Wow. I seem to have started/re-opened something here. Thanks to everyone for being SO responsive, thoughtful and helpful. For myself, I only need to use a “1” or some other flag to ensure the fact I want comes at the top, so that my preferred (or most accurate) birth, marriage and death dates are the ones used for sorting and so on. Once that is done, all the other dates become mere observations and it really doesn’t matter to me what order they are in. If I can use a flag for a particular entry, I may well turn the automatic date sorting back on for the rest. Also, let's say that I have several observations and then find the actual date of birth. At that point, I don’t want to futz around with more than one flag for ordering purposes. Appreciate of course that others may have different needs. I’m not sure I understand what is meant by Descriptor. Can someone explain, please? Is it a current field or a proposed field? Regards Paul Howes www.howesfamilies.com From: Beryl and Mike Tate Sent: ‎Thursday‎, ‎March‎ ‎20‎, ‎2014 ‎2‎:‎47‎ ‎PM To: [email protected] I suggested ordinal numbers '1st' to '9th' for several reasons. (1) They would probably avoid conflict with any other use of the Descriptor. (2) I got the feeling that '1st' satisfied the main need and the rest were a bonus, and beyond '9th' was probably irrelevant. (3) Sorting on those works whether treated as numerical or textual. The danger of just allowing any digits is that they must all be the same length otherwise textual sorting would go 1, 10, 11, 100, 2, 23, 3, 300, so care must be taken in Queries, Columns, Plugins to convert to numerical format before sorting. I was expecting the user would set the Descriptor as they entered the data, and the Plugin would simply sort without any dialogue, just like the current FH re-ordering commands. However, I am happy to go with the majority. Regards, Mike Tate -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sent: 20 March 2014 18:04 Be good to standardise, but I don't see why a restriction of 9 is necessary or sufficient (you could have more than nine birth-dates for an individual from different sources, for example -- 8 censuses, a marriage and a baptism) -- why not just use numbers and order lowest to highest? That way somebody could choose to number 100, 200, 300 etc. and slip an entry in between 100 and 200 without needing to re-number anything. ColeValleyGirl www.colevalleygirl.co.uk Moderator, genealogy.stackexchange.com -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sent: 20 March 2014 17:55 May I suggest that the Descriptor values should be standardised on the ordinal numbers 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., 9th. (Nine should be enough.) Then not only could a Plugin order the Facts in the Properties Box appropriately, but Fact Queries, and Record Window Columns could also filter and order the Facts according to the Descriptor. Regards, Mike Tate ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

"I’m not sure I understand what is meant by Descriptor. Can someone explain, please? Is it a current field or a proposed field?" It is an existing standard GEDCOM field, but only visible in the All tab of the Property Box or in the Individual Records window. Right-click on any Fact and among others it offers 'Add Descriptor' which if selected provides a box to enter a value. This value can be used in Expressions in Diagrams, Queries, Reports, and Records Window Columns to display just your preferred Facts. In the Property Box that value has no effect in ordering the Facts and thus the earliest dated Fact will appear first and in the Main tab. (Assuming you have ticked Tools > Preferences > General > Enable automatic ordering of events/attributes by date.) This is where the Plugin could change the order based on the Descriptor values. Another technique that is not ideal but might suit you is to use Date Phrases. Date Phrases are ignored when sorting Facts by Date, they remain below any genuine Dates sorted in alphabetic order. So put all your Date details in the Date Phrase instead of an actual date, EXCEPT for the one preferred Date which is entered as normal. Then the genuine Date will remain as Fact[1] with the others below, although a little manual persuasion may be needed initially to get that effect. Regards, Mike Tate