New Person Page August 2022
I find the new person page easy to work with and the fonts are large enough to read with no difficulty.
I just edited the burial information for a person in my family. After clicking "edit" I wanted to view the source to verify the modification I was going to make. In the current default person page when one clicks to view the source in edit mode one can review the source information and edit on the same screen. Perhaps I clicked the wrong link, but I found that I had to close the source before I could make the modification. Please use the current default methodology on the New Person Page for burials.
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Found a major fault (not apparent in Beta because Record Hints don't work there at all): the "review and attach" button is failing to open a new tab for Source Linker. It's opening it right there in the person's tab; in just five minutes, I managed to lose my spot three times, despite trying to remember to right-click. This is unacceptable.
As I wrote on the Feedback thingy, Source Linker always opening in a new tab was one of the very few constants on FamilySearch. Please don't ruin it.
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Memories is really broken. I have a series of documents I routinely add. I simply attach them. I ran into a very confusing dialog where I chose the type of document but still wouldn't take me to my list of Memories, where it was already uploaded. Then it blew up and I got an "oh Snap" message. I'm completely frustrated and going back to the original. I'll try again another time when it is perhaps more stable.
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Why rock the boat. The old profile page was doing just fine.
Sry.
Inez
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I like the new presentation.
But regret to miss 2 generations on the same page (when in a birth or marriage document identifies an uncle or a grandmother for ex.)
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I would find it more difficult to work using the new person page. I don't like the extra clutter; PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the historic events out of the Time Line. I don't need to read about events like when disposable diapers were invented! And if users don't know their world history, it's not the responsibility of FamilySearch to educate them. This introduces a problem of who decides what is a historic event and from whose point of view. In my opinion, the Time Line is by far the most important part of a person's page. Please don't ruin it. I don't like the Life Summary, as it's generic; interesting things users put in the Time Line don't show up. I put a lot of effort into adding interesting events besides birth, marriage, death.
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Okay, I found I could get rid of the historic events in the Time Line by clicking on the show button. I suggest making the default not to show them, because they take up so much space. I would also leave out the huge icons. On the old person page I can see twice as much of the Time Line at once as in the new person page. The icons and photos are unnecessary in the Time Line.
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The Time Line in the new person page is right back to showing historic events, even though I turned them off not long ago. It won't let me click on show custom events or show parents or siblings either.
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@KateDunlay We are looking into making the time line options a user preference, like they are in the current time line. Thank you for the feedback.
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I like the new Person Page. So much better than the "old New Person Page" I might be able to get used to this one and use it more than the old old person page.
Thanks load,
Anitra
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The 'new' person page is NOT helpful, nor an improvement. It appears to be focused on the 'look' of things instead of the 'functions' used. The Life Sketch has been moved to the bottom of the page, and other functions and information are in different places. I have entered numerous Discussions through the years, and the current function and look of Discussions works very well.
I use FamilySearch on usually a daily basis, and have used it since prior to 2012 when 'newfamilysearch' was replaced. I fear that the Advanced functions, such as merging and locating persons who are different (but have the same names), along with important source functions may have significant compromise of functions.
PLEASE keep the Current Person page available!
One of the MAJOR function PROBLEMS which was created several years ago was when an Event Date was added to Sources. This one change made ALL the existing sources which had used the concept of a Master source, (a single source that uses the same source Reference for multiple persons and multiple events, with page numbers and Event details added in the Reason) -- it negated that concept and function. So, when anyone innocently updates and adds an Event date to a source that has been attached to several hundred persons, all of those persons now have an Event Date which only applies to and is only correct for one of those several hundred persons.
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I have really not found anything in the new pages that really interferes with work to this point and have seen some nice improvements.
Regarding the date problem mentioned, I have always veiwed that date on a source as being the date of the source, not of an event that might be mentioned in the source. Sounds like you could correct that master source easily just by replacing the date that was incorrectly entered with the actual date, correcting all of them at once. For example, if the master source is a book, that date, which is just labeled Date, not Event Date, should be publishing date of the book.
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This data entry item in the Source Title is named, "Event Date", with guidance to put in the death date for a death or the marriage date for a marriage, etc. So, if the Event Date is empty for a master source attached to several hundred persons, (for example the persons in a specific parish register), which were entered prior to the Change that was made for Sources which added an "Event Date", then when an Event Date is updated, or added for one person, then all of the those several hundred persons now have an Event Date which is correct for only one of them, and incorrect for everyone else of those several hundred persons.
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There is a huge problem with the New Person Page, namely, the Life Sketch is at the bottom. Why this is a huge problem is this: FamilySearch Family Tree, being a Collaborative tree, is subject to mistakes being entered into it daily. Those ancestors that have common names keep getting merged into people, even clear across the ocean, with the same name. After many calls to FS Tech Support, I was told to put the reasons people should not merge my ancestor with other people with the same name, into Life Sketch. It worked!!!! It worked because on the merge screen, the Life Sketch showed at the top, and people actually saw it and read it! Amazing! PLEASE, PLEASE don't put Life Sketch on the bottom!!
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I imagine this master source is like a custom source you would use from your source box. Like an image of a hand written front page in a family bible. It would have births and marriages and deaths that span generations.
You don't have the ability to index this source and create a reference for each person. So the source is the whole document and one date would not describe each entry.
May I suggest entering a date range for those sources ie "from 1723 to 1897"
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@lyleblunttoronto1, unfortunately, entering a date range for the sort-by date doesn't really work: "from 1723 to 1897" is treated as equivalent to "1723". (I learned this when a person born in 1924 had an immigration source labeled and sorted as 1923. Turned out, it was a very generic index with no image available, and that was the start date of the collection.)
@KeithSBlake, while I consider FS's connected sources to be one of the best features of Family Tree, one of their major shortcomings is lack of labeling: you cannot tell without digging whether a particular source citation is an instance of a connected set or a stand-alone item. Therefore, even without the sort-by date problem, I don't think that the "master source" concept is quite workable in the current setup. What's to stop someone from helpfully adding a transcription in the Notes section of just the entry relevant to the profile he's on? That'll add that same entry's transcription to every profile that cites that source, despite being relevant to only that one profile. Until/unless FS comes up with a way to clearly label instances of connected citations, I think they need to be used only for smaller-scope sources, such as a single family's entry in a book on noble families, or a single page from a family Bible.
As for the labeling of the sort-by date as "Event Date", this is a symptom of FS's narrow focus on machine-parseable data: when citing an index entry, the relevant date is generally the date of the event that was indexed. The fact that there are many other sorts of sources -- where "event date" doesn't make any sense -- apparently wasn't considered in the design.
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My original post (Aug 11, 2022 above) was in response to a request for feedback for the 'new' Person page. My response was intended to be an example of how important it is when changes are made in FamilySearch that caution is taken by the Product Managers to not make major changes in the original design or functions, particularly if it effects the underlying data. A significant example of when a change caused a major problem with sources was the addition of the Event Date to the source Title.
Most responses to my Post made an incorrect assumption of what a Master Source is and then gave suggestions of how to make that assumption work. All of the Family History programs that run on Personal Computers, such as Roots Magic, Legacy FamilyTree, Ancestral Quest, etc, have all had a provision to create a Master Source for a set of records, such as a parish register in a certain place and for specific years. The FamilySearch Catalog references such records, listing microfilm numbers and now DGS numbers, and is a vehicle from which Master Sources can be made. A Title and Citation can be made for a set of records in the Catalog, as a Master Source, and then, as a source is attached, detail information such as page number and Event information (including the Event Date) can be added in the Detail record in the Personal Computer program or in the Reason in FamilySearch.
If the Event Date in FamilySearch had been placed in the data with the Reason, instead of in the Title, the whole problem described below could have been avoided. So, when a new FamilySearch 'Update' is proposed and Feedback is asked for, hopefully managers who are responsible for the system design also read the feedback.
The process of the Master Source worked well in FamilySearch until the 'Update' and change was made to Sources which added the Event Date to the Title of a Source. As Julia (Julia Szent-Györgyi) pointed out above, the whole concept of a Master Source can no longer be used in FamilySearch, which made a major change as to how Source records function.
So, I didn't submit this Post to ask how a Master Source can be used, but to point out that all the source entries that were entered using a Master Source concept prior to the 'Update' which added the Event Date in FamilySearch, became vulnerable to someone changing that source, either in the Event Date or in the Notes, and without realizing it, they have placed incorrect information in dozens or hundreds of person's Profiles -- because they only see the one Profile that they have changed and aren't aware of all the other Profiles attached to that same Master Source.
If there is a place in the Community where suggestions can be made to improve the FamilySearch program -- this concept of moving the Event Date to the detail information in the Reason should be considered. And, instead of calling it Reason, perhaps call it 'Detail Source Information and Reason'.
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@KeithSBlake, (1) The unworkability of the "master source" concept using FS's connected citations predates the addition of the Event Date field: editing the Notes or Title (under the belief that it only affects the one instance) will likewise mess up the entire set.
(2) There is a place in the Community for suggestions: "Suggest an Idea", near the bottom of the Categories box in the right-hand column when you're in a main Community area (not somewhere in Groups).
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Today I took advantage of the new person page. I made some changes to one person there. See image. It is a pity that the data of infant baptism cannot be added directly here. That would be useful. It would be useful if there were fields for infant baptism between the fields of birth and date of death.
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In all Search boxes, which this basically is, infant baptism/christening are treated the same. So if you put in the christening date in the birth field, it will be able to find an existing matching person. If it can't and you are actually adding a person here then the program will create a new person, and, as you point out, it can only create a birth date, adding an editing step.
Death and burial are treated the same way.
Adding both christening and burial fields to all of these search/add boxes could save some steps when adding new people.
That box is, however, designed to allow a person to be created as quickly as possible. What I generally do is add the birth year and birth place then add the christening after the person is created.
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The new person page has the same fault as I've complained about before, it wastes so much vertical space. I spend most of my time online scrolling up and down. The banner at the top could easily have the photo, name, dates all on one line, and the white space could be reduced on the following lines of info. We don't all have ultra HD screens.
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The document matching window won't go away after I've linked a document. On the Old Person Screen (terrible name) the new documents showed a pop-up window that took you to the SourceLinker screen and then disappeared after you linked the document. The New Person screen uses a push-in window frame that won't go away unless I manually close it. Very annoying.
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Here's another issue that is annoying if nothing else. When I scroll down to the Additional Info section to add an additional Residence event, I access the Add Residence menu item, the pop-up screen opens, I add a description, and then as soon as I add the first digit of the date, the underlying main screen (New Person Page) changes focus to the top of the page instead of remaining scrolled to the Additional Info section where I had other work to do. There is no reason for the main screen to change its position.
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@WDan5, as I think you've noticed, the side panel with the record hint has an X in the top right corner, so it's very easy to make it go away. It will also close if you refresh the page, which also happens to be the way to refresh the hints list. And third, if you have more hints, you can click on the next one and it will replace the previous one in the side panel, meaning that you don't even need to close it.
I'm pretty sure the scrolling up behavior is a bug. I vaguely recall something about it in the New Person Page group, but perhaps it would be good to report it there again.
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The scrolling problem was reported early on and the reply was that the engineers were aware of it, were working on it, but it was a complex problem.
Regarding those hints, unfortunately even in the old pages they never came up with a way to get the research helps section to auto-refresh after attaching a hint. It a way it would be nice if they could so the page doesn't need to be refreshed to see more hints. When attaching a series of hints I usually evaluate the three that are showing then refresh the page. With that few, I can keep track of which one's I've dealt with and which I haven't yet.
Another view to take would be that it is good the side panel does not close. Think of what it would act like.
Click hint, the page slides left as the side panel opens, attach or dismiss hint, page refreshes and page is full size again, click hint, page slides over again, and so on. That is a lot of wasted time refreshing the page and having it slide back and forth.
One's point of view here probably depends on screen size. I'm always on a wide enough screen that as far as I'm concerned, that panel can just sit there. It doesn't get in the way and as long as it is open, the information I'm actually working on stays in place without sliding back and forth.
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Agreed. I have multiple monitors on my workstation but find that I and many others are using our tablets and phones to add sources and for research where screen real estate is a premium. My equipment has very high resolution but when I switch that resolution down to mimic the resolution on the screens of folks I’m helping the resol issue becomes a real issue.
The new person page works fine but when you search “the records” from the person page then it becomes a problem as you try to remember the data about the focus person and if it matches any of the items in the search. There isn’t enough screen real estate with low resolution machines.
I have explored using their tablet or phone at the same time as a second screen. Most don’t have either item and even if they do the resolution isn’t great due to their eyesight issues. I use an iPad so I can run the app and a browser page side by side to see each. Granted app / data display for small screens is an inherent issue for research and display and we work around it as best we can. It’s certainly not a good solution for older folks to remember the split screen process let alone the resolution issues….and the ownership of phones and tablets as well.
Many folks that I help don’t have high resolution monitors or video cards in their computer and the new page style really adds to the work they to do with the new person page design. Scroll, scroll, scroll and lots of trying to remember. I typically have them close sections of the screen to mitigate the scroll issue and only reopen them when they to refer to something that lands in those sections. Modern design is fine to paint visual pictures but it isn’t as great when you have to work hard to get around the page in your research process. Maybe thoughts behind the new design were for people to close sections to minimize scrolling in many / most cases? It works if that was the intent knowing that resolution would be an issue for a lot of folks around the world. They need to be trained to close the sections until they get a future computer / monitor update with much higher resolution. When that happens the new design will still be in place without further display tweaking and those users can start opening more sections on a person page.
Kudos go to the new design when it comes to slicing and dicing Memories items though. That is extremely handy.
last item since this is a missive already: Why did the design charge when you add a source and then click on “See the record” at bottom of the page? That spot used to take you back to the person page not to the source page. We’ve already evaluated the source before we attached it. We don’t need to see it again. The flow of adding sources is broken with this change unless you remember to go to the top of the page after you had added a source and click on the persons name rather that clicking on the big inviting button at the bottom of the page and neatly adjacent to your last click or keystroke result.
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I complained about the extravagent use of white vertical space on the 'old' new person page. Now the 'new' new person page has even more wasted white space. We don't all have super quad 4K HD screens. See attached example with space highlighted in red.
Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the constant stream of new features, but why change screen layouts that are well established?
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The new design is a real hinderance to speed if you have used FS Tree for any period if time. There is too much white space and “pretty” formatting that hinders serious users. Keep the new design for occasional and new users but please give us a way to keep the old page design as a switch.
After a couple of hours using the new design this morning, I have already changed over to using Ancestry as my interface with FS except for memories and some ordinance claims.
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