8 replies to this topic

[Vyger]

Please add right click functionality to Timeline View, I use Timeline View a lot in reconciling possible matches and the ability to remove individuals from Quickgroups would be very useful.

 

At present I need to click on another Tab to get the Quickgroups functionality which is another uneccessary pain.

 

[Vyger]

I thought some more on this as I worked;

 

I create groups of possible interest and matches through particular data selection, I then arrow up and down viewing the possibles and many are then identified as not being of interest.

 

At that point my only option at present is to click another Tab and use the right click Quickgroups to remove them from the group, not good or productive.

 

What I now think would be the most productive is to have check boxes highlighted/de-highlighted by spacebar just like select persons, combined with a buttoon to Remove Selected

 

This combined with the addition of options to display DOB, Record Number, Alt Name and Death Date would make this UI very functional for me, see below;

 

[Jerry Bryan]

I am very supportive of your ideas for enhancements both to TimeLine View and to QuickGroups. My only concern has to do with QuickGroups, and it really doesn't have anything to do with your suggested enhancements. Rather, it has to do with the original concept of QuickGroups itself.

 

I love QuickGroups and I use it a lot. And nearly all RM users very much want Dynamic Groups - namely that RM would remember the criteria used to create a Named Group and then provide a reasonable mechanism to re-apply those criteria. But there have been a few messages in these forums through the years that suggest that somehow or other the QuickGroups mechanism couldn't be included along with Dynamic Groups because the group additions and deletions would not be part of the saved criteria. But there is absolutely no technical or philosophical reason why QuickGroups additions and Deletions could not be included along with the original criteria used to create a group. For that matter, there is no reason why the original saved criteria (if they existed) couldn't have a Criteria Editor where you could change the criteria in any way you wished.

 

For example, suppose you made a group by Marking all descendants of John Doe. Except that you might then unmark all descendants of John's son Samuel because Samuel is not yet proven as John's son and you might want a group consisting only of proven descendants.  Furthermore (and this is a really silly example), for some weird reason you might unmark Samuel and his descendants for zero generations rather than for a large number of generations. This would only remove Samuel from the criteria and from the group without removing any of Samuel's descendants. And that's no different than going into Samuel with QuickGroups and removing just Samuel from the group. So if we ever get the saving of group criteria and the ability to re-apply that criteria, the criteria needs to be view-able and editable, and the criteria need to include and embrace group changes made via QuickGroups.

 

Sorry for sort of hijacking your thread, but the length of time we have been without Dynamic Groups since the release of RM4 can sometimes be a bit of a sore subject. RM4 didn't include QuickGroups and it was added later. QuickGroups is a wonderful and very useful and productive feature. So I would hate to see QuickGroups enhancements and then also Dynamic Groups if Dynamic Groups do not include and embrace QuickGroups.

 

Jerry

 

[Vyger]

For that matter, there is no reason why the original saved criteria (if they existed) couldn't have a Criteria Editor where you could change the criteria in any way you wished.

 

Jerry,

 

I often use the Groups sidebar in conjunction with Timeline view to review carefully selected individuals for possible geographic and timeline crossovers along with data review.

 

The most productive way I can think of to increase the speed of working through and reconciling Group Members is either a Hot Key shortcut to remove any member in highlight or a sidebar selection as in my image attached. In my example suggested I would be able to arrow up and down through the Group members, assess them visually by geography and timeline and press the spacebar to highlight them for deselection. A specific HotKey would also be productive.

 

Currently I have to select a different Tab, right click, select QuickGroups, deselect the person in interest, click OK and return to the TimeLine View. SIX clicks where ONE click would suffice.

 

No need to apologize for diversification, I often do the same and many minds are better than one.

 

On the theme of remembering and Macros I used Lotus Approach many years ago and I could build a view (like a worksheet) assign a Macro to be run on view selection which would find and sort my requirements, that was 20+ years ago. I would like that ability on People View so I could add extra People View Tabs for different needs and Rootsmagic would remember the set up rather than constantly tweaking the view. With the dropdown for Named Groups the need for remember the find criteria no longer exists and multi sort fields have been wished for before on People View.

 

It's all about productivity in the end and SIX clicks to do something where ONE click would suffice is far from productive.

[pstaveley]

I too very much want dynamic groups. I would suggest that if there are particular individuals to be added or unmarked then there should be a confirmation button that says "You have made changes to (the criteria of) this group. Would you like to add those criteria to the original criteria of the group".

 

Thus if I say NO then those changes will be removed if a dynamic refresh of the group is made.

But if I say YES then those changes will be included for future refresh.

 

Obviously you need to be able to edit the criteria and then apply that changed criteria.

[Jerry Bryan]

I don't want to quibble about the exact details of dynamic groups and QuickGroups except to say that they need to work together. I'm very much like Vyger in that I will make a group and use it as a "to do list" of sorts, processing each person in the group and then removing each person from the group as they are processed. If Dynamic Groups restored the group to its original state,  that would not be a happy outcome. Hence, I think that any marking and unmarking of individuals done by QuickGroups needs to be appended to the original criteria so that if the original criteria were run again, everything done by QuickGroups would be remembered.

 

I suppose that begs the question of how the original group criteria would work with the additional criteria from QuickGroups. Suppose the original criterion was simply "all the descendants of John Doe including spouses". Suppose you removed a couple of people from the group with QuickGroups. These removals should be added to the group definition as additional criteria. Finally, suppose you added some new descendants and however it's done, Dynamic Groups did its thing to add the new descendants to the group. The group should now have all the descendants of John Doe plus spouses and including the newly added descendants, less those people removed from the group with QuickGroups. I would picture the removals being encoded in the list of group criteria as unmarkings of the removed individuals.

 

Jerry

 

[pstaveley]

Conversely suppose that you had a dynamic group and you wanted to exclude a few people was a one-off report. Obviously I remove those excluded people and run the report. What I then want to be able to do is put everything back to the default dynamic group. The last thing I want to do is have to include back all those I have excluded.

 

Another solution would be to be able to create a static group from a snapshot of a dynamic group. So in the above scenario I would copy the group, exclude the various people, run the report and delete the static group. Leaving the dynamic group untouched in any change to its definitions.

[TomH]

An old enhancement request is to copy a group, including a dynamic group (I think we agreed on another name but I forget what it was - doesn't have to be real-time, just a manual refresh). So you would make a copy, i.e., its history of applied filters and manual edits, edit its membership as needed (more filters and edits). If it's a one-off, delete when finished using it.

[Renee Zamora]

Confirming these are on the enhancement request list.