Show and share it

Each August is designated as National Family History Month in Australia. A wide range of activities takes place across the various States as seen on this events calendar from the NFHM home page.

Various social media platforms provide an excellent place to find and connect with other family historians and researchers. These slides explore how people are using four of these platforms to connect with genealogists, have their questions answered, find relations and share family stories.

The presentation was given at the Heritage Centre at Cooroy on August 6th in conjunction with the Cooroy-Noosa Genealogical & Historical Research Group Inc and Noosa Libraries.

 This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com

Shortcuts for hashtags

Do you have some regularly used hashtags across a variety of platforms? If you want to improve your efficiency rather than typing them over and over again, consider using a text replacement tool.

Whether it is labelled text replacement, text expander or a personal dictionary, the function remains the same. A word, hashtag or phrase can be quickly added by using two or three letter substitutes that the owner chooses and when this substitute combination is typed, the word, phrase or hashtag will automatically appear.

Here are several ways to add shortcuts for those hashtags to cut down on repetitive typing.

iPads and iPhones 

• Settings < General < Keyboard
• Turn Shortcuts on
• Select Text replacement
• Add phrase or a hashtag and choose a shortcut
• Save

The next time you need that hashtag just type your shortcut and the hashtag will automatically expand.

Some shortcuts in my Text Replacement
ggy becomes #genealogy, fh becomes #familyhistory and tt expands to #TroveTuesday

I also have shortcuts for my email address, mobile phone number and some regularly used phrases.

Android

On Android tablets and phones use the Personal dictionary to add favoured words and hashtags.

The Personal dictionary is found under Settings > Languages and Input.

If you have more than one language loaded choose All languages then Add

Fill in the word or hashtag, type the shortcut

Chrome web browser

Add the extension Auto Text Expander to Chrome. Review the shortcuts already embedded then edit to add your favourites. Up to 500 shortcuts can be added via this extension. Here's a screenshot of a couple I've added.

All these options facilitate shortcut typing for hashtags in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and other social media platforms.

This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com

How to declutter your screen

Clear reading

Are you using this simple solution to clear your screen of additional clutter?

You’ve arrived at the article you want to read but the website is full of clutter, advertisements, sidebars with links to other articles and menus for navigating the site. Perhaps you want just the single article and a clear view of it.

Look for Reader View. A good reader view will clear the page of extraneous material, enable text resizing,  and some will provide the facility to change the background screen colour. Not all websites provide the option for a reader view but it is well worth using it when available.

Safari for iPad 

In the address bar look for the 4 line symbol in on the far left. A single tap will enable the simplified view or by a long press you can select to use on all websites.

Chrome - Windows 

For years I have been using the web extension Clearly by Evernote on my Windows PC but it has been discontinued. If you have Clearly installed it is likely it will continue to work but no further development is being undertaken.

Try Mercury Reader available from the Chrome web store if you do not have Clearly still working. 

 

Chrome - Android

The latest version now offers as simplified view. To access it,

• Open the Chrome browser (version 65) on your phone or tablet
• Go to Settings > Accessibility
• Tap on Simplified View

This will force Chrome to offer to show articles in a simplified view when that is supported. If your phone or tablet has not automatically downloaded the latest version of the browser, head to the Play store to update it.

Microsoft Edge

Edge has a reading mode built into the browser which can be activated by clicking on the book symbol in the address bar. The disadvantage with this method is that the pages are then reordered left to right rather than the normal method of scrolling down a page. Some may like that arrangement as it mimics a book layout.

Firefox

Firefox displays a single page icon in the address bar when the website can provide a simplified view. 

What web browsers provide you with the best reading options on your devices?

This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2018/06/how-to-declutter-your-screen.html