Place Title in 5.2

[comeng]

In a number of areas I now see only the Place ID not the Place Name as previously the Title used to appear at the top of the Place Window but you could not edit it now however it becomes an editable box.
However all my system, custom Forms and reports are based on Place Name not Title how do I revert this because if I look at Places none of my 5000+ Places has a Title and I have no desire to start working with this.Indeed the Title Column on places has always been hidden on systems from the earliest days as a useless duplication of the Name.
Note Edit Preferences Automate Place Format is unchecked
Phil

GRAMPS: 5.2.0
Python: 3.10.12
BSDDB: 6.2.9 (5, 3, 28)
sqlite: 3.37.2 (2.6.0)
LANG: en_GB.UTF-8
OS: Linux
Distribution: 6.5.0-21-generic

[ennoborg]

You probably need to set Automate Place Format as shown here in Preferences:

I switched my Gramps to English to get this window in English, but apparently the format definition is stored with a localized name, so you see ‘Volledig’ here. You will probaly see something like ‘Full’.

[Nick-Hall]

@comeng

Automate Place Format is unchecked

To generate place titles automatically, you need to have this option checked.

The place title field should be empty except for users who continue to use the legacy functionality.

[emyoulation]

@comeng

useless duplication

Place Title is not a duplication when employing the Hierarchical Place Tree. If you’ve chosen to stay with a flat place model, it isn’t very useful.

Since the Title format can be changed, it offers a great deal of flexibility in Reports and export of view data.

[Mihle]

One weird thing I have noticed:
When the automatic place title format is on if you have a place that its two names you have given it is “to 1931” and “from 1931” the title shows up as “?” in title of place edit and on the map with all places showed, but if you then add an random name(“Test”) with no date, then the “from 1931” name is the one that shows up as place title.

Isnt that a little weird?

[emyoulation]

@Mihle

When the automatic place title format is on, if you have a place that has two names where you have given one “to 1931” and the other “from 1931” then the title shows up as “?” in title of place edit. And on the map with all places showed.
But if you then add an random name(“Test”) with no date, then the “from 1931” name is the one that shows up as place title.

Isnt that a little weird?

Just to verify a critical (but utterly counter-intuitive) data entry detail related to Date ranges for Place Names…
Did you set a Date Range for the Preferred name of the Place? The date ranges are only displayed for the Alternative Names, not the Preferred.

Hopefully, this hidden data will be exposed in a future release of Gramps. Possibly following the interface precedent of Preferred and Alternative names for People:

[Mihle]

@emyoulation

Just to verify a critical but utterly counter-intuitive data entry detail related to Date ranges for Place Names…
Did you set a Date Range for the Preferred name of the Place? The date ranges are only displayed for the Alternative Names, not the Preferred.

Hopefully, this hidden data will be exposed in a future release of Gramps. Possibly following the interface precedent of Preferred and Alternative names for People:

To clarify:

It becomes a questionmark, both there and also shows up as ? when clicking on the map.

But when adding the empty test name, its not even the test name that shows up

While it shows up as I would expect it to be if there is a event with no date, it picks whatever is covered by year 0 (I belive that is how it supposed to work).

EDIT:
In 5.1.5 it seem to work fine with the closest, not accurate way (lack of open spans) to put in dates:

Posted in this topic because I thought it would be fitting, but maybe I should have posted in one of mine related to places instead.

[DaveSch]

The date modifiers you should use are…

from <date> to <date>
after <date>
before <date>

Gramps uses the ? when it cannot find a valid option.

@Mihle

While it shows up as I would expect it to be if there is a event with no date, it picks whatever is covered by year 0 (I belive that is how it supposed to work).

This is true.

This is why I try to never use before <date> unless it fits as the desired output for an event with no date. I am in the U.S. so like to use after <date2> as the current entry, from <date1> to <date2> for earlier names/enclosures. As the last entry/option will be an option with no dates as a default for an event with no date.

[Nick-Hall]

This looks like a bug in the __get_latest_date location utility function. It need to be updated to support open spans. Please open a bug report. I’ll fix it for v5.2.1.

[emyoulation]

@Nick-Hall
A question about the date used to calculate the Place Title in the “Place Editor” Titlebar…

Normally, the appropriate Place title is going to be determined by the active Event’s date. But there’s no (active) Event associated with the Place Editor.

Does it fallback to today() when there is a NULL date or an invalid date?

If so, what happens with a Place that has date ranges saying that it no longer exist?

(Example: Shicheng, China existed from 25AD to 1959. Then was summerged in the artificial lake for a hydroelectric development. I was looking for an example of a historic City that had been punished by being razed and the land salted.)

[Nick-Hall]

It will use the latest date defined. So for Shicheng it will build the title based on 1959.

[emyoulation]

Thank you.

That explains the __get_latest_date logic and will let us do more intelligent beta testing.

[Mihle]

Made a bug report:
13222: Bug: Place title shows up as ? when using open spans on names.