I wanted to say thanks to JR, Bruce, and C.G. for your comments regarding
the topic of source formatting in Legacy.
JR, I agree with you that there are plenty of places in Legacy to place
information that doesn't fit anywhere else, and that formatting isn't always
the biggest issue. I too want to have fun with my genealogy software and
have immensely enjoyed Legacy for over two years. However, I also agree
with C.G. that the need to publish drives us to achieve some sort of
readable, at least semi-standardized formatting.
My proposal to Legacy is just to add a few more areas of flexibility for
source formatting and there will still be plenty of room for the "artistic"
side of the citation details.
Here are the specifics:
1) Allow the user to choose the order of the source output components for
reports and web sites (and have a standard default for those who don't want
to mess with it). The option could be similar to that where the user
currently edits an event sentence. The individual components of the Master
Source (i.e. Title, Author, Publication Facts, Repository) can be inserted
any place in the source output in any combination with the particular
citation detail. This could be customized for all citations within a
particular source type. I use a different format for a census citation than
I would for a book or a deed copied from the county courthouse or a
newspaper on microfilm.
2) Give the user the capability to format the output with whatever
punctuation and/or italics, etc, he/she sees fit.
This all sounds a bit complicated, but I am convinced it would not be too
hard for Legacy's programmers to implement or to use. The default could
still be in place for anyone who isn't concerned with this issue.
Finally, I wanted to mention that Ms. Mills is actively working on a new
version of *Evidence!* that sounds like it will be fabulous. In the mean
time, she has a handy new inexpensive tool call a QuickSheet which is great
for citing online sources. I feel that with a few tweaks, Legacy can
provide the flexibility for its users to keep up with any changes in source
citations that might be coming down the pipeline. Again, to me, this is
what genealogy is all about - the source!
Thanks again for everyone's feedback. I continue to learn much from this
list!
Gail Rich Nestor
Smyrna, Georgia
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nestorgenealogy/
C.G. Ouimet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It may be true that to many of us, the (Legacy) database is it but it is
also the tool we use to generate/publish reports in a form that is
information to those interested in the data/information but not the tool.
So, the various reports, including the Publishing Center if we can get it
working properly, are important.
Bruce wrote:
Well said, John. I agree with you on all points.
JR wrote:
I completely agree that E. S. Mills is The Authority on citing sources. I
have her book and it is an impressive little thing. It is also IMO a bit
"over the top". She has all these different formats for all these different
sources and it just seems to me to be a bit TOO involved. Now Legacy may
not have the flexibility of TMG, but then folks complain about TMG being
ugly, hard to learn and slow. Maybe there's a trade off here, and if you
throw all the flexibility of TMG into Legacy 7, you wind up with an Ugly
and/or Slower Legacy? Maybe it takes so much developer time that other
things don't get in? I'd much rather see Legacy 7 make descendant charts
than see it handle sources in reports better.
Also at a certain level the need for this escapes me. I agree it may be
desireable, but the data are captured by the Legacy Database aren't they?
It's just a matter of how it's formatted on output, Footnote vs. Endnote and
what fields go into the footnote. Why not just stick the info you want into
the comments field and check the box that says include comments in source
citation? Yup it's tedious, but it can be done can't it?
Besides it seems to me that perhaps Pro Genealogists are a bit behind the
technology curve here? They like reports cuz that's what they deal with
because that's what's been done in the past. But if the data's all in a
database, then just get the database and who needs the report?
Gail wrote:
In citing my sources, I would like to be able to include the web site
address as part of the "master source" in Legacy, and to include the
accessed date as part of the "citation detail." With Legacy, I cannot do
this and have it formatted as Mills' example above (combined within the
parentheses).
I recently brought this up on the APG list and Ms. Mills herself responded
to my post: "Sounds like you need to lobby your software developer to give
you more flexibility!"
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