Tom, One more note FWIW. As you suggested, all or nearly all of my sources being converted to the new templates are indeed the old Free Form templates, so that likely does explain what I am experiencing. I will just keep plugging along, doing one source at a time and one fact at a time within that source, but I sure wish there was a better (and less tedious and time-consuming) way than creating a new source and them manually entering the information one fact at a time before deleting the old (and then empty) source. David E. Cann decann@infionline.net or "david.e.cann" on Skype -----Original Message----- From: David E. Cann [mailto:decann@infionline.net] Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 8:37 PM To: 'rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com' Subject: RE: [RMagic] New source templates vs. old Tom, Yes, I kind of thought it was something like that, although I don't know as much about the process as you apparently so I could not be sure. I will just keep plugging along doing one source entry at a time, but given the sheer size of a the number of citations in some of my sources, I will just make a decision at the time whether they wind up getting updated at all. Thank you for the reply. David E. Cann decann@infionline.net or "david.e.cann" on Skype -----Original Message----- From: rootsmagic-users-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:rootsmagic-users-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Tom Holden Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 4:52 PM To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [RMagic] New source templates vs. old It is my impression that the citations stay put for the same person|family|event when their source is merged into another source. person|family|What I suspect you are seeing is the loss of information that occurs when you merge sources having differing source template. That is true also if Free Form is one of them. All the field names of the secondary source (meaning the one that will be merged) must exist in the same hierarchy in the destination of primary source, else their values will appear to be lost; i.e. master source fields must appear in the destination's master source spec and source details fields in the destination's source details spec. The data is not necessarily gone, though. By adding the secondary field names to the appropriate places in the primary source template sentence templates, I think they will be outputted. A long time ago (RM4 days), a source conversion utility was requested for mapping sources from one template to another. That's not simple, because of the hierarchical consideration, when converting between lumpy and splitty sources. It can be made to work for citations of finely split sources to lumped sources but not the other way round. Tom <snip>

I went down that route for a while until I realized it was counter-productive. While the built in or similar source templates provide form or pattern for improved consistency and can result in more succinct "short footnotes" than can the equivalent Free Form source containing the same information, the screwed up output on GEDCOM export was fatal to my needs. Wanting better short footnotes AND transparent export, I developed the !MyFreeForm3 source template which duplicates and extends Free Form. There is no loss merging from Free Form to !MyFreeForm3 (but no improvement to the short footnote without editing the citation); the reverse direction is lossy but there should be no need to do so. I continue to use the other templates to help draft the citation but save it in !MyFreeForm3. That was smoother in RM4 than it is in 5 because now you have to create and save the master source before you can cite it resulting in a templated draft that has to be deleted; before you could draft source and source details without saving. From that draft, I copy the sentences for Footnote, Short Footnote and Bibliography to a word processor for parsing into the desired !MyFreeForm3 source. Tom On 2012-10-02, at 8:44 PM, "David E. Cann" <decann@infionline.net> wrote: > Tom, > > One more note FWIW. As you suggested, all or nearly all of my sources being > converted to the new templates are indeed the old Free Form templates, so > that likely does explain what I am experiencing. I will just keep plugging > along, doing one source at a time and one fact at a time within that source, > but I sure wish there was a better (and less tedious and time-consuming) way > than creating a new source and them manually entering the information one > fact at a time before deleting the old (and then empty) source. > > > David E. Cann > decann@infionline.net > or "david.e.cann" on Skype > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: David E. Cann [mailto:decann@infionline.net] > Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 8:37 PM > To: 'rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com' > Subject: RE: [RMagic] New source templates vs. old > > Tom, > > Yes, I kind of thought it was something like that, although I don't know as > much about the process as you apparently so I could not be sure. I will > just keep plugging along doing one source entry at a time, but given the > sheer size of a the number of citations in some of my sources, I will just > make a decision at the time whether they wind up getting updated at all. > > Thank you for the reply. > > > David E. Cann > decann@infionline.net > or "david.e.cann" on Skype > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: rootsmagic-users-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:rootsmagic-users-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Tom Holden > Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 4:52 PM > To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [RMagic] New source templates vs. old > > It is my impression that the citations stay put for the same > person|family|event when their source is merged into another source. > person|family|What I > suspect you are seeing is the loss of information that occurs when you merge > sources having differing source template. That is true also if Free Form is > one of them. All the field names of the secondary source (meaning the one > that will be merged) must exist in the same hierarchy in the destination of > primary source, else their values will appear to be lost; i.e. master source > fields must appear in the destination's master source spec and source > details fields in the destination's source details spec. The data is not > necessarily gone, though. By adding the secondary field names to the > appropriate places in the primary source template sentence templates, I > think they will be outputted. > > A long time ago (RM4 days), a source conversion utility was requested for > mapping sources from one template to another. That's not simple, because of > the hierarchical consideration, when converting between lumpy and splitty > sources. It can be made to work for citations of finely split sources to > lumped sources but not the other way round. > > Tom > > <snip> > > > > =================================== > RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS > WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message