G2G: WikiTree Browser Extension: New Features

Question

Hello, fellow WikiTreers!

We are happy to announce the release of new features for the WikiTree Browser Extension.

Readability Options  

Take control of how WikiTree profiles appear with our advanced readability options. Apply standard formatting and spacing to sources and citations, making them easier to read. Enable reading mode to hide various elements of the WikiTree UI for a cleaner, more focused view. There are numerous features included to customize your experience.

Auto Bio  

Generate an automated biography from existing data in the form, text editor, and database with our Auto Bio feature. Find the Auto Bio button under 'Biography' in the toolbar above the biography editor.

Auto Bio includes many optional features such as:

• Interpretation of census tables and citations
• Automatic addition of categories and stickers
• Customization of wording options
• Location fixes and enhancements
• Timeline generation
• Automatic citation fetching for Find A Grave pages
• South Africa Project style support

Add Person Redesign ✨ 

We've redesigned the Add Person page for the convenience of advanced members. The edit form and sources box are now displayed throughout the process, which has been streamlined by one screen. You can also enable an option to add additional fields (Prefix, Nicknames, Other Last Names, and Suffix).

Date Fixer  

No more date format confusion! Our Date Fixer automatically converts various date formats (DD/MM/YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY, DD.MM.YYYY) to the standardized YYYY-MM-DD format. It also corrects typos in date fields.

Language Setting  

Establish a default language for location suggestions with our Language Setting feature. By default, the language will be updated automatically each time you select a different language on an Add Person page. You can change this behaviour in the settings.

We hope you enjoy these new features and find them useful in your WikiTree journey! As always, we appreciate your feedback and suggestions for further improvements.

Please let us know if you see any problems with any of the new features or any conflicts with BEE or Sourcer.  Thanks.

Happy WikiTree-ing!

Edit: The bug fix update has gone through so the issues with the Add Person Redesign should be gone now (v. 1.4.4).  As ever, let us know if you find any problems.  Thanks.

Comments

Thanks for the announcement, Ian! The Add Person Redesign feature sounds as if it should fix issues many people reported with the new profile creation system slowing down their work.

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Click for details about the Readability Options feature.

Ian, until the stable 1.4 version of the extension is approved on Chrome, the preview version should be basically the same thing plus a couple of bug fixes, right?

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Yes..

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Thanks, Ian- I especially like that date ranges are using en-dashes instead of hyphens, a great improvement!

I have for a long time really appreciated all your work for auto-bios. My Wikitree experience would be so different (and slower!) without you sharing your innovation.

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Thank you for noticing the en dash. 

Answer 1

 Will take awhile to explore all the options, but went directly to the new changes for adding a profile and having all the fields on one page again is wonderful. THANK YOU Ian.  My aging brain cells could not adapt to the split pages and I kept having to bounce back and forth to check details of my entries.  It was taking me forever to add a profile.  

Answer 2

Ian,  the Auto Bio button is grey'd out.  Is there some magic wave I need to do?

Comments

If you mean the BEE Auto Bio button, once you restart your browser, that should be gone, anyway... There's a new Auto Bio in WBE (as mentioned above), and I'm hoping it's much better than the previous one (I think it is).

Edit: Oh! I see it is actually still there.  I will remove it very soon (I thought I'd done that).

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I downloaded the preview version and it works fine, at least as well as the old one.  The delete old bio is a little scary but once I understood what was happening, it makes sense.  My normal thing is to delete what I don't want before running auto bio and the leaving the residual below the auto bio or putting it in a research notes section.  I'll get used to it.

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Can the Auto bio button please be put back in BEE until the new WBE version is available. The Chrome Browser only has version 1.3.6 (updated March 31, 2023) showing as an option.

This is after both Browser and computer were reset.

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Honestly thought I was going mad, I've spent the last 4 hours trying to get the Auto bio button back. Completely lost without it. Hope Chrome upgrade the WBE soon.

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Because there was a conflict between the BEE and a new WBE feature, I timed the updates to go through at the same time. The WBE is usually approved (by the Chrome store) very quickly (often instantly) but for some strange reason, it's been 'pending review' for about 12 hours or so now... Just my luck. It's quite frustrating. (Meanwhile, the Preview version and two bug fix updates for that have gone through instantly.  Also, the Firefox version of the stable release is live, too.)

No, I can't put the Auto Bio button back in to the BEE while we wait for the Chrome Store to wake up. Sorry for the slight inconvenience.

Answer 3

I seem to be getting duplicate autobios both with and without inline citations. It wasn't doing it yesterday. I have unclicked the inline citation button. I would prefer to put these in myself if required as it is picking up all the census citations and adding them as evidence of birth which I think looks really messy and repetitive.

Comments

Please send me more details of duplicate generated bios.

Did you read the message that comes after the generated bio?

Someone else said that they don't want censuses used as evidence for birth. I'll add an option for that.

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I have sent you a PM with a saved profile for you to look at.

Answer 4

I am experiencing a big problem with this when trying to add someone's spouse. I have the extension set to the "advanced options." I fill in the data for the person and a couple of source citations then click to continue which adds a section for the marriage data but then there is no way to continue from there--no button at the bottom of the page.

I will try to add this person in a different way (as a child of someone else) and will let you know how that goes.

Comments

Yes. I'm sorry about this. The fix is done, and in normal circumstances, you probably wouldn't have even seen the bug, but the Chrome store has been really slow in the last week or so. The update will be with you soon.

(See the second edit in the question.)

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It didn't work adding as a child either. I disabled the "advanced" option and was able to add him as a child then. I will try the advanced option another day--hopefully it will be fine then. Thanks for all your work, Ian!!!

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Yes, I know. As above. The fix is coming soon.

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Nelda, the update has gone through (v.1.4.6), so you shouldn't have this problem anymore.

Answer 5

Is there a way to leave the Sources button open rather than closed on all of my profiles

Comments

Please explain.

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If you had previously enabled the "Collapsible Sources" feature in the old version of the extension, it may have automatically migrated your settings over under the "Readability Options" section when your extension updated. If this is what you are talking about, look for the "Collapse the entire Sources section" and see if it is set to "always" and you can change it there to "never" or "in reading mode" and the toggle button will go away.

Answer 6

I miss the pared down version of the Bee. Now we get a bio for the census records by default. Before I just got the born, married, died, list of kids, which is all I want for an auto bio.

It also seems to be updating location fields even though I told it not to do that (changing USA to United States. Why is that even an option? No style rule says United States is preferred and this continues to be hotly debated by WT members). 

I'm glad to see my preferred date option is now working (wasn't working before in Bee).

I'd be very curious how the system would even know to add the "Needs Profiles Created" category since this is based on more family being named in sources. 

Comments

I'm sorry you're displeased.

The BEE Auto Bio tried to give a narrative for the censuses when the information was available.  If you don't want that, I can add an option to just put the census citations in the sources section.

If it changed the location when the option was not checked, that's a mistake, and I'm sorry.  I'll fix that. This is an option because some people believe it's good to standardize locations. According to WT+, over 13 million profiles have United States as a location, and about 2 million have USA. The obvious way to standardize this is to use United States, so that's an option.  Again, I'm sorry if it changed the location without the option selected, and I'll fix that.

Many people include a list of family members from the census with a census citation. We can see if there are any family members there who are not in the database (not attached to the profile person). If they are, the Auto Bio adds a note saying that those people may need a profile and adds an appropriate 'Needs Profiles Created' category. There's a chance that this is wrong, but you can just delete it if it is (and adding the category is an option, anyway, so you can switch that off you don't want it).

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Yes, I did see all the category options which is another cool feature. I especially like it auto adding location categories (I always forget to add them!). I didn't want to turn on the needs profiles created if I didn't know where that was coming from. That's cool that it extracts it from what I assume is the optional tables the Sourcer makes.

I apologize for sounding cranky. In the past few months tech changes have been happening so fast that I feel like I spend more time trying to keep up with them then getting to actually work. I'm hoping for a lull in all this improvement soon :-)

Answer 7

Hm ..maybe it is me but I am missing the siblings and children of a person listed in the AutoBio ?

Can sombody give me a hint please ?

Comments

There are many options for this new Auto Bio.  Please click the WikiTree/WBE icon in the toolbar of your browser to see the WBE options and then go to Editing > Auto Bio > Show options.  One of the options is to have lists of siblings and children.

Answer 8

Thank you!  I've had a quick play with some of the new features and really like it!  I also like that I can now add categories without being taken out of improved editing mode.  Thanks for that too.

Answer 9

hello Ian, there is a strange thing happening when adding a profile, added a child to a couple with the nicely reviewed system (thank you for that ), but it sort of hung back and wouldn't move on, figured out I had to click on the ''review matches'' thing that was showing as a one-liner, it behaved very oddly, didn't suggest anything and gave me the button to finally create the profile.

Answer 10

Thank you for giving back the one page Add Person.  Is it normal for the Clipboard to only be at the top of the page when adding a new person though?  It is 'stuck' to the top off the Sources box when I am in edit mode on profiles but not when creating a new profile.

Answer 11

That Date Fixer looks pretty awesome, it also seems to accept German month names ... wohooo!

Comments

Actually tiny improvement suggestion: "20. dezember 1858" is not recognized ...

Answer 12

Thanks a lot for this! It is an enormous help.

Answer 13

I've been using WikiTree Sourcer to collect the data when I add a new person. If I'm gathering the data from FamilySearch, then it adds a "See also:" with the FamilySearch template at the end. The newest iteration of AutoBio keeps moving the template above the Biography.

It also seems to have trouble recognizing sources. I just had it add the unsourced category (though I'd turned that option off) to a profile that included at least one census source.

Now if I can get only get the newly formatted "add profile" to play nicely for me. . .

Comments

The "add person" redesign is also giving me grief. It keeps telling me I haven't added any sources, and when I add more sources until I can continue, I get a page with nothing but sources. No headers, no biography. Just sources.

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Hi Katrina, could you point me at the profile that is causing you problems?

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There isn't a specific profile. This has happened each time I've tried to add a child or spouse. The profiles don't reflect the problem when I'm done, because I have to fix them before they're created.

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I'm going to check to be sure I have the most recent extension.

Edit: I'm using v. 1.5.6 of the Wikitree Browser Extension

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Katrina, I would be happy to walk through the process with you. Are you connected to the WikiTree Discord channel?

In the meantime, and I'm not confident that this will help, but, have you read:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Add_Person_Redesign

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Katrina,

Are you adding the person with our without the Add Person Redesign feature enabled?

If you have it enabled, can you instead add a person without this feature?

Have you ensured that the sources are either included as inline <ref> sources in the biography or as bulleted * items that are after the Sources heading?

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Kay,
Is the Add Person Redesign the new step-by-step feature? If so, then yes.

Before the recent update, I could use the WikiTree Sourcer app to save the person data from FamilySearch (for example), then when I'd add a person, I could have WikiTree Sourcer automatically fill in the data. It would automatically use the Advanced format, and would include a short biography with the FamilySearch Template as a bulleted source.

Then, once I'd saved the new profile, I could add more sources, use the autobio feature, and have it fill in a more complete bio, which I would then edit and add to.
 

Now, even though I have the advanced setting checked on the add person, I have two boxes: one has the short bio that Sourcer creates, and the other has the bulleted FamilySearch Template.

At that point, I can no longer continue to the next screen, because the bulleted FamilySearch template is not recognized as a source and because I haven't added the Biography and Sources headers.

If I paste another source in the source box, it will let me continue to the next screen, but when I get to the final, saved profile, there is only the added source and the FS template.

Running autobio at that point adds in the headers, but it puts the FS template above the Bio header and adds an Unsourced category.

I think I'm actually dealing with several different issues, or that the updates just aren't playing well together yet.

I have a profile that I'm getting ready to add in a few minutes. I will try taking screen shots as I go. It may be that I just need to change a setting or two somewhere.

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OK, I hope these links work. 

I started a child of Forsyth-3571 using "add child". I took the person data from FamilySearch using the WikiTree Sourcer app and used it to fill in the form. Here is what it looked like:
Form Filled in by Sourcer
 

When I tried to continue as usual, I got this error:
Error Message

I added her name to the FamilySearch template, and it accepted that as a source. When I continued to the Edit screen, it looked like this:
Edit Screen after Adding New Person

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Without doing any other editing, I selected autobio, and this was the result:
After autobio

Clearly, I'll be doing more to this profile before I move on, but it would be nice if all my extensions played nicely together.

Here's the profile, though I'll be working on it, so there won't be much to see. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Salter-3372

 

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You seem to have identified a problem. We are in the process of letting the right people know about it. More to come.

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Oh, good. I'm glad I could help.

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There is a conflict between Sourcer and WBE.

To resolve this conflict, change your WBE Options as follows... Under "Add Person Redesign" disable the option "Add additional fields (Prefix, Nicknames,Other Last Names, Suffix, and Biography)"

That will resolve the problem for now.

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Thank you so much Murray!

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Hi Katrina, I think this should be fixed now (or at least quite soon (in v. 1.5.7)).  Let me know if you still have a problem.