In most genealogy programs when you generate a diagram, you specify your options and the program builds a diagram using those options. If you then decide that you want to change an option, you can’t change it for that diagram. You have to create another one. This process does not fit well with the way human beings work. A better process is this:
That is what Family Historian lets you do. In most cases, if you change a diagram option (e.g. from the Diagram Options dialog), Family Historian will simply update the existing diagram to reflect the change. If you have expanded branches, resized or moved boxes, or made other changes, it doesn’t matter. The diagram will be kept the same (or as near the same as is consistent with the options you have chosen) and will be dynamically updated to reflect the new options.
This makes it easy for you to experiment and try things out until you are happy with the results.
There are, however, a small number of diagram options (normally coloured red in the Diagram Options dialog - see ‘Fields’ below) which cannot be handled in this way. With these options (called 'rebuild options'), if you change them, the tree part of the diagram will have to be rebuilt. When this happens all existing trees within the diagram will be discarded, and a single new tree will be re-created; and if you have made changes to the tree part of a diagram since it was first built - e.g. resized or moved boxes, inserted additional trees, or expanded or closed branches, etc - these changes will not be retained. Even in this case, however, all diagram elements other than trees (that is, additional pictures, lines, rectangles, or text boxes) will be retained and not discarded when the tree part of the diagram is rebuilt.
Family Historian diagrams are classed as either Working Diagrams or Saved Diagrams. Saved Diagrams are also called Saved Charts, or just Charts, as they are diagrams that have been saved in the Family Historian Chart format. See Working Diagrams and Charts for more on the differences between them the two kinds of diagram.
With charts you will always be warned and given the chance to cancel, if you make a change to diagram options that would require a ‘rebuild’. Also if you close a chart (or take some other action would force the chart to be closed), you will always be given the chance to save any unsaved changes you have made to the chart.
With working diagrams, you can choose how much warning you wish to be given in both scenarios. See fields below.
| Rebuild Warning (Working Diagrams only) | The tree part of a diagram is ‘rebuilt’ if, and only if, you
change a diagram option (coloured red in the Diagram Options
dialog) which requires it to be rebuilt. Before this happens to a
working diagram you can opt to be warned. There are 3 options:
Option 3 is the default. See ‘Dynamic Diagram Options’ above for more information about rebuilding the tree part of a diagram. See Working Diagrams and Charts for an explanation of these terms. |
|---|---|
| Close Warning (Working Diagrams only) | A diagram is closed when the Diagram Window is closed for any
reason. A working diagram is also closed if it is replaced in the
Diagram Window with another working diagram (which can happen if
the option to re- use the last-used diagram window if unlocked, is
enabled - see below).
There are 3 options regarding when you get warnings of closure of working diagrams:
Option 2 is the default. See Policy on Warning of Changes above for more information. See Working Diagrams and Charts for an explanation of these terms. |
| Colour Items in the Diagram Options dialog that cannot be changed without requiring a diagram rebuild | By default, options which, if they are changed, will require the tree part of a diagram to be rebuilt, are coloured in red in the Diagram Options dialog, so that they are easy to see. If you prefer another colour, you can select it here. If you do not wish ‘rebuild options’ to be coloured distinctively, you can opt for no colouring. For more information, see Dynamic Diagram Options above. |
| Relationship Text for Diagram Root Row | When you display 'relationship text' to the left or right (or both) of the diagram in the Diagram Window, the text shown here is used for the row containing the diagram root. If you change this value, you will have to rebuild any open diagrams if you wish them to use the new value. The default text is 'root & siblings'. |
| Silhouettes | Click on this button to view the default silhouette images that will be used in diagrams if you request silhouettes to be displayed (for Individuals with no picture, perhaps, or instead of a picture). You can change the default sihouette images if you wish. |