Can't view media window

[Andrea Sedlak]

When I link an image of a source (e.g., birth certificate) to the source record, I can't view that source in a media window. I would like to attach information to the image, such as who owns the original document that I scanned, but I don't see how that's possible. Any thoughts?

[Lawrence E Moore]

Re: Can't view media window

When I link an image of a source (e.g., birth certificate) to the source record, I can't view that source in a media window. I would like to attach information to the image, such as who owns the original document that I scanned, but I don't see how that's possible. Any thoughts?

I’m a great fan of Preview for annotating PDFs and images. When I scan or import or take a screenshot of an old photo, death certificate, newspaper clipping, whatever, I use Preview to place the source information directly on the image. When scanning or taking a screenshot, I include some extra space above or below the image for this purpose. Some scanner software will scan directly to Preview, simplifying the process. In Preview, choose menu Tools>Annotate>Text. A text box appears in the center of the screen. Click and drag the box to a margin or innocuous place on the image. Adjust its width, highlight the word Text, and type or paste in the source information. I usually also make the background opaque pale yellow so that it is obvious that it’s an added note (click the toolbar box with the red diagonal to adjust background color). If you save at this point, Preview will display your annotations when you reopen the file, but other software may not. To make the annotations display in Reunion and other software, as a final step I print the image to PDF—Menu: File>Print and click the PDF button (lower left)>Save as PDF… and then name and tag the file. You may give the file a new name or you may replace the original file. Having the source information on the image facilitates creating a source record when I later use the image in Reunion.
Lawrence

[Robin Helmond]

Re: Can't view media window

I’m a great fan of Preview for annotating PDFs and images. When I scan or import or take a screenshot of an old photo, death certificate, newspaper clipping, whatever, I use Preview to place the source information directly on the image. When scanning or taking a screenshot, I include some extra space above or below the image for this purpose. Some scanner software will scan directly to Preview, simplifying the process. In Preview, choose menu Tools>Annotate>Text. A text box appears in the center of the screen. Click and drag the box to a margin or innocuous place on the image. Adjust its width, highlight the word Text, and type or paste in the source information. I usually also make the background opaque pale yellow so that it is obvious that it’s an added note (click the toolbar box with the red diagonal to adjust background color). If you save at this point, Preview will display your annotations when you reopen the file, but other software may not. To make the annotations display in Reunion and other software, as a final step I print the image to PDF—Menu: File>Print and click the PDF button (lower left)>Save as PDF… and then name and tag the file. You may give the file a new name or you may replace the original file. Having the source information on the image facilitates creating a source record when I later use the image in Reunion.
Lawrence

Thanks for a great tip. Adjusting the background to the text would certainly help readability.

[Andrea Sedlak]

Re: Can't view media window

Thanks for the tip. It would definitely get the source info onto the image of the document. I guess I'm still puzzled as to why Reunion provides the media window for images that are attached to people and families but not for images attached to sources. Seems like a capability that could simply be broadened across all image insertions.
--Andrea

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Can't view media window

It may be three or four mouse clicks away, but Reunion will display the source image in a window.

[Andrea Sedlak]

Re: Can't view media window

It may be three or four mouse clicks away, but Reunion will display the source image in a window.

Yes, I can view the source image--that's not my issue. My issue is that when an image is attached to a source, the media window is not available. This means that there is no tool to attach comments to the image (which I can do in the media window). My suggestion for the wish list is to provide a media window capability to images that are attached to sources.

[Kim]

Re: Can't view media window

I guess I'm not understanding what you want to do. Can't you just add any comments to the 'free-form' area of the source?

[Frank]

Re: Can't view media window

Just to clarify, what Andrea is describing is as follows:

• Images attached to people and families can be opened, viewed, edited, commented, etc. in Reunion's "Media" window.
• Images attached to source records can be opened, viewed, edited in the Preview app (or any other image-editing app; but typically Preview is used).

The reason these were designed to be handled differently was because the most typical document attached to a source record was a PDF file or a scan of a legal document. In those cases, the PDF file or the legal document itself pretty much told the story. And so there was less need for additional internal recording of comments, editing, etc.

By contrast, the typical type of image attached to people and families was a picture of the person or family. With images of people and families, there was a compelling need to comment (where, when, who, etc) or to crop, etc.

Having said that, I understand that there are no rules about what belongs where -- i.e., anybody can put any kind of image anywhere -- they can link images of varying content to a person, family, or source.

No right or wrong here; just giving the history of how these two multimedia-related features grew up differently.