Proposal to add "Type" property in Aries editor

[Matjaz]

The Type property only exists in the Cygnus editor, but not in the Aries editor, although it would be useful. Wouldn't it make sense to have this option in Aries as well? After all, Aries is supposed to be more complete than Cygnus.

It wasn't until I read one of the previous posts on the topic of "type" that I realized that I could have used the type property before, at least in connection with occupations. But since I mostly use Aries, I didn't even think about it, even though I could have done it in the Gedcom editor.

During all this time, I have accumulated a long list of occupations that I would now like to categorize. I see no other option than to do it one by one. I imagine that it would be easier to do this if there was a similar list for types/occupations as there is for places (List/Table of palce), with the option to edit, replace, etc. Such a possibility would also be interesting to have in the long term, since there is always a need to change the names of occupations and re-categorize them.

Best regards,

Matjaž

[FredericL]

Hi,

in Ancestris version 13 is already there, just try adding a TYPE value from the Gedcom editor and then see where it has been added into Aries.
In Ancestris version 14, we have made it clear where it is.

Best regards,
Frederic

[Matjaz]

Thanks for your explanation.

I can see that TYPE from Gedcom is added as Event Descriptor in Aries 13.

As for the rest, it seems there is no easy way to retroactively categorize occupations that have been assiged so far. But may be that this functionality already exists in Ancestris 14 and is just waiting for me to try it out!?

Best regards,

Matjaž

[FredericL]

Yes, try Ancestris 14 and see if it works for you as you would expect.

Regards,
Frederic

[Matjaz]

Thanks, I'll take a look.

I am submitting another observation regarding the "type" property.

I did a quick comparison of the Aries and Gedcom editors for the "type" property:

"Occupation" in Aries is "OCCU" in Gedcom, "Event Descriptor" is "TYPE" in Gedcom, which should match your explanation.

But "Event" in Aries becomes "TYPE" in Gedcom and "Event Descriptor" in Aries becomes "EVENT" in Gedcom, which is rather the opposite of occupation. Is that right, or is it an inconsistency? I find it confusing.

Matjaž

[FredericL]

This confusion has been resolved in Ancestris 14.

[Matjaz]

I just checked in Ancestris 14 for the problem I described in my previous reply. I see that the problem has also been transferred to Ancestris 14. If I illustrate it only with the example of the Aries editor, which I mainly use, the data from "Event" from Aries (Ancestris 13) was transferred to "Event type" in Aries (Ancestris 14), and the data from "Event discriptor" from Aries (Ancestris 13) to "Event" in Aries (Ancestris 14), which I think is not correct. Both data types are now swapped and no longer appear logical.

This is most likely due to the fact that already in Ancestris 13, data entered in the Aries editor was transferred in this way to the Gedcom. There is no such problem with "Occupation" and "Event type".

Best regards,

Matjaž

[FredericL]

Please make sure you start with a newly created individual:
- Type if a category of description.
- Description is the exact event details as found in official source document

To my knowledge, this is now consistent across the editors.

If you reuse some existing individual events, it might be confusing because the data could have been entered the other way around.

Best regards,
Frederic

[Matjaz]

Yes, for newly created individuals this seems understandable to me! And that's how it actually works now. But I'm not happy that all the events that I've added in the past in the Aries editor as "Event" were changed to "Event type" (the same has also happened in the Gedcom editor). For example, the event "During World War I, he fought on the Isonzo front" became "Event type", and the description "Military battle" in "Event descriptor" became "Event". If things worked the way they do in the case of occupations, where "Occupation" equals event and "Event descriptor" equals "TYPE", I would understand, but now the whole thing seems to me even more confusing. I hope this can be cleared up. Please, excuse me for being so persitent.

Best regards,

Matjaž

[FredericL]

Hi,

Only Aries has changed the way some events display the description, not the Gedcom editor, and Ancestris has not moved your data, so the information displayed in the Gedcom editor is the information that used to be displayed in the gedcom editor.
Also, events that had both the description and the type did not change either. Only events which do not have a description property (BIRT, DEAT and a few more) and where the type was used for entering a description by Aries have now a type which is called a type and which used to be called a description before the change in Aries.

Bottom line is: your data should not be changed and has not been changed nor moved. The only thing is, if you used Aries for BIRT, DEAT, what you though was a description is a description and remains, but now it is called a TYPE because that's what it was written into inside the Gedcom file and the Gedcom editor. There is no other way to describe a birth in the Gedcom standard apart from using the TYPE field.

I hope that clarifies and sorry for the pats confusion, but again, no data is more incorrect in your file than it used to be.

Best regards,
Frederic

[Matjaz]

What you explained about the Gedcom editor is true. The data from the Gedcom editor did carry over from Ancestris 13 to Ancestris 14 as is. But the problem already arose in Ancestris 13, because the data for "Event" entered in the Aries editor was entered into the wrong properties in Gedcom. Plese, see the attachment with an example for the event "Event", which I write about all the time (in other events such as "Birth" etc. I did not detect any irregularities).

As a result, this error would need to be fixed in all the instances for "Event", and they are rather many in my database.

Best regards,

Matjaž

[FredericL]

As far as I can see, you entered Military Operations in the description field of the event in Ancestris 13 and it remains in the description field of the event now in Ancestris 14.
So if if Military Operations was the type of event, it should have been entered the other way around.

[Matjaz]

I understand what you're trying to tell me. However, I still can't accept that my understanding of where to enter which data in the case of "Event" is wrong. Let me emphasize that for editing I only used Aries, and not Gedcom.

The following is a description of my reasoning:

The tooltip for "Event Descriptor" in Aries (Ancestry 13) gives the following explanation: "A descriptive word or phrase used to define the event being cited". The explanation in the tooltip for event property "TYPE" in Gedcom gives similar explanation: "Type: a descriptive word or phrase used to further classify the inormation". So "Event Descriptor" in Aries should correspond to "TYPE" in Gedcom. It was my understanding that I should only use a short term here, which I did (eg. Military operations). I did similarly in the case of event "Occupation", and yet the data representation in Gedcom is not the same as in the case of event "Event": correct in the case of "Occupation", incorrect – in my opinion – in the case of "Event".

I’m very sorry but I’m still not able to understand why I would have to enter the data for type in Aries in the case of "Event" in the exact opposite way as in the case of "Occupation" to get it right in Gedcom.

Best regards,

Matjaž

[FredericL]

Yes you're right. Aries version 13 was inconsistent in terms of descriptions and types (I do not have the old code in front of me now but EVEN and FACT tags were treated by exception (because these tags have a mandatory value in Gedcom standard 5.5.1), hence the change. Version 14 removes this confusion and that explains why you end up with reversed entered data for EVEN tags.
Unfortunatelly to reverse the values you have to manually copy/paste the switch.
We cannot automate this switch but if you are ready to give me your gedcom file and tell me which fields need the switch, I can do it for you.

Cheers,
Frederic

[Matjaz]

Thank you very much for your clarification. At least now I know that I put my data in seemingly the right place and that the problem wouldn't have occurred if I had used some other editor instead of Aries. Thanks also for your offer to make corrections to my file, but I think I'll be able to do it myself.

Finally, I would like to ask what you think about my proposal to add the possibility of retrospective categorization and, if necessary, recategorization of occupations in Ancestris. I think this would be a useful tool. (Or maybe there's already a way to do it and I just don't know.)

Best regards,

Matjaž