Software of the Month Club 1996 May

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Text File | 1994-12-25 | 14.9 KB | 330 lines

CHAPTER 4 THE MULTI AREA Navigating Around in an Open Folder INTRODUCING THE MULTI AREA... Before reading this chapter, you should have read chapter 3, "The Folder Area", because that chapter introduces some concepts that we assume you know about already -- things like how to read the menu bar, and what a folder is. The first screen you see when you open a folder is a thing called the "Multi Area". You may also hear us inadvertently refer to it as the "traversal screen", although we'll try not to let that term slip out during this documentation. It's called the Multi Area, because it is Command Central; except for a couple of areas which reside underneath the Folder Area, all of the areas in GIM reside underneath the Multi Area. You can think of "Multi" as an abbreviation for "multifunctional", because almost everything -- editing persons and families, printing forms, pruning, grafting, GIM LISTS, the works -- originates from the Multi Area. The Multi Area screen consists of only two parts: the menu bar across the top, and a pedigree-chart-like structure that looks a bit like a family tree. You'll see this tree a lot; it's what you use to navigate around in your folder. The first part of this chapter will discuss this family tree display, and the many methods for finding your way around it. The second part of this chapter will briefly introduce the many functions that are available from the Multi Area's menu bar. INTRODUCING THE MULTI AREA'S FAMILY TREE DISPLAY: THE TARGET PERSON... As you look at the Multi Area display, you'll see one person, more-or-less in the center of the display, who is highlighted. For the purposes of this discussion, we'll call that person the "target person". You can view any part of your family tree; any time you move to a new point on the tree, a new person becomes the target person. It's important to know who the target person is, because when you press F1 to modify or view information about a person, the person you are viewing is the target person. When you press F2 to modify or view a family, the target person is the father or mother of the family that you are viewing. When you enter the Forms Area to print a family group record, the target person is one of the parents on the form. And so it goes. You can change the target person in several ways: with arrow keys, with the mouse, with the alternate function keys, by soundex search, and by PIN/GIN/FIN number search. Each of these methods is very useful, and you will find yourself using all of them. Each of them will be discussed in turn below. THE SELECTED CHILD... Children are shown on the left-hand side of the screen. Most of them will not be highlighted, meaning that they will be drawn with normal colors as described in chapter 3. One of them, however, will be highlighted to show that he or she is the "progenitor", or direct-line ancestor child. This highlighting never changes, unless you select a different child as the progenitor (see chapter 8). One child -- perhaps the progenitor, or perhaps someone else -- is also highlighted to show that he or she is what's called the "selected" child. The selected child is the one who will become the new target person when you press the left arrow (see below). To change the selected child, press the page up and page down keys. The highlighting of the children will change as you do so. MULTIPLE SPOUSES, AND THE SELECTED SPOUSE... Multiple spouses -- if there are more than one -- of the target person, are shown in the lower left corner. As with children, one of the spouses will be highlighted to indicate that he or she is the direct ancestor of the target person. Again, that highlighting doesn't change. Similarly, one of the spouses will he highlighted to indicate that he or she is the "selected" spouse. When you press F2 to view or modify the target person's family (see chapter 8), this is the family that you will see. When you press the up or down arrows to move to the target person's spouse, you will move to the selected spouse (see below). To change the selected spouse, press the home and end keys. The highlighting of spouses will change as you do so. MOVING AROUND THE TREE: ARROW KEYS... The arrow keys can be used to make a different person become the target person. Play around with these a bit, and you'll see what we mean: (RIGHT) Right arrow moves to the person's father, if there is one. (CTL-RIGHT) Control right arrow moves to the person's mother, if there is one. (LEFT) The left arrow moves to the selected child, if there is one. (CTL-LEFT) Control left arrow moves to the selected child of the selected child; in other words, to the target person's grandchild. We don't use this one too much, but we just *had* to let control left arrow do *something*. (UP) For females, the up arrow moves to her selected spouse. For males who ARE NOT direct-line ancestors, the up arrow moves to his selected spouse. For males who ARE direct-line ancestors, the up arrow action may seem a little confusing from the description, but it really does make a lot of sense; bear with me. Imagine your family tree as one big giant-sized wall chart. For most male direct-ancestors on that wall chart, but not all, there's a person above him and a person below him. If the current target person is a direct-line ancestor, and if GIM can find another direct-line ancestor who is "above" the current target person, then the up arrow moves the target person to that person. Some ancestors are already at the top of the chart (for example, your father's father's father), and so there's no one above them. In that case, the up arrow has no effect. Some ancestors may not have anyone directly above them, due to gaps in your information. But there may be another direct line ancestor several spaces up. In that case, GIM will move the target person to that other ancestor. (DOWN) The down arrow is the opposite of the up arrow. For males and non-direct-line females, it moves to the selected spouse. For others, it moves to the direct- line ancestor below the target person on the wall chart. (CTRL-PAGEUP) The control page-up key moves to a previous sibling. (CTRL-PAGEDOWN) The control page-down key moves to the next sibling. MOVING AROUND THE TREE: THE MOUSE... The mouse can be used to make a different person become the target person. You can click on any person who is displayed on the Multi Area screen -- children, spouses, parents, grandparents, whatever -- to make that new person become the target person. As with arrow keys, we suggest you play around with these a bit, and you'll see what we mean. MOVING AROUND THE TREE: SOUNDEX SEARCH... (We assume you're familiar with soundex coding, because it's hard to do genealogy for very long without it. For details, see the "Soundex" entry in the Glossary, in Appendix B.) Let's suppose you want to find someone named "Charlie Brown" in your folder. While you're looking at the Multi Area screen, type in the name of the person you're looking for. GIM will search for a second or two, and come back with a list of persons who best match the name you typed. If you typed the name exactly as it appears in your folder, then that name will appear at or near the head of the list. Type the number that appears next to the name, or use the arrow keys and press return, and that person will suddenly become the new target person. Well, that was easy, you say, but wait: what were all those other names that appeared in the list with Charlie Brown? Names like Charles Brown, and Carl Braun, and Brenda Charles? The answer is that GIM uses a soundex coding system to very quickly find all the names in your folder which are close matches. This soundex coding system allows you to search for "Ann Larsen", even if you can't quite remember how you spelled her name -- "Ann Larsen", "Anna Larsdatter", "Anne Larson", or whatever. Play with this a while. You'll wonder how you ever got along without it. MOVING AROUND THE TREE: PIN/GIN/FIN NUMBER SEARCH... Every person in your folder has a unique Personal Index Number, or PIN number. Every family in your folder has a unique Family Index Number, or FIN number. Every direct-line ancestor in your folder has -- or should have -- a Genealogical Index Number, or GIN number. (If any of your direct-line ancestors don't have GINs, you should run, don't walk, to the Utilities Area and do the Match PIN-GIN function; see chapter 15 for details.) If you happen to know any of these numbers, you can type them in at the Multi Area screen in much the same way that you did for first and last names in the previous section. (While you may often want to know GIN numbers for direct line ancestors, you will rarely need to know any PIN or FIN numbers.) To go to the person with a GIN number of 1234, type G1234 at the Multi Area screen. GIM may need to search briefly for that person, but if there is a person with that GIN number, he or she will become the target person. To go to the person with a PIN number of 567, type P567 at the Multi Area screen. To go to the family with a FIN number of 89, type F89 at the Multi Area screen. MOVING AROUND THE TREE: SPOUSE NUMBER and CHILD NUMBER... If the target person has one or more spouses, you can make any of them the target person by typing "S" and the number. For example, to make the third spouse the new target person, type S3 at the Multi Area screen. If the target person has one or more children, you can make any of them the target person by typing "C" and the number. For example, to make the fifth child the new target person, type C5 at the Multi Area screen. MOVING AROUND THE TREE: THE ALTERNATE FUNCTION KEYS... GIM keeps track of the last eight target persons, and stores that information in the first eight alternate function keys. So, suppose your current target person is George Washington, and you want to take a quick look at Franklin Roosevelt and then come back. To do so, do whatever you need to do to get to Roosevelt. Then, Alt-F1 will contain the name of the most recent target person -- in this case, Washington -- and if you press that key, GIM will take you right back where you were. Try it; after you've navigated around for a while, hold down the Alt key, and you'll see the names of your eight most recent target persons displayed in the menu bar. MULTI AREA MENU BAR FUNCTIONS... As we said earlier, just about everything in the program is available from the Multi Area. Here's a summary, to whet your appetite: UNSHIFTED FUNCTION KEYS... F1 modifies an existing person; to add a new one, use shift-F1; to delete an existing one, use control-F1; see chapter 7 for details. F2 modifies an existing family; to add a new one, use shift-F2; to delete an existing one, use control-F2; see chapter 8 for details. F3 enters the Forms Area, which prints Pedigree Charts and Family Group Records; see chapter 10 for details. F4 enters the GIM LISTS Area, which allows you to search your folder for lists of all kinds of information; see chapter 11 for information and a comprehensive user's guide. F5 enters the Utilities Area, which performs a few certain essential housekeeping functions; see chapter 15 for details. F6 enters the Prune Area, which allows you to copy or move branches of your family tree from one folder to another; use shift-F6 to graft branches; see chapters 12 and 13. F7 enters the Setup Area, which allows you to set certain preferences, select your printer, enable or disable mouse support, and more; see chapter 6 for details. As always, F8 repaints the screen, F9 delivers context- sensitive help, and F10 (and escape) exits the Multi Area. SHIFTED FUNCTION KEYS... shift-F1 adds a new person. shift-F2 adds a new family. shift-F3 adds a new child (with optional spouse) to the current family. shift-F4 adds a new spouse to the current person. shift-F5 adds a new set of (one or two) parents to the current person. shift-F6 enters the Graft Area; see chapter 13 for details. CONTROL FUNCTION KEYS... control-F1 deletes an existing person -- be careful!! control-F2 deletes an existing family -- be careful!! control-F4 merges two persons from within the same folder. control-F5 edits Folder Notes; see chapter 9 for details. As always, control-F8 edits colors for this area; see chapter 3 for details.