source box

dorothy badger

just a question

i know that the sections on the details page have a "detail view" feature that can be turned on or off

while i don't see the same thing on the "create source" window, is there something similar to do to disable the "add source to my source box" at the bottom? i know i can uncheck that box each time (and i can certainly do that), but i was wondering about a way to disable it long term

Julia Szent-Györgyi

In my experience, both the "Attach to Family Tree" button on unindexed images and Source Linker remember the last state of that checkbox: if you uncheck it, it will be unchecked the next time you use the function. Is this not what you're seeing?

dorothy badger

thank you for your response - i do have to uncheck it every time - but let me be sure i have explained it correctly

if i am on the details page, and want to "attach" a source from the "research help" section, then the box is unchecked every time

but if i am on the sources page, and click "add source" then "add new source" to be able to add something i found on ancestry, then the box is checked every time, and i have to uncheck it

so i was wondering why it is different, depending on whether i am trying to "attach" or "add" - and it could be that it is 2 distinct processes in the guts of the programming, because it is "add" vs "attach"

and i don't understand nearly enough to see what is perhaps the obvious answer - i'm grateful for those of you who do understand it so well

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I have less experience with those two, but there's an immediately-apparent difference (to me): the one deals with FS's indexed records, the other with anything but FS's indexed records.

Indexed records -- like what Research Help offers up -- are meant to be one-offs: each entry reflects a single person and should be attached only to that one person. It therefore makes sense for Source Linker to default to not adding anything to your Source Box, since you shouldn't ever need to attach that citation again. (In fact, I'm not sure what purpose it really serves to even have that checkbox in Source Linker. I mean, yes, sometimes you need the capability, to recover from indexing errors, but SL isn't where I go to do that.)

Sources attached using "Add" on a profile's Sources tab, on the other hand, can be just about anything (yes, including an index entry from FS, using its URL), and using that checkbox allows the creation of a linked set of citations for it. This is one of the best features of FS's Sources setup; it's an invaluable time-saver for things like obituaries or funeral notices, which list a gazillion relatives. If you enter a transcription or summary in the Notes/Description field, and then use your Source Box to attach it to everyone mentioned, then when (not if, in my experience) you notice a typo in your transcription, you only need to fix it once, whereever you found it. All of the instances will be fixed. The biggest flaw of the linked-citations setup is its very limited expandability: if you don't remember that (dratted) checkbox, then you have to discard your work and start over to create or expand a linked set. Given this, it makes some sense for that checkbox to default to "on" -- but this doesn't explain the "Attach to Family Tree" button's lack of such a default.