This dialog can also be opened by right clicking a person box in a treeview and selecting the function Create Placeholder Records... in the context menu.

Placeholder records serve to complete tree structures if not all persons are known. The placeholder boxes are output as empty boxes and can be filled in later by hand on a printed graphic.

The placeholder records are created for the primary person selected here; this primary person should not be confused with the primary person of the treeview. Placeholder records can be created for ancestors or for descendants of this primary person.

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Placeholder records for ancestors of the primary person selected here:

The primary person for the creation of placeholder records can be selected freely. Starting at this primary person, the placeholder records are created for a certain number of ancestor generations. The number of ancestor generations has to be adjusted using the spinedit control.

Note: For G ancestor generations, you will need 2^G columns, which means 10 ancestor generations would require 1024 columns. If you give each person box a width of only 0.8 inch, 1024 columns will produce a graphic that is more than 800 inch. FamilyTreeFactory will not have a problem with this, but the paper may be unmanageable. For this reason, it is wise to keep the number of generations small. Apart from that this also serves not to overtax the RAM.

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Placeholder records for descendants of the primary person selected here:

The primary person for the creation of placeholder records can be selected freely. Starting at this primary person, the placeholder records are created for a certain number of children and perhaps for a partner. It is possible to create only a partner or only children. First the partnership number of the primary person has to be adjusted using a spinedit control, because the partner and the children are always assigned to a certain partnership number. To the right of this spinedit control saved partner and children are output to relieve the adjustment of the partnership number. The checkbox Create placeholder record for the missing partner is only available, if no partner is saved yet for the adjusted partnership number.

Use the spinedit control at the bottom to adjust the number of placeholder records for children to be created. Because max. 25 children per partnership can be managed, the adjustable value is limited to 25 less the number of children saved yet. The text at the spinedit control mentions the valid values, for example '(23 of max. 25 child numbers are free)'. The created placeholder records for children are assigned to the first free child numbers. These child numbers can be changed later with the function Change Order of Partners/Children.

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Using the function in the context menu, it is very easy to add placeholder records as continuations to certain positions of a tree structure: Right click a person box and select Create Placeholder Records... from the context menu. By this the clicked person is selected automatically as the primary person for the creation of placeholder records. In the next step the Ancestors of the Primary Person tab or the Descendants of the Primary Person tab has to be selected. On the tab the last options have to be adjusted. Finally the placeholder records are created by clicking the Create button. If the primary person for the creation of the placeholder records is contained in the current treeview, the treeview will be rebuilt automatically after the creation of the placeholder records. Due to the right click on a person box this condition is always fulfilled and the new treeview can be checked immediately.

Placeholder records contain the string '{Placeholder}' in the data fields for surname and given names. This attribute prevents text from being output in the person boxes.

There are some limitations on placeholder records. Various functions cannot be used if placeholder records are present, such as exporting FamilyTreeFactory records to a Gedcom file. The risk that these types of records could be the cause for confusion is too large for this to be permissible. The role of placeholder records is limited to the print and export functions in FamilyTreeFactory.

Placeholder records should only be used in FamilyTreeFactory. Saving family files *.fml with placeholder records is not a problem. If you do not need placeholder records anymore, you should delete them with the function Delete Placeholder Records... in the Personal data menu. This will delete all records that contain the "{Placeholder}" string. Former placeholder records that have been transformed into normal records are not deleted by this, as they no longer contain this string.

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