TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2003-11 > 1067812276


From: "John Cardinal" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] Web page creation
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 17:31:19 -0500
In-Reply-To: <LDENIDGJNKMFGDHNGHKPIEFDCEAA.dbwing@sasktel.net>


Don Wingfield wrote:
> This is the whole problem. The date is fixed. In my county we use the date
> format "mmm dd, yyyy" I also does not produce dates with the provision for
> the differences in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. TMG does this in it's
> reports.
>
> > TMG does not store the dates as you entered them (except for irregular
> > dates) but I don't think that is the crux of the issue.
>
> What do you mean by this? If it does not store information as I enter it
> then the program is not of much use is it?

Don,

The version of the date stored by TMG for "January 1, 2003" looks like this

12003010103000000000

which is not how a user enters the date. In TMG you can choose from among a set
of output formats. It appears you have chosen "month day, year". As I suspected,
the problem you have with SS is not that it doesn't produce dates as you entered
them, but rather, that it doesn't support the output format you prefer. The "dd
mmmm yyyy" format SS uses is the most common format used by genealogists. I will
add additional formats someday, but there have been very few requests for them.
In fact, I only remember one before now, and that was from a German user who
wants SS to support the format preferred in Germany.

TMG does not really support Julian dates. It does support "Old Style" dates
which are used for the period when both calendars were in use and January,
February, and March had dates in one year under one calendar and the next year
under the other. Second Site supports Old Style dates.

> >With regards to living people, Second Site has an option where you can
> >show only the names of people excluded from the site, including living
> >people, so I also disagree with your statement that you can't "hide the
> >data of living persons unless you hid the person entirely." Many users
> >have asked for an expansion of that feature, however, and I plan to do
> >just that. The biggest difficulty has been getting users to agree about
> >what should be shown and what should be hid. It's simple until you ask
> >more than one person.
>
> I have 4 generations that are living at the moment. I can get my fathers
> name to show in the output as a living person. Where am I and my children
> and my grandchildren? All I want is for the names to show. Cousins and other
> relations will know where to start to see their ancestors, but what about
> someone else. Eg. an unknown family line that is looking for connections.

That's what you want, and I am sure some people want the same thing. But other
people have asked for different things including the ability to selectively pick
which events are included for living people, the ability to designate portions
of the name to show (e.g., surname only), the ability to vary what is shown for
living people according to their age, and about a dozen other requests. As I
said, I will add options in this area.

John

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