Author
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I can understand the idea, but once you start looking into the practicalities I don’t’ think it can work for a few reasons:
- Translation. We currently never display abbreviations like AFT, BEF etc because they don’t translate. Where they are used we convert to the full text equivalent “before”, “after” etc so they can be translated.
- There are many more such abbreviations to consider than the three you mention. The full list is: ABT, CAL, EST, INT, BEF, AFT, FROM, TO, BET x AND y, FROM x TO y
- I realise you are suggesting the use of characters like “< " and ">“, but these also give translation issues in languages such as Hebrew and Farsi I believe, especially in respect to position. Also, what symbols would be used for the other abbreviations?
- In many cases a display like BEF 1815 would simply be wrong. I have for example many situations where I record birth as being “before the date of baptism” because the baptism is the only date I have. I actually record the birth as something like “BEF 29 DEC 1815”. To display that as BEF 1815 would very likely be quite wrong.
It is for all these reasons that we settled, not just in the family navigator but also the header and many charts, to use a simple “life span” display of years only with no qualifiers. BUT, if you point to either of the years with your mouse you will see the full text of the actual date.
Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info
