John Cardinal

That could mean the SQZ file is from TMG v1.2a, and if so, that's before my time and I don't know if the file is a valid ZIP archive. I also think it's possible that the floppy is part of a multi-disc set. I suggest you contact Wholly Genes support via Support@WhollyGenes.com.

A ".SQZ" file is just a ".ZIP" archive containing specific files that TMG expects. Open the .SQZ file and see what it contains. If it includes a ".TMG" file then it is a SQZ file created from TMG v4 (or previous). If it contains a ".PJC" file then the backup was created by TMG v5, v6, or v7, and given the SQZ file was written in 2005, that means it was not TMG v7, which was released in 2007. PJC files are text files and you can look at them with NotePad. They include some information about the project, including a "PjcVersion" that can help narrow down what version of TMG wrote the project. If you have a PJC file, find the PjcVersion and let us know what it is.

TMG Utility (TMGU) is a free program that has a Find and Replace feature that you can use to change "c:" to "d:" in exhibit paths. Make sure "Use Pattern Matching" is off.

I don't know. I didn't ask for a Legacy screenshot and a written description of differences between TMG, FTM, and Legacy. The original poster and the first person who replied to that post praised the FTM report. One said its "easily the most requested and desired format that relatives want" and the other said it was "the most useful report in any of the software I use." I was referring to them when I said proponents and I wanted to see what they liked so much. I still haven't seen it. I assume they are not checking the forum and so they haven't see my request.

I am not aware of any documented rules for ID numbers in TMG databases. One place I have not looked is the GenBridge SDK, a software package Wholly Genes provides to developers for importing data into TMG. You may want to contact WG and get the SDK even if you don't plan to use it, especially if there is any documentation included with it. From what I have observed, you can assign most ID numbers by choosing a value that is not in use. In earlier versions of the TMG database, some ID numbers used internally were the same as the physical record number, but I think that practice ended with TMG v4 or maybe earlier than that. In some cases, ID numbers will align with physical record numbers due to the sequence the data is imported, but that's coincidence.

I fail to see the value of an answer to a question I didn't ask.

I didn't mean to offend. Two previous posters praised the FTM chart and seeing it would help me to understand their comments. Now I am sorry I asked at all... I can't do anything about the TMG chart anyway so all the comments about its shortcomings don't do me any good. I wanted to see the FTM chart because I might consider adding a similar chart to Second Site.

Could one of the proponents of the FTM chart post a screen shot showing a portion of the report? Thanks!

First, I wanted to correct an earlier comment. According to the HTML standard, when an ampersand appears in an HTML statement, it should be converted to "&". That includes when it appears as part of a URL in an HREF element. So, this is correct: href="http://www.example.com?a=1&b=2" However, most browsers will allow you to enter it like this: href="http://www.example.com?a=1&b=2" Unfortunately, that doesn't help get around the issue. The TMG rule is that a semicolon is used to separate the URL from the link text (if link text is provided), and as someone else mentioned, it appears that the "&" is being converted to "&" before the scan for the semicolon is done. That causes the incorrect result where the URL parameters are considered part of the link text.

Jim, A reminder. [surname] and [GivenName] are name field labels that refer to parts of a name. They are defined in Name Styles and are only valid in the templates for a Name Style. Those specific labels may not exist for a given name due to differences in Name Style definitions. In any case, those terms can't be referenced in a sentence as variables. In a sentence, you access the given name via the [PG] variable or one of it's variants (P2G, etc.). There is no variable that returns the Surname.

Yes, but I'm hoping to convince TMG to change that!

Terry, Looks good. Two comments: 1 - If your HTML is limited to links, you can use the [WEB:] / [:WEB] code and that will work reasonably well in all TMG reports and it will produce a link in Second Site and TMG's HTML output. (I bet you know that, but I figured I'd add it for lurkers.) 2 - I think you can use the [CIT:] / [:CIT] codes in captions, but you should probably test that... (Losing gray matter here.)

A single exhibit can be shared by multiple people if you attach it to an event and then attach all the people to the event. An exhibit attached to a person cannot be shared by multiple people; the image can be shared by creating multiple exhibits that point to the same image file, but that's different, and as Doris points out, it may lead to the image appearing multiple times in a Second Site Exhibit Gallery.

Toolbar icons consume tiny amounts of RAM, and adding a feature to eliminate icons might actually increase the RAM requirements of the program, not decrease it: a fully-featured component that supports optional icons in every toolbar could use more RAM than a simple component where the toolbar definitions are static. As others have said, you have the option to turn off the standard toolbar, which might save a few bytes of RAM, but you said you don't want to do that. The memory load portion of this discussion is a diversion from a more important point. In the current computing environment where RAM is plentiful, software developers don't worry about incidental RAM use, and they shouldn't. It's critical to optimize in areas that matter, such as database access. (Figuring out how to save a byte here or there is a very expensive way to waste time.) On the other hand, it might be useful to make all toolbar icons optional: the feature is not about saving RAM, it's about making it more convenient for users to customize the program to suit their preferences.

I won't speculate on behalf of people who haven't commented for themselves, but I can surely say that I don't know what you are getting at. Pandemics have been around a long time and many have had far more impact on the (ahem) "global village" than virus A (H1N1). Bubonic plague comes to mind, for example. "Barack Obama's life and presidency" don't "bear out" anything that is related to this topic. If you stay on-topic, you increase the chances of a rational discussion.

Second Site has a very comprehensive tag label translation facility. The Second Site user interface is limited to English, and the controls that are used to choose which events are included in the site use the English (US) value. When constructing a site, however, SS honors the tag label translation that TMG provides, but it includes another optional facility to perform additional manipulations. So, for example, a tag label that works fine in TMG but is not appropriate for a web site can be converted to another value. So, SS users should assign meaningful names to the English (US) version of the tag label, and that's the only factor affecting SS usage.

I strongly oppose merging English (US) and English (UK). There are various locale differences that affect program use, data entry, and reporting, and designating one language or the other is the best approach for most--if not all--users. Spelling differences such as centre vs. center are not even an issue as most such words are entered by the user and TMG doesn't play an active role in determining which spelling is used. I would like to see TMG simplify multi-language support but merging English (US) and English (UK) doesn't solve any issues. On the contrary, it introduces some. A better simplification would be to remove the language choice from the TMG install process and allow users to switch on the fly from any supported language to any other supported language. That's mostly true now but projects are initialized with a set of properties based on language and I think TMG should allow those properties to be modified on the fly.

Ben, TMG Utility has a Change Citations feature which may help. You can use it to quickly change a set of citations. So, for example, you could use it to open each citation for a source in succession and make changes as necessary. (That's the "Prompt before each change" option) It will also make completely automated changes. See the Help page.

Actually, they are sorted correctly in both cases. When there is a tie because the sort dates are the same, the sort sequence is unpredictable. The sequence can vary according to the way the database component accesses the records and what records are included in the query. For an individual view, the query may only select records for the current person, and may access them via a particular index. The query for a report may select records for many people and access them via a different index. Both outcomes are unpredictable and while you may see the results you described the next 5,000 times you look, on the 5001st it may be different.

Peter, I agree with Terry that SS3 has more options with regard to living people. However, I did not implement a capability where the name of a living person can be suppressed but other information about him or her is shown. You can suppress other things, but the name is shown if you include or show the person at all. That limits what you can do with SS: according to what you wrote about the new law, you have to exclude everyone who has not given you explicit permission to include them. Furthermore, SS3 only has one set of controls for "Excluded, Living" people, so that means that you can't show anything for that group, even if some of the people you want to exclude have given you permission to show their names. SS3 is still an improvement over SS2 in this area; in SS2, you'd have to suppress info about "Excluded, Deceased" people, too. Of course, you can add a new Name-Var record for the person, and make it primary, where you enter the first name as "SON" or "DAUGHTER" or "LIVING" or whatever is required by the law.

I'd create a custom event tag and use the [WEB:] / [:WEB] code in the memo. There are more involved ways to do it, but this is pretty simple and will work. The custom event isn't strictly necessary, but it will make it a little easier to tell when you have added a link to the FindAGrave site for someone.

As far as I know, there is no way to enter all 76 markers in a structured way. If you use the 67-marker test, you could enter any markers missing from that test in the comment field and when/if it becomes possible to record the other markers you could move those values. Probably not what you wanted to hear...

Mike, Some marriages are fleeting, but we enter those in our data! I agree that web sites can come and go. Some are much more permanent than others. For example, I have links to great sites that support some of my Nova Scotian ancestors and those links have been working for at least 8 years. Others, of course, are gone now. I think it's a good idea to add the link and keep track of the data some other way, credit the person, etc. Adding a link is very convenient for the cases where the URL is still valid and it doesn't hurt anything if the URL is stale. Back to the original topic... I think TMG's [WEB:]url;text[:WEB] code is the best way to enter links. Terry's question is pertinent, however, because whether or not you use that code depends on what you are trying to do, what reporting options you use, etc.

Peter, OK, I understand now. I don't think the missing context-menu commands should be interpreted to mean that the Place comment field doesn't support printer codes. The problem is, it is hard to test. TMG doesn't include the Place comment in any reports, as far as I know, except for a "List of Places" report, and the "List of..." reports don't format printer codes. If I were you I'd go ahead and use the Place comments field and I'd use printer codes, too. If for some reason you ever have to remove the printer code--I don't think that will happen--it would be pretty easy to remove them with TMG Utility.

Peter, As far as I know there are no issues in TMG with using the Place comment field for comments about places. The Place comment field is a "memo" field in TMG and so you can use printer codes like [bOLD:] / [:BOLD]. You said you were putting links in the Place comment; for maximum compatibility with TMG you should probably use the [WEB:]url;text[:WEB] code for links. SS will convert those to HTML links for you, and I think TMG will, too, if you send TMG report output to an HTML file. I don't know what you mean by "as a text field so format[t]ing would be easier."