Blanking fields
What is the point of hiding fields in data entry, if in the end, those fields have to be blanked (they had an * on each and every field). I just did 16 burial entries and filled in all the information that was on the image with the unused fields hidden. It was very easy and fast, In the end it said I had 208 errors (those fields weren't blanked). Maybe there should be a key to mark all hidden fields as blank. That would sure help speed things alone and make setting up a batch a lot easier.
Comments
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Larry,
Indexing Policies and Procedures can be and are changed much more quickly than the Indexing Tool is changed. The field hiding capability made sense when most projects had fields that were not required. About a year ago the procedures changed and most projects now have all or nearly all fields required. (This was done, I believe, to encourage indexers to be sure that they entered all of the information that was available in the records. A rather sledge hammer approach to a solution, in my estimation, because there is no way to provide specific feedback to induvial indexers that they did not index a record correctly and they need to be more careful when they index).
Creating a tool to blank all hidden fields would somewhat defeat the purpose of having required fields. Perhaps preventing required fields from being hidden would somewhat help to reinforce the idea that those fields must all be addressed. But that is probably not what you want to hear or have implemented.
Having explained all of that, there is a way to accomplish what you want to do after a fashion on a field by field basis for all the entries for and image (it does not cross image boundaries) or on an entry by entry basis.
To do this on a field by field basis use the sixth icon from the right on the horizontal toolbar. This icon and its shortcut (Alt-Shift-D (for Mac, Opt-Shift-D)) copy the content of the current field to all like fields in the entries that follow it. If you put a blank indicator in a field in the first entry then click that icon or type the shortcut all of the remaining entries will have a blank indicator in that field.
To do this on an entry by entry basis (which is what I recommend doing) use the fifth icon from the left on the horizontal toolbar (Ctrl-Shift-B (for Mac, Cmd-Shift-B)) to mark all fields in an entry blank before you start entering information into the fields of an entry. Then enter the information that is available in the record, leaving those for which there is no information marked blank.
It should be noted that you should still delete all of the unused entries prior to submitting the batch by clicking the eighth icon from the left or right of the horizontal tool bar (trashcan) and selecting the All blank entries option. The All blank entries option treats fields that are marked blank as being blank, as it should.
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I already knew what you were talking about, but I really get burned for instance with marriage records. For instance they only send one image in a batch and there is only 6 records on that image. But each record requires 12 fields to be blanked. That is a lot of blanking and and copying to the following records, especially when the short cut keys don't move the cursor to the next field. And on top of all that, I'll bet that in the end, a program will be run on all the batches to remove all blanked fields before the information is permanently stored.
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Hi @larryfrancisroberts1 . Another, maybe more efficient, way to accomplish what you want in the specific instance you cited, I.e. you’ll only need 6 Entries for the 6 Records on the image, and each Entry will have 12 of its Fields that must be blanked.
EDITED VERSION
Ctrl+Shift+B or Cmd+Shift+B (on a Mac) will Blank each and every Field in an Entry. So, as you come upon a Entry that you are ready to enter data into. <Blank> it completely using this technique, and then proceed to Index the Fields for which you have data. So, it requires only one more step than just indexing it. You’re touching each Entry only once.
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