I have posted about this before, but I thought a new thread would work better than adding to the old threads.
From the beginning of running narrative reports in RM8, I found that an endnote list for a report created by RM8 was much longer than the same endnote list for the same report created by RM7. If you compared the two endnote lists carefully, the symptom appeared to be that RM8 was not honoring the Reuse Endnote Numbers option in a report. This has to do with assigning the same endnote number and thereby reusing the endnote number when two different citations are the same. What was happening was that the same endnote was getting a bunch of different endnote numbers and therefore was being included in the endnote list a bunch of different times. That is not a good thing.
Well, RM8 is honoring the Reuse Endnote Numbers correctly. But RM8ās definition of when two citations are the same and RM7ās definition of when two citations are the same are not equivalent. RM8ās definition of when two citations are the same is when they are the same entry in the CitationTable. RMās definition of when two citations are the same is when they produce the same endnote sentence.
This distinction is tied in with the new facility in RM8 to be able to reuse citations. If you do a Paste/Copy, RM8 makes a new entry in the CitationTable. The new entry has the same data as the entry you Memorized, but it is a new entry. If you do a Paste/Reuse, RM8 does not make a new entry in the CitationTable. Instead, your Paste/Reuse is just a re-use of the existing entry in the CitationTable. The huge advantage of the RM8 way of doing it over the RM7 way of doing it is that because with Paste/Reuse there really is only one citation, you can make corrections just to that one citation and the corrections will take effect in every place that citation is reused.
So far, so good. But who knew at the beginning of using RM8 that this excellent new feature would have such a huge effect on endnote lists in reports. I certainly didnāt. Because RM8 is basing the Reuse Endnote Numbers feature on the entries in the CitationTable rather than on the endnote sentence itself, there are two important considerations for users.
One consideration is you that must run the Sources => Three Dots => Merge All Duplicate Citations tool immediately after import from RM7. I havenāt tested yet, but I suspect that also means that you must run the same tool after importing data from GEDCOM or ancestry or FamilySearch or any such place.
The other consideration is that with one exception, you must always use Paste/Reuse rather than Paste/Copy when memorizing and pasting citations. The one exception would be if you intend to paste a citation and then edit it to make it into a different citation. This makes me wonder if the names of the Paste/Copy and Paste/Reuse operations should be changed. Maybe Paste/Reuse should just be Paste, and maybe Paste/Copy should be something like Create New Citation from Memorized Citation. I know the second name is much too long, but itās hard to get the concept of whatās going on into just a couple of words. Whatever itās called, I also think that it would be important that Paste/Copy add the string ā(Copy)ā without the quotes to the citation name of the newly pasted citation. It does not do so at the present time.
This brings us back to me, and to my own problems with long endnote lists in RM8. I thought I was doing all the right things to get my citations in RM8 merged and reused properly, but I was still getting extra entries in my endnote lists, lots of them. They were all caused by things I needed to clean up in my RM7 database before I imported my RM7 database into RM8.
- I had what appeared to be identical citations in RM7 that wouldnāt merge in RM8 because of miniscule differences in the Research Note field. The difference could be as minor as an extra blank somewhere that you couldnāt even see on the screen.
- I had what appeared to be identical citations in RM7 that wouldnāt merge in RM8 because of miniscule differences in the Detail Comment field. The difference could be as minor as an extra blank somewhere that you couldnāt even see on the screen.
- I had what appeared to be identical citations in RM7 that wouldnāt merge in RM8 because in RM7 I had changed some user defined templates to move data from the Citation to the Source. This actually copied the data from from the Citation in RM7ās database tables to the Source in RM7ās database tables without deleting it from the Citation in RM7ās database tables. The left over data was not visible in the RM7 user interface, but it was still there. Sources I made after changing the Source template would not have the left over data. But the invisible leftover data was being imported into RM8, making what appeared to be identical citations in RM7 be different in RM8.
I suspect that many users will have the extra long endnote lists in RM8 if they forget to Merge All Duplicate Citations after importing data into RM8.
I suspect that many users will have the extra long endnote lists in RM8 if they use Paste/Copy without realizing why itās important to use Paste/Reuse most of the time. By the way, If you have been using Paste/Copy instead of Paste/Reuse, not to worry. You can fix your citations by using the Merge All Duplicate Citations tool at any time.
I suspect that more users than you might think will have the extra long endnote lists in RM8 because of Research Notes field not matching between otherwise identical citations in RM7. As a result, the Merge All Duplicate Citations tool will not fix the problem. I fixed all such problems on the RM7 side of the house by using SQLite. I think most users would be better served by fixing such problems on the RM8 side of the house after importing from RM7 by using RM8ās manual Merge Citations tool on a case by case basis. This merge will ignore the trivial differences that prevent the Merge All Duplicate Citations tool from working.
I suspect that more users than you might think will have the extra long endnote lists in RM8 because of Detail Comments field not matching between otherwise identical citations in RM7. As a result, the Merge All Duplicate Citations tool will not fix the problem. I fixed all such problems on the RM7 side of the house by using SQLite. I think most users would be better served by fixing such problems on the RM8 side of the house after importing from RM7 by using the manual Merge Citations tool on a case by case basis. This merge will ignore the trivial differences that prevent the Merge All Duplicate Citations tool from working.
I suspect that virtually no users will be bitten by my problem of citations not merging because their source templates have been changed to move data from source to citation or vice versa. If you donāt define your own source templates, donāt worry about this potential hazard. And even if you do define your own source templates, donāt worry about this potential hazard unless you move data from source to citation or vice versa.
I suspect that there are few other differences that I have not yet identified that may cause extra long endnote lists in RM8. For example, I donāt use repositories, but I suspect that citations using repositories wonāt merge automatically if they are using otherwise identical repositories that havenāt been merged yet. And I havenāt tested what happens if otherwise identical citations have different media attached in RM7. All my media was 100% consistent between otherwise identical citations in RM7.
I know this message sounds long and complicated and potentially a little scary. But for most users most of the time, you only have to remember two things. First, merge your duplicate citations after you import your data from RM7. If you imported your data from RM7 a long time ago, itās not too late. Run the merge now. Second, use Paste/Reuse rather than Paste/Copy unless there is a compelling reason to use Paste/Copy. And if you have been using Paste/Copy, not to worry. Just go ahead and merge your duplicate citations now and user Paste/Reuse in the future.
