Diagram Window

When enabled, you can click and drag on any box to move that box, and its branch, 'outwards'. For example, if you clicked-and-dragged on an ancestor box in an ancestor diagram you could move that box, and its entire ancestral branch outwards (or back).

When the drag-action is box and bar you can either click on a box or on a bar (see Movable Bar Types above for details of supported bar moves).

Because Family Historian trees are smart trees, the diagram will automatically adjust to accommodate the new branch positions, and to make best use of space.

The ...within row check box changes the behaviour of Box & Bar moves. If ticked, when you drag a box (or boxes) or bar, instead of the boxes and branches being moved out of the row that they belong to, the whole row will be widened to include the box in its new position. This could be useful if, for example, you want to position a number of boxes in staggered pattern (alternately higher or lower in the row) to save space.

If the orientation of the diagram is left-right or right-left, rather than top-down or bottom-up, the option still works, but controls movement within columns instead of rows.

Fixed Point dragging is used if you want to move 2 spouses or siblings further apart (or bring them back closer together). But you can also use it to move entire branches of a tree further apart or closer together. For example, to move a brother away from this sister, make the sister a fixed point by selecting her box and then clicking on the Set button. Then click-and-drag on the brother's box.

To drag 2 entire branches apart (or bring them back together) make any one box, in either branch, a fixed point; and click-and-drag on any box in the other branch (this only works if the boxes belong to the same tree).

You can use fixed point dragging to create a space within a diagram to put a picture into (say). Suppose in a descendant diagram, you clicked on a descendant box and moved his or her entire branch outwards. His or her siblings (and their branches) would move inwards to fill up the space. To move them back to where they had been, make one of the siblings a fixed point and click-and-drag to move the others.

Tip: When moving/resizing is enabled, a quick way to set a fixed point is to press the Alt key while clicking on a box. Pressing Alt while clicking elsewhere clears the fixed point and switches you back to Box and Bar.

Usually when you open a diagram there is only one tree in it (the exceptions are the All Relatives + Indirect Relatives and the Everyone diagrams which typically contains numerous trees, even when first opened). You can add more trees using commands on the Diagram menu.

Use this option when you wish to change the position of an entire diagram on the printed page. If you choose this option, the display of page boundaries will be automatically enabled if they weren't already, so that you can see what you are doing. Then, to move the diagram, simply click-and-drag anywhere on the diagram.

Note:

Tip: There is also another way of changing a diagram's position on the printed page. Instead of the approach just described, you can, if you prefer, click-and-drag on any intersection of the grid lines that appear, when page boundaries are displayed. By doing so, you move the grid. When you move the grid, you are effectively changing the position of the diagram relative to the printed page. You can do this whenever page boundaries are displayed, whether or not moving/resizing has been enabled.

Note: Ordinarily, when moving/resizing is enabled you can still click on any box to select it, you can click on any expansion button to expand a branch, and you can click-and-drag on any of the little white squares that appear in the corners of selected boxes, to resize the box. All of these actions become temporarily unavailable when select Everything (position on page) as your chosen Drag-and-Move action.

Tip: If you wish to change the order of spouses in your records use the Move Up and Move Down commands instead of the Shift Spouse buttons.

Tip: If you wish to change the order of siblings in your records use the Move Up and Move Down commands instead of the Shift Sibling buttons.

The scale of a diagram determines the size it will have when printed. Do not confuse this with zooming which is display-only, and doesn't affect the diagram's size when printed. You can adjust the diagram scale, either by typing the required scale into the Scale box, or by dragging the slider up and down. When you drag the slider, the percentage scale will be adjusted in increments of 2.5%, and the largest scale is 100%. If you want to adjust scaling more precisely, or if you wish the scale to exceed 100%, simply type the desired scale as a percentage into the Scale box, and press the tab key.

Tip: You should normally show page boundaries when you adjust the scale of a diagram, so that you can see what effect the change is having.

Tip: In an earlier tip, we saw an alternative way of moving a diagram on the printed page, by clicking-and-dragging (using the left mouse button) on the intersection of the grid which displays page boundaries. There is also an alternative way of scaling a diagram, which is to click-and-drag on the same grid intersection (when displayed), but using the right mouse button. When you do this, the entire grid is resized becoming larger or smaller, depending on which way you drag. When you resize the grid, you are effectively changing the size of the diagram relative to the printed page (remember that the physical paper doesn't change size and still equates to each rectangle in the grid). Consequently, the real meaning of this action is effectively to resize the diagram relative to the printed page. You can do this whenever page boundaries are displayed, whether or not moving/resizing has been enabled.