Data Entry

Entering Information
Editing Information

Undo and Redo

Web Page Addresses (URLs) in Fields

Pasting Plain Text Only Into Text Fields
Smart Quotes

Spell Checking

Unicode
Special Characters

Dictation
Translating/Localizing

Data Entry Fonts

Entering Information

Reunion is a database application designed for genealogy. Databases typically have many records (people, families, sources), and records contain fields for entering information (names, events, facts, notes, addresses, etc.). Information garnered from fields in records is presented on-screen, in reports, and in charts.

You enter information about individuals in a family file the same way you would fill out a job application, except that Reunion lets you create exactly the fields you need for each record (person, family, or source record).

You only have to enter information once. It will automatically appear everywhere it's needed. For example, your birth date will appear on your family record and in your child's record. In addition, it will appear in all relevant lists, reports, and charts.

Editing Information

The fields used to enter the information are also used to edit information. Fields appear in panels and windows typically opened by clicking buttons in the family view, although you can use the Edit menu if you prefer. Data entry fields appear with current entries as defaults waiting for your corrections or additions.

When the cursor is blinking inside a text field (such as birth place or notes), you'll notice some changes in the menu bar at the top of the screen. In particular, the Edit menu changes to include menu items applicable to text editing. Hopefully, you're already familiar with menu commands like Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, and Select All. If not, please consult your Macintosh Help.

Standard macOS text navigation in text fields is supported. For example...

Undo and Redo

When using the Edit Person or Edit Family panels, two buttons appear near the bottom-left corner...

The Undo and Redo buttons are used to correct mistakes in data entry. The buttons will enable and disable themselves as you edit various fields in the Edit Person and Edit Family panels.

When switching tabs (i.e., Events, Facts, Notes, etc.) or clicking Done in the Edit Person or Edit Family panels, the Undo and Redo buttons are reset (appear disabled until the next change is made).

Some of the actions covered by this feature include...

Multiple levels of Undo/Redo are supported (10 levels). For example, if you accidentally delete three facts in the Facts section of the Edit Person panel, you can click Undo three times to restore each fact.

When editing text, the undo/redo features are also available in the Edit menu, as described above.

Web Page Addresses (URLs) in Fields

Reunion will detect and present web page addresses (URLs) that are entered in facts, structured source fields, and event memos. The URLs will automatically become blue, underlined, and single-clickable. Anything that looks like a URL will be made into a clickable link and will open in your default web browser.

In scrolling text fields (note, memo, and the Free-Form Text field in a source record) you should use the macOS feature "Make Link" to create a clickable link. Learn more.

Examples of URLs include...

URL's in facts and facts in smart lists are clickable in the family view. (URL's in note fields also become clickable in the family view if they have been converted using the "Make link" feature, described here.)

In books and web reports, facts and structured source fields with URLs will be clickable.

Note: the "default web browser" is specified by macOS (it's not the browser specified in Reunion's Web > Reports Settings). To change the "default web browser" open the Safari app and choose Safari > Settings > General.

Pasting Plain Text Only Into Text Fields

To paste text into a field without styles (without color, italics, bolding, etc.), choose Edit > Paste as Plain Text. This menu item appears when editing notes, logs, and the Free-Form Text field of source records.

Smart Quotes

If you prefer to use smart quotes in your entries...

  1. Choose Reunion > Settings.
  2. Click the General button.
  3. Check the Use smart quotes button in the Data entry section of the General Settings window.

If this button is checked, Reunion will automatically convert dumb quotes into smart quotes as new text is typed in data entry fields. It does not affect existing text.

Guillemets

Occasionally we encounter the use of guillemets (« »), especially with French-speaking Reunion users. However, the open/close guillemets have a special use in Reunion's note fields. Thus, we strongly recommend avoiding the use of these characters when entering text or pasting text from other apps. Such usage could cause problems with reports (for example, incomplete reports or improperly formatted reports).

Spell Checking

To enable the built-in macOS spell checking features...

  1. Choose Reunion > Settings.
  2. Click the General button.
  3. Check the Check spelling as you type button in the Data entry section of the General Settings window.

When the cursor is in an editable text field (such as a note or event field), you may choose Edit > Spelling > Check Spelling While Typing to enable/disable this feature.

The spell-checking features built into macOS are very powerful and convenient. For example, you can Control-click a word to see alternate spellings or to look up the word in a dictionary (provided by macOS) or in Google. For more information about using the macOS spell checker, please consult your Macintosh Help.

Unicode

Reunion supports Unicode. All text in Reunion is stored in the Unicode format.

Unicode is an industry standard system that assigns a unique number to each character in each of the major languages of the world, permitting characters to be consistently represented and manipulated by all computers.

Unicode allows multiple writing systems to co-exist in one data file. It was designed to move beyond the assortment of 8-bit fonts with their limit of 256 characters, and the resulting confusion caused by the same character number representing a different character in different alphabets.

Limitations of Unicode

The support of Unicode incorporates a few limitations...

Special Characters

The Mac supports characters containing diacritical or accent marks of non-English languages. These are often referred to as extended or foreign characters.

Perhaps the easiest way to enter these characters into a Reunion data entry field is to use the Character Accent pop-up menu (a feature first added in macOS 10.8). This will show common accents for each character simply by holding the key for the letter you want to accent.

To manually insert diacritical characters into a Reunion data entry field, position the insertion cursor where you want the character to appear and type the correct modifier key(s) and letter keys. For example:

Typing this...
creates this character
Option + g
© (Copyright symbol)
Option + u [and] u 
ü (u with an umlaut)
Option + n [and] n 
ñ (n with a tilde)

Apple's Keyboard Viewer app provides yet another way to facilitate the entry of these characters. This free utility enables drag-and-drop placement of extended characters.

To see the layout of characters on your keyboard for your chosen language, use the Keyboard Viewer app.

Both of these utilities come with macOS. They should be located in a special Keyboard Viewer menu icon near the right end of your menu bar (see the illustration below).

If you don't see the Keyboard Viewer menu...

  1. Choose Apple > System Settings.
  2. Click Keyboard.
  3. Click Keyboard.
  4. Check the button Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar. (It's near the bottom.)

In addition, a menu command called Emoji & Symbols will appear at the bottom of the Edit menu in Reunion. Choosing this menu command is another way to open the Keyboard Viewer palette from which you can drag-and-drop characters into Reunion fields, such as a note field.

For more information about Keyboard Viewer and Special Characters, consult Macintosh Help or click the links earlier in this section of the manual.

Dictation

The Macintosh supports dictation, where you can use your voice instead of typing text.

To use this feature in Reunion, the cursor must be in an editable text field. Then choose Edit > Start Dictation.

More information can be found on Apple's support web site. Click here to learn more.

Translating Reunion

For details about translating (or localizing) Reunion into other languages, visit this web page.