G. P. Chalmers

Thanks Michael, I do tend to jump in with both feet. I will study Terry's Tips thoroughly to make sure I have a good grounding in the database before trying to get too fancy. I have already discovered that even amongst my siblings, there are differing memories of how many brothers and sisters our late father had. My early attempts were done using Excel but I spent most of my time trying to reconcile Births, Deaths, and Marriage records with these conflicting family views. I hope TMG can help me to record each and every theory (to keep faith with the family) then help me to verify the actual situation. Thank you for your interest; I am encouraged by the thoughtful and positive responses I have received within hours of joining your forum. I hope to become a useful contributor to this group and I am delighted by your welcome. Sincerely, Greg Chalmers

Fair point. I had reverted to standard database-speak, not being familiar with the common terms being used by regular users. I presume the database design has been normalized in the traditional way, with attributes divided into logical tables and each table indexed to the record ID. This being the case, I imagine the database goes something like this.... The Person record holds the primary key to all its other tables, such as Tag attributes, which can be numerous and are further normalised into suitable types. As the Explorer can only be sorted on ID, Given, Surname, Birth and/or Death dates, I can assume that these attributes are stored on the Person table or pointed to directly from this table but can also be derived from Tag table(s) and linked back to the Person record. Therefore: Each individual has a unique ID that points to: Given Name (name group of attributes) Surname (special name group) Relationships (pointers to Father, Mother, Child, Spouse, etc) Tags (pointers to unique and custom-made attributes, such as events, special dates, notes, etc) [*]Names can be identified as Primary or not. Primary/Not Primary flags are provided for all Tags to assist in filtering and viewing. [*]Additional flags are provided in all tables of attributes. [*]Elaborate Sentence Structures are enabled for all Tags and record types. These are used in reporting. [*]The Explorer window is a menu-driven database query tool designed to simplify the selection of seach and filter criteria. [*]The "Find Person by ID" is a simple selection tool indexed on the Person record [*]The "Picklist of People" is an expanded selection tool that includes the Person record and additional IDs and Names from major relationship tables; as used by the Explorer for sorting and filtering. [*]Focus Groups are unique lists of Persons created to assist users by reducing the number of records being directly processed by "Details" and other windows. They are saved results from the Explorer and enable the user to apply complex and comprehensive queries/filters to the data without having to repeat these actions each time. I have to admit to some experience in database design and I have formed this view of the application much by assumption as by any real understanding of the actual structure. I appreciate you taking the time to point out the proper way to describe and explain the database. I am a willing student and keen to use this wonderful product to its fullest extent. Sincerely, Greg Chalmers.

Thank you Jim, I had tried that but with so many options and ways to do things, it took me a while to undo all the things that were stopping me. I don't really know how, but I now have a method that is quite satisfactory. I have a layout that shows the database records, as you advised, next to the Details window - in which I can make my changes. I simpy click on the next record in the Explorer window and the Detail window updates to the new record. I appreciate your assistance in the matter. Cheers

Apologies from a new user: I have been playing with TMG for a few weeks and I am ready to get serious. I have disabled many of the data sets I had origionally loaded and I have merged the desired records into a single set. Understandably; this record set has many duplicate tags as a result of me merging multiple copies of the same person into one set of unique individuals. I am now stepping through the data; cleaning out all the duplicate tags, by hand. My question is: How can I quickly and easily step from one record to another (using the ID number) so that I can be assured that I have cleaned up all existing records? I have tried the [Ctrl DnArrow] keystroke; however, the Details window does not refresh until I update it by clicking on the 'Family' tab then back to the 'Person' tab. Or; I can display and select the next record in the 'Explorer' window then return to the Details window - both methods are less than satisfactory as they both require multiple keystrokes and or mouse clicks. Being such a fundamental operation in a database environment, I am embarrassed to ask how this is done in TMG.

I too have the exact behavior that David is having, although only after making a change to the database. If I open a project, do nothing and exit - it closes properly. If I make any addition, deletion or change to any data; it closes the project file but not TMG and displays the same option box. I have to use Task Manager to close the program. I am using a Dell XPS with 2xdual CPUs and max system memory. I can open many windows, several datasets, browse the web; drop notes into OneNote, cut and paste from Excel and monitor email all at the same time without performance problems or error. But, when I close the program, backup the data (or not) - the program fails to close completely. Regards, Greg