I have a question (help request) for writing a fact sentence for alternate names. For alternate names, RM gives the ability to leave the name type blank or use different types such as AKA, other spelling, immigrant, etc.
The default sentence for this fact type is “[person] was also know as [desc]< [Date]>. “ I would like to modify this sentence template to accommodate the ‘name type’ as a switch such that if:
Name type =AKA, then template sentence is: “[person] was also know as [desc]< [Date]>.”
Name type is Other spelling, then template sentence is “[person].’s name is also spelled as [desc]< [Date]>.”
Name type is Immigrant, then the template sentence is “[person] translated the name as [desc]< [Date]>.”
Why? For example: some people named Jean Boisvert changed their family name to Greenwood; a friend who immigrated from Italy had his name changed from Parcheggio to Parker. Some French people have dit/dite names and maybe referred to by either name. Some spellings like Bourg may be Bourque… phonetically similar.
It seems to me that someone has faced this situation and knows the solution.
@AstroGuy --This is above my pay scale BUT I’m NOT sure that it is possible to do this and I have spent a lot of time working on this…
When you use the switch <%son|daughter|>, it is using male/ female to decide which one to pick…
Wen you use the field <?[Doctor]|He had a doctor.|he had several doctors|He didn’t have a doctor.>, it uses the doctor role to decide-- demanding on how many doctors you did or did NOT share it with…
On the built in Alt name, you can NOT SHARE the fact with anyone, so I customized a 2nd Alt name fact and added Roles-- tried it with a switch for the Roles and without–can NOT get it to work…
On the built-in Alt fact there is a drop down menu under Name Type-- so you can pick Immigrant, Other etc-- tried using that as a FIELD and it didn’t work either…
So the problem is that I do NOT know what we can use to make it pick between the 3 options…
That said, I did KIND OF get it to work for 2 options-- if I put
[person:Full] <? was also know as |'s name is also spelled as| translated the name as>< [desc]> < [Date]>
It then picks the 2nd option and says John Smith’s name is also spelled John Smythe –-I have NO idea why it is picking the 2nd option…
IF I put a straight line in front of was also know as
[person:Full] <?| was also know as |'s name is also spelled as| translated the name as>< [desc]> < [Date]>
it picks the 1st option.–it does NOT pick the 3rd option–perhaps someone else can explain why the switch does NOT work as it should.
So my suggestion-- if you have a lot of these you do, I would customize a Alt fact for Other, Alt fact for Immigration etc–if you only do a few, I would then create a sentence for other and create a sentence for Immigration etc and store them under Roles in the built in fact-- that way when you need to customize a person, all you have to do is copy the info under the role and paste it in.
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Anybody else have any suggestion or definitely know this will NOT work, PLEASE let us know as this will drive me nuts otherwise as it seems like it should work somehow…
The lack of support for the types of names has long been the subject of enhancement requests, dating back to soon after the release of the Sentence Template Language (RM4).
The Value Switch is described as:
<?[Expression]| Show this if True. | Show this if False.>
In computerese, if the expression evaluates to 0, it is False; anything else is True.
@nkess , your value switch is not looking at the Name Type. In the first example, the expression being evaluated is ‘was also known as’. I’ve no idea what the result would be numerically - there’s no variable, just text. Likewise, for the second there’s not even text - the expression is empty. Maybe the switch defaults to True when there’s nothing to evaluate.
BUT I’m NOT sure that it is possible to do this and I have spent a lot of time working on this…