wghayes

I think I know the answer, but wish to be certain. If I go to Tools/Master Tag Type List and change the default sentence structure (template) of tags, do those changes persist when I upgrade to the next version of TMG? Likewise with Tools/Source Types (although I am considering changing from Mills to Custom which I am certain would survive an upgrade)?

Virginia & Michael - Thanks - that is exactly what I needed and I am hard at work cleaning up imported sources. I will have a large number of sources that are no longer cited. Is there an easy way to delete them? I dread having to delete them one at a time. Bill

I have the latest TMG version installed on two computers running Windows 7. I backed up my project on the desktop computer, copied the backup to my laptop and left home on a trip. After restoring the backup on the laptop, I cannot open the project because it "... cannot be opened with this version ..." What have I done?

I believe I have found the problem. When I updated version 8.04 to 8.08 it was installed in a different directory, resulting in both existing on the laptop. The link on the desktop was for the old version, resulting in the error message. I discovered this by looking at installed programs in Control Panel.

Virginia - I have a related question. I am using the Master Source List to clean up my sources, add missing repositories, etc. In the case of sources with only one or two citations, is there any way to access the individual(s) cited? This would be similar to accessing individuals from the Master Place List and would be extremely helpful. Bill Hayes

I have been keeping my data files, external exhibits - everything - in Dropbox for over two years with never a problem. However, you must close the TMG program at the end of a session and give Dropbox time to upload the files before you turn off the computer. Likewise, when you go to the other computer, a laptop in my case, you must give Dropbox time to download the changed files before opening the TMG program. I do the same with my Quicken program and its files. All are in folders within Dropbox (Dropbox\Quicken\Personal\ and Dropbox\Quicken\Business\). This works great for a single user, but could be disastrous with two or more people or with one careless person. Dropbox does not do anything with the files until you close the program that is using them. Only then does it upload them to the "cloud."

Zane - I have not yet converted to v7 from v6, but I suspect the versions are the same vis-a-vis latitude and longitude. You must enter the number as degrees, minutes and seconds. In the USA 37 degrees 24 minutes and 30 seconds longitude and -80 d 15 m 20 s latitude would be entered thusly: 372430N0801520W For easily doing the conversion from decimals go to http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html Maybe I will find a tool in v7 that makes the conversion. If not, let's suggest it. Hope this keeps you on dry land - Bill Hayes

I am in the process of moving groups of people from one dataset to another using Focus Group. But the spouses of descendants all have to be added individually which is very time-consuming. My technique is as follows. 1. I select an accent color for the Focus Group to be certain that folks are added. 2. I add the ancestor of the group to the empty Focus Group. 3. I then check the Descendants box (250 generations), and the Spouses and Name Variations boxes. 4. I then click on the "Add Other" button. The problem is that when I look through the dataset, I find that the spouses of the descendants are not in the Focus Group. Am I doing something wrong? Do they have to be added one at a time? Is there a way to include them, and perhaps even their parents?

Thanks Terry - That is what I needed.

I have a custom language, Cdrom, that I created from Standard English, allowing me considerable freedom in default sentence structure, etc. This is working well, but with all the other languages in strings.dbf, these two files have become very large. Since I have no need for Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, etc. I wonder if anyone has a method of streamlining this dbf file to just the language(s) that are required. I presume that the cdx index file can be deleted and will be reconstructed automatically. It would also be nice if TMG allowed one to place these files somewhere other than in the program folder. I would suggest another entry in Preferences >> Options >> Current Project Options >> Advanced, or somewhere under Program Options. This would make it easier to back up these two files, make it simple to include them when moving a project from desktop to laptop, and help prevent accidental overwriting of strings.dbf when installing an upgrade.

Terry - Thanks for your reply and the nice tutorial. When I did this more than two years ago, I was under the impression that I had to make a copy of the English (U.S.) language, then rename the copy as my custom language before using and changing it. So I did that and was thereafter under the mistaken impression that all of my changes in sentence structure were saved in the strings.dbf file. You are correct - I have no need to change the labels on the interface or to change the articles, pronouns, etc. in the reports. I am only changing the default sentence structure. I just took a closer look at File >> Language >> Customize and found that I could simply delete the languages I do not want (French, German, Italian, etc, etc.). Doing so reduced the size of strings.dbf by over 50%. I have now saved the smaller file to my backup disk where it will be available should I ever need it. Nice to know that it need not be backed up periodically. Thanks again - Bill Hayes

My laptop copy of TMG6 seems to want a component of Microsoft Office which is not on this computer. The loading of the TMG program is interrupted and a request for the CD-ROM containing Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage is requested because of an unnamed missing component. If I click on cancel the TMG program loads anyway, and functions normally. I have looked in preferences to see if I have indicated the use of MS Word or some other component of MS Office, but this is not the case. I do not use FrontPage and to my knowledge it is not installed on either of my two computers. Any ideas as to what's going on here? I have been using TMG since version 4 and never had this occur before.

Virginia (and all) After returning from visiting the grands I searched my messy desk and found the MS Office Professional CD that came with my laptop. It turns out that Office XP with Access, Frontpage, Outlook, Word, etc was installed by the bookstore at NC State University under their Microsoft license, and not by IBM. IBM replaced my DVD_CD drive under warranty so I was able to insert the CD the next time I loaded TMG and was asked to do so. That fixed the problem. I still don't understand why TMG needed that. What if I had not ever had MS Office on my computer? Bill Hayes

Virginia - I am going to report here what we did and the result for all to see. Perhaps someone else has or will have the same problem. And maybe there is someone out there with a solution. You sent me fix.zip which contains userdataow2k.reg. After extracting that file to the desktop, I ran it and then started TMG. When I had the same problem as before (described below) I realized I should have restarted the computer first. I then restarted the computer, then loaded TMG. I am sorry to report that the problem persists. On starting TMG, the loading is halted about three quarters of the way through and a dialog box appears that says: <Title of Dialog Box> Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage </ Title> The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM or other removable disk that is not available. Insert the "Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage" disk and click OK. Use Source Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage OK Cancel Browse After I click "Cancel" I get another dialog box that says: Error 1706. Setup cannot find the required file. Check your connection to the network or CD-ROM drive. For other potential solutions to the problem see C:\Program files\Microsoft Office\Office 10\1033\SETUP.HLP OK Once I click on "Cancel" and "OK" the program finishes loading and functions normally, except that the same thing occurs whenever I try to generate an Individual Narrative Report. None of the other programs on my laptop do this, including MS Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. I should mention that my IBM ThinkPad DVD-CD unit has not been working since before I discovered this problem. I suppose that there could be a connection, but this is unlikely since the problem occurs even when the DVD-CD is uninstalled and removed from the computer. I am going to be away visiting kids and grandkids for almost a week. In the meantime I should receive a new DVD-CD player/recorder. I will let you know if the problem persists when it is installed. I do not have an Office 2002 CD, the software having been installed by the NCSU bookstore where I purchased the laptop. If the problem does persist I will see what they suggest. The store is closed for the holiday recess. Thanks, Virginia, for your attempts to solve this mystery. Bill Hayes

Well, Virginia, I tried those things to no avail. Interestingly, when I just now closed a TMG session and elected to make a backup, Windows tried to install that missing file before the backup began. I clicked on cancel on the dialog box and the backup proceeded normally. Bill

Virginia - Thanks for the help. The answers to your questions are: 1. Have not used it on my laptop for months. At least two minor TMG upgrades in the meantime. Problem is new. 2. Yes, only TMG. MS Word. Excel, Access and Powerpoint all open with no error. 3. Version 2002 4. No 5. XP updates automatically and has done so very recently. Since this only occurs with TMG, and since TMG is not an MS product and to my knowledge does not rely on MS Office, I assumed that I had set some TMG preference that wanted this file. Otherwise I cannot understand why TMG would want a file related to MS Office. Since this is just a nuisance at the moment, I believe I will just put up with it for now. When I replace my broken laptop CD-DVD I will see if I can reinstall the missing file. Bill Hayes

I recently found the place map feature, and have added the Window Live Local cumulative upgrade. However, using my default browser (Firefox), the URL is improperly entered with backslashes. An example is: http://\\www.mapquest.com\maps\map.adp/?latlongtype=degrees& latdeg=34&latmin=14&latsec=30&longdeg=-81&longmin=14&longsec=24 This occurs whether I chose Mapquest, Google Maps or Windows Live, and whether I am looking for a place name or map coordinates. I looked at the placemap.ini file and there are no backslashes in the URLs. I assume the problem is in sending the URL to Firefox. From past experience, I suspect that the same error in the URL occurs with Internet Explorer, but IE is more forgiving and shows the web page anyway. Does this affect other users? Does anyone have a work-around other than manually correcting the URL? — Bill Hayes

That did the trick! Thanks. I wonder why that "Send URLs with backslashes" was checked. Regarding my post – My description ended up in the title of my post. I will correct that so others can find it easily with a search. — Bill Hayes

I have upgraded to version 6.07 on my desktop and laptop computers. Everything is rosy on the former, but on the latter I am unable to use any language other than English and the Customize selection is greyed out so I cannot import my custom languages from my other computer. I tried reinstalling version 6.07 on the laptop, thinking perhaps I had done something wrong. But the problem persists. Am I overlooking something? Any suggestions? - Bill

Thanks Paul and Virginia. I did not see an option regarding the language pack during any of the installs on my laptop. But when I copied strings.* files to the TMG folder on my laptop from the same folder on my desktop as Virginia suggested, I got my modified English language ("CDROM"). Now I can have better control of the output, exporting and reimporting whenever I upgrade. TMG Help needs to address these language issues. Bill