FTM2012 and AMT TreeSync - Clean Up, follow up

In my Blog Post,   FTM2012 and AMT TreeSync - Clean Up Genea-Blogger Randy made this comment.

 I dislike Abt Bef Aft and Bet

With the modern computer programs, I much prefer About, Before, after and Between for clarity and readability. I would also like to see Say as an option.

The Option works for Abt > About, but not the others. There need to bem ore options for these.

He is absolutely correct.

What I was really discussing, and was clear about this, is the Data Input, or the screens we see in FTM2012. Let me use this as an example:

I have the Birth Date "Abt 1769". That is the input side and what we see on the screens. I am not sure if Randy was talking about input or output, so I decided to see what our OPTIONS are on the Output side.

The first that I tried was a Chart.

b: Abt 1769 is the result on the chart. But, there are Options, in the Items to Include Menu.

Selected Items to Include (upper right), then selected Birth as a Fact, then looked at the Birth Options, which brought up my choices. The only choice was Full, Short, Abbreviated, but that was ONLY for the Fact Name. B. or Birth for example. So, no choices on the Charts.

For me, and the amount of data that you might put on a chart, I'm OK with that. Don't know Randy's reaction.

But, I wanted to look at the more formal Genealogy Reports. How was that displayed.

Well look at this. Abt is spelled out, in this more formal report. No options, but I don't think that options are needed if the formal Genealogy Report spells it out.

Not quite satisfied with this answer, I went back to the Tools, Options, Name/Dates/Places options to see what happens if I change Abt to About.

As you can see, the Abt is not About. So, returning to that Chart, Abt is not About.

Randy, Thank you for the comment to dig a little deeper into our options, both for input and output.

And if you are wondering, going back to the Input side, entering Abt 1700, will be changed to About 1700.

Lesson Learned: When working with how you want to deal with the formatting of your information in your file, check both Input and Output and what your options are. 

For example; How to handle Unknown Names. I have talked about that, but when the User is wondering how to handle such things, check BOTH Input and the Output before going in one direction or the other.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington