Thanks for those comments, Brian. It's nice to know that the issue was at least partially addressed in v8. And like I mentioned, it is an obscure bug but the bombshell remains in that once the user makes those steps in swapping an event with a Vital Record Event, data in the Notes are destroyed by Legacy. There is no Oops button; there is no Go Back button. The data is lost forever unless one can open up a backup to retrieve it. The problem is that a user would not be aware that Legacy destroyed data in the Notes field unless they specifically checked to see if it was all there. Maybe after v8 gets smoothed out, v9 or v10 might get this issue addressed. Not really a widespread problem now but the concept that the program can lose user's data is not a good advertisement.
Brian in CA -----Original Message----- From: Brian/Support [mailto:br...@legacyfamilytree.com] Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 6:37 AM To: legacyusergroup@LegacyUsers.com Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Notes The swap difficulty with notes is no longer as problem in Legacy 8. There is still a difficulty transferring between a regular and a vital event however. The Vital Events have no Description field. To work around this in Legacy 8 any Description from the regular event is transferred to the Vital Event Notes as the first line (existing event notes are appended after this line). If there is any possibility you may want to switch back do not remove that first line of the vital event notes. If you later switch the vital event with a regular event the description will be replaced in the regular event with the contents of that first line. In Legacy 7 my testing showed that the notes transfer correctly to the vital event. It is notes from the vital event that got cut off when they were transferred to a regular event. This is the opposite of what you imply in your message. Legacy 7 will not be fixed. Brian Customer Support Millennia Corporation br...@legacyfamilytree.com http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com On 28 Jan 2014 3:44 PM, Brian L. Lightfoot wrote: > I agree with your suggestion about the use of the Notes fields and I tend to > use them quite a bit. However, there is an obscure bug in their use that > could present a minefield of disaster unless the user knows about this. This > obscure bug involves the use of “Alt.<Event>†events such as > “Alt.Birth†or “Alt.Deathâ€. For example, whenever I come across such > a bit of data that presents an alternate date of birth, I create such an > Alt.Birth event and then I use the Notes tab of that alternate event to add > my notes or a description of why this date may differ from the main Birth > event and other explanations. In a few cases, I’ve had a long text note > that came via email and it was copied and pasted into the Notes tab of the > alternate event. > > Now, here is where the bug occurs. Imagine that as one’s research > continues, you confirm that the alternate event has the correct data but > you’d still like to keep the other event just for continued research > reasons. Legacy makes it easy for you to just select the Alternate Event, > then click on Options, and then select “Swap with <Event> Informationâ€. > Beware! If you have more than 255 characters in your Alternate Event Notes > tab, and you swap the events, you will lose all your notes beyond the first > 255 characters. In other words, the transfer of text is limited to only 255 > characters. If you can remember this bombshell, I’d suggest you first copy > the lengthy notes to the General Notes area, complete the Swap, and then copy > the lengthy notes back to where they got cut off. > > I don’t know if this bug still exists in v8 but it was still there in the > last v7. Will it ever get fixed? Maybe, but I’m not holding my breath > because there seems to be an infestation of other bugs in v8 that are more > pressing than this minor issue. > > Brian in CA Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
