Future feature: custom Citation sentences #RM9
In slogging through an attempt to consolidate the data dictionaries from RM4 to RM9, I explored the new columns (since RM8) in the CitationTable for Footnote, ShortFootnote and Bibliography, all of which were empty in the subject database. So, being the curious explorer, I put some text in and discovered in the Edit Person Sources pane that the preview sentences under Details had been overridden by the contents of these fields.
That behaviour suggests there is the beginnings of a response to long-requested enhancements such as using the output of the Source Template as a starting point or guide for drafting Free Form citations. And the normalisation of Citations (separating the tags or links to people, facts,... from the Citation data) potentially reduces the number of Citation records in which one may want to have this customisation. Until the UI presents this feature and makes it efficient to do, it is impossible except through convoluted steps within RM and copying and editing the sentences outside to paste them in after backing out of Source/Citation creation using a template and then doing so in Free Form.
However, when it sees the light of day is moot, considering there has been provision for photo-cropping in the database structure since 2009.
Well, that was silly! Now I've discovered the feature already exists and it's similar to the Customise sentence for each instance of a fact/event. From the Help Wiki, it is mentioned on a page from Sep '21 so it existed from the get-go with RM8. But there's not even a screenshot or description of what it might be good for - very understated.
It does not seem to be widely used if the volume of discussion about it on the FB Group and the Community is any indication. Most of it is about keyboard shortcuts. And maybe there's good reason it's not discussed a lot besides the lack of promotion. There is a long trail to get to the Customize Footnote window (and it's modal) and there is no way to search its content, not even with Find Everywhere! Nor is there any warning that your editing of Source or Citation fields used by the sentence template will not be reflected in outputs because the Customised sentence overrides it. So it's another one of those easy-to-add features that gets only partly developed and that stunts its effectiveness and takeup.
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