documentation either to a source or to a citation.

 

If you are at an event and connecting in a media file as documentation via Add New Media or Add From Gallery, it's much easier to connect the media file to the event itself. The place to put the connection is very visible in the user interface, and the user interface pulls you very much in the direction connecting the media file to the event. In order to connect the media file to a source or citation for the event in this situation, you have to drill down very deeply into the user interface and it can be very difficult to find the proper place to establish the connection. Indeed, even if you have previously placed the connection to a media file at the level in the user interface of a source or citation for an event, it can be very difficult to find the connection again. So for example, you might establish the connection by tagging from the media file in the Media Gallery, and then find it very difficult to find the connection in the Edit Person screen. Until and unless the user interface is changed to address this issue, it's going to be a problem for a lot of users.

 

Jerry

[zhangrau]

The easy visibility of media linked to facts/events (in the Edit Person screen) has led me to primarily tag/link media at that level.

As for sourcing style, I'm a lumper, I think. For example, I have a Source named "1930 US Census" and in the Source Details box I place a rough description of the census page (an older example was "line 68, page 14B (image 28), ED 76-76, Ward 3, Akron, Summit County, OH" - a recent example would be "MA, Hampden, Holyoke Ward 05"). I copy/paste or transcribe info from the census page into Detail text - Research Notes. I then memorize this citation and paste it over & over for each appropriate individual for: General Sources, Birth, Census, Residence, Occupation, Marriage, and Alternate Name facts/events.

The image of the census page gets linked to each individual's census fact/event, but NOT to the Source citation. I've considered adding the census image to the Source citation, but my census image folder contains over four thousand image files, and I just can't see making all those changes. Especially since the people I share Publisher reports with will rarely see the images linked in either place - unless I include a Scrapbook in the Publisher book.

[Vyger]

The easy visibility of media linked to facts/events (in the Edit Person screen) has led me to primarily tag/link media at that level.
 

 

I do exactly the same thing for the the same reasons. I would say logically those documents should be part of the Source Citiation media but the visibility is lost in Edit Person so you have to go looking for it.

 

Maybe the Rootsmagician will program a way to bring visibility of the existance of media to the top level in Edit Person. 

[MansfieldTerrier]

Hi - newbie here, so please go easy on me!

I haven't yet watched the webinar which deals with this aspect of the program, but I am continually frustrated by not (apparently) being able to 'tag' a picture of a house to a given address. Whenever I try to do it, I simply seem to get a small 'globe' icon.

But what I WANT to do is whenever I assign a given residence to a person in the tree I want that media image/picture of the residence to be automatically assigned to that person and a 'tick' to appear on the media column for that residence with that person instead of having to individually assign it every time the address crops up.

 

Or am I asking too much?

 

MT

[TomH]

You are certainly asking for an enhancement and one that is not unreasonable. If the residence address is a Place or Place Detail, you can tag the media accordingly and it will be applicable to all events for that address. However, it does not currently get included in any reports. Bummer!

[Renee Zamora]

You will need to tag the media to the event in order for it to be viewable and used by that person. If you tag it to the place or place detail you won't see the connection from the Edit Person screen. We do have that as an enhancement request in our tracking system. 

[Laura]

There has been a change since the Webinar was made.

When you open a person's Edit person screen and select the Media Album for the person, General media is now the default choice for the dropdown menu instead of All media.

General media shows only the media tagged to the person's name.

All media shows the media tagged to the person [General], Family, Facts, etc.

Renee, please tell Bruce and Michael thank you for that change.

[MansfieldTerrier]

Thanks for your help - and apologies for my delay in replying; I haven't yet sorted out how to tell this forum how to notify me of replies instantly!

 

MT

[TomH]

Two places to explore in the popup list when you click the arrow beside your login name at the top of the window

My settings > Notification options
And
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