Sidebar

What Is the Sidebar?

Selecting Different Sidebars

Hiding the Sidebar

Resizing the Sidebar

More Details About Each Sidebar

Some Lists Appear in a Sidebar and in a List Window

Some Lists Are Only in a Sidebar

Sharing Sidebars and Lists (Printing, Emailing, etc.)

Destinations for Sharing Sidebars and Lists

What Happens When Clicking Items in Sidebars?

Differences Between Sidebars and the List Window

Similarities Between Sidebars and the List Window

What Is the Sidebar?

The sidebar is a rectangular area on the right side of the Reunion window which holds various lists. For example, the People sidebar looks like the image on the right...

Unlike the separate List window, which has more power and flexibility, sidebars usually contain minimal details for each record; just enough to help you navigate and search. For example, the People sidebar shows names of people with abbreviated birth and death dates. Some sidebars can also include relationships appended to each line. Learn more.

Sidebars are great for navigating, searching, and keeping lists at your fingertips. For example...

The People sidebar and the Results sidebar both feature a search box at the top, making it easy to search for people. Learn more.

Sidebars are also employed to manage data, such as sources, media, and places.

Selecting Different Sidebars

The Sidebar list appears in the lower-left of Reunion's window.

sidebar image

To switch between different sidebars, click one of the names in the Sidebar list. Or, click the title of the current sidebar above the sidebar in the upper-right of the Reunion window. A menu will appear, with the names of each sidebar.

Only one sidebar may appear at a time; however, as described below, the contents of many sidebars can also be seen in the List window — meaning the sidebar can show one list and the List window show another.

Hiding the Sidebar

The sidebar can be hidden/shown by clicking the little Sidebar button in Reunion's title bar.

To hide or show the sidebar by sliding it the opposite direction, Option-click the Sidebar button.

The sidebar can also be hidden/shown by pressing Shift-Command-H on the keyboard.

If the sidebar is hidden and you invoke a feature that requires the sidebar, it will automatically appear. Here are examples where the sidebar will appear, even if it was hidden...

Resizing the Sidebar

The sidebar can be resized (made wider or narrower) by moving the mouse between the left edge of the sidebar and the right edge of the family view. When the pointer changes into a Resize cursor, just click and drag to change the width of the sidebar.

Also, when you resize the Reunion window, by clicking and dragging the lower-right corner of the window, the sidebar will become larger. (In Mac OS X 10.7 or newer, you can also drag the left, bottom, or right edge of the Reunion window to resize the window.)

We recommend that you adjust the width of the sidebar according to the overall width of your display. There's no need for a super-wide sidebar; that's not the intent of the sidebar design.

Note: If you reduce the height of the Reunion window, some of the sidebars in the Sidebar list (on the left) may be hidden. When this happens, a scroll bar will appear, allowing you to access all the sidebars.

More Details About Each Sidebar

Many sidebars have common features (such as the ability to mark people, navigate to family records, etc.) However, each sidebar also has unique functionality, features, and buttons. All this is explained in different chapters of this manual. Follow the links below to learn more about each sidebar...

Some Lists Appear in a Sidebar AND in a List Window

Generally, each line in a sidebar contains one, two, or three fields of information. They are designed, mainly, to be quick navigation and search tools. For example, the People sidebar contains name and birth/death year on each line.

For more power and flexibility (for example, the ability to see more fields on each line or the ability to sort in different ways), the content of some sidebars can be also be seen in a separate List window, meaning the content can be viewed in another window with more power and flexibility. The List window is explained here.

listbtnSidebars whose content can also be viewed in the List window will appear with the List button under the sidebar. Clicking the List button will open the List window. These include...

Some Lists Are Only in a Sidebar

Some sidebars are designed to manage and/or present information in such a way that their functionality is only available in a sidebar (and not in a List window). These include...

Three lists appear only in the List window: Citations, Events and Feasibility

For more details about the differences and similarities between sidebars and the List window, click here.

Sharing Sidebars and Lists - Printing, Reporting, Emailing, etc.

A Share button appears under most sidebars and under all List windows. The purpose of this button is to view the list in another app, print, email, copy, or save the list.

Clicking the Share button under the sidebar/list opens a Share window, such as the example shown below.

The Share window is used to specify...

When the title, destination, and any other options that appear in the Share window are ready to go, click the button at the bottom (whose name will change, to reflect the destination of the report).

Destinations for Sharing Sidebars and Lists

When sharing a sidebar or list, the destination is where you want the report to go. Reunion is unique in its ability to offer several output destinations — these will vary, depending on the sidebar/list...

To see the destination choices or to select the desired destination for a sidebar/list...

  1. Click the Share button at the bottom of a sidebar or list.
  2. Click the Destination button in the Share window.
  3. Select a destination for the list/report.

More explanation of destinations is here.

Using Grouped Subtitles in Lists

When sharing the People, Results, or Events lists, a button called Use Grouped Subtitles appears in the Share window. This option will organize the report using subtitles, thereby making the report more consolidated and easier to follow.

The illustration below shows an excerpt of a report with and without subtitles. Notice in the version with subtitles, surnames appear as subtitles for each group of people with the same surname. Whereas, in the other example (without using subtitles) each surname appears in each line.

When enabled, the column representing the primary sort field is removed from the report and, instead, the values in that column are inserted as subtitles for each group of people that follow. This results in a "cleaner" list, without needless duplication of values in a column.

When the People and Results lists appear in the sidebar, the primary sort field is Last Name.

In some lists, it is possible to have the primary sort field not appear as one of the columns.

A Note About Notes

When sharing the contents of the List window and the report includes a note field (for example, when looking at People in the List window and one of the columns includes a note field), only the first 100 characters of text from the note field are included in the list. If you need to export a text file containing more than the first 100 characters of each note field, then consider this feature instead.

A Note About Sources

When the Share button is clicked at the bottom of the Sources sidebar the report will include only sources currently showing in the list. Thus, if you only want to print or email a particular group of sources, you may want to sort or search to prune the source list before creating the report.

A Note About Places

When the Share button is clicked at the bottom of the Places sidebar, the Share Places window appears with an additional button: Include.

This button provides the option to include...

What Happens When Clicking Items in Sidebars?

The constant visibility of sidebars provides very handy navigation and selection possibilities when you consider that, no matter what appears in the middle portion of the Reunion window, the sidebar is still active and any item in the sidebar can be single- or double-clicked.

The following tables clarify what happens when a name in a sidebar is single- or double-clicked. Obviously, the current navbar selection (what's showing in the middle of the Reunion window) partially determines the result, so each table below corresponds to a selected navbar item.

When in Edit Person...

click action does this
Single-click person in sidebar. Replace person in edit person panel.
Double-click person in sidebar. Go to double-clicked person in family view.
Single-click family in sidebar. Go to edit family (for single clicked couple).
Double-click family in sidebar. Go to double-clicked family in family view.

 

When in the Edit Family...

click action does this
Single-click person in sidebar. Switch to Edit Person
and show the person in Edit Person.
Double-click person in sidebar. Go to double-clicked person in family view.
Single-click family in sidebar. Stay in Edit Family and show single-clicked family.
Double-click family in sidebar. Go to double-clicked family in family view.

 

When the Tree View is showing...

click action does this
Single-click person in sidebar. Single-clicked person becomes new starting person.
Double-click person in sidebar. Go to double-clicked person in family view.
Single-click family in sidebar. Husband of single-clicked couple becomes new starting person.
Double-click family in sidebar. Go to double-clicked family in family view.


When looking at the Charts or Reports menus...
(Note: these do not apply to the reports: Events, Last Names, Statistics, or Media Usage.)

click action does this
Single-click person in sidebar. Single-clicked person becomes new source person for the report/chart. (Note: in some circumstances, the clicked person's preferred spouse may become the source person. For example, when a report requires ancestors and the clicked person has no ancestors, but his spouse does.)
Double-click person in sidebar. Go to double-clicked person in family view.
Single-click family in sidebar. If the report/chart starts with a couple, then the single-clicked couple becomes new starting couple.
If the report/chart starts with a person, then the husband of single-clicked family becomes the new starting person.
Double-click family in sidebar. Go to double-clicked family in family view.


When looking at the Change menu...
(Only applies to Direct Lines Bold and Numbering.)

click action does this
Single-click person in sidebar. Single-clicked person becomes new source person for the change and the preferred spouse becomes the alternate source person.
Double-click person in sidebar. Go to double-clicked person in family view.
Single-click family in sidebar. The husband and wife become the source choices for the change.
Double-click family in sidebar. Go to double-clicked family in family view.


When looking at the Mark menu...

click action does this
Single-click person in sidebar. If the "Who" section is for a person, the single-clicked person becomes the new source person for marking
if the "Who" section is for a couple, the single-clicked person and preferred spouse become new source person(s) for marking.
Double-click person in sidebar. Go to double-clicked person in family view.
Single-click family in sidebar. If the "Who" selection is for couples
the husband and wife become the source choices for marking.
If the "Who" section is for a person, the husband of single-clicked family becomes the new source person for marking.
Double-click family in sidebar. Go to double-clicked family in family view.

 

Tip: The Person menu appears if you Control-click (or right-click) anybody's name in a sidebar.