John Cardinal

On 1/1/2020 at 11:47 AM, Quish said:

We have been in contact with John and he is really not interested in the project.

Quish,

I presume this was a system that I discussed mostly with "J.S." back in August. I said I was interested in the work, but that it would be expensive, probably several thousands of dollars. I did not spend the time to produce a detailed estimate because I was not confident that your group would spend that much for what you wanted. I proposed a couple ideas that would reduce the scope of work, and thus the price. J.S. replied, "We will consult with each other and get back to you." I did not receive any further messages on the topic.

The system that J.S. described was essentially a web-based membership system that also would control access to pages generated by Second Site. The system required membership management (add users, assign passwords, restrict access to current members only for some content, etc.). There was also a requirement that members would have email accounts provided as part of the service. There were several other features for managing documents of interest to members that are not part of the SS pages, such as newsletters.

Building all that would take time, even if the project leveraged existing software to provide the basic functionality.

There may be an existing system you can use to manage members. There are free, open source solutions and low-cost solutions. At the time I reviewed the requirements written by J.S., I was not aware of any system that would provide all the requested features, and it was not clear where you/he was willing to compromise.

it may be possible to integrate the static pages generated by SS with a membership system, but someone would have to review the available packages and select the one that has (A) the membership features that are required and (B) will accommodate static pages. After that, someone would have to install the package and customize it, then (possibly) provide some scripts or other tools to make it easy to update the SS pages.

John,

You can tell Windows to assign a drive letter to a folder. You can reserve drive "D:" to point to "c:\d-drive\". Search for the "subst" command using Google. Here's one result:

IT World

If you decide you want to update the file paths, there are several ways to do that. My TMG Utility will make "find and replace" changes to exhibit file paths, and that makes systematic changes (like moving a set of files from one location to another) pretty easy. TMG also has a way to find missing exhibits. I like TMGU's method better, but both have their uses.

John

Just saw this topic. Sorry about the delayed response.

For the 1940 census, I started with people who I had found in the 1930 census and eliminated people with an existing Census1940 tag or a Death tag before 1940. I ran a List of People (LoP) filter to people and used this criteria:

( Census1930            | # of Tags | > Is greater than   | 0    |   OR
  Witnessed Census1930  | # of Tags | > Is greater than   | 0    | ) AND
	
  Census1940            | # of Tags | = Equals            | 0    |   AND
  Witnessed Census1940  | # of Tags | = Equals            | 0    |   AND

( Death Group           | # of Tags | = Equals            | 0    |   OR
  Death Group           | Year      | >= Is not less than | 1940 | ) END

You have to be careful with the parens and with the AND/OR terms. Oh, and update it for 1940 / 1950 instead of 1930 / 1940.

It won't catch everyone, but it highlights a lot of good candidates. After adding Census1940 tags, I could rerun the filter to select people who still did not have a Census1940 tag. I didn't have to add a "Candidate" tag to keep track of my progress, I let the actual 1940 Census tag do that.

You'd still have to search for people who immigrated to the US in the 1940s, or people you did not find in 1940. People who were born in the 1940s will often be in households that were found in 1940, but not all of them. Again, this is intended to catch the easier candidates.

6 hours ago, JohnR said:

You are not suggesting that my local automatic backup of drive C  and D to an external drive should exclude the TMG progamme and data files?

JohnR,

I am not Michael, but I will answer anyway.

If you have an automated backup program that only runs at a designated time, and TMG is not running at that time, you should be fine. The problem with backup programs that run all the time is they can interfere with TMG trying to access one of its files while you are using TMG, and that can corrupt your TMG database. Popular cloud-based programs run all the time so they can distribute the network load, and that means they are running when you might be using TMG. That's bad, and must be avoided. However, a nightly backup process is fine as long as TMG is not running when that backup runs.

I have an automated backup that runs at 3AM and copies all changed files to an external device. Once a week, I make an "image copy" of each drive on my PC so I have a recent "full copy of the disk" in case something goes wrong. I transport some of the backup files to offsite locations. All that is outside TMG, and I make sure that TMG is not running when those backups occur. Within TMG, I use the File > Backup command frequently. The resulting SQZ files are gobbled up by the backup processes described above.

John

Pam,

I've heard of slow access to the Master Source List when there are thousands of sources, but 3x or more than the 1600 you have. I am a lumper, and I have about 1015 sources. The MSL opens in about 2 seconds for me.

I have no idea why the MSL is so slow for you, but I am confident there is a problem. I will contact you off-list.

Pam,

How many sources do you have?

John

Dave,

I recommend that you NOT include external exhibits in your TMG backups. You should have a separate backup regimen for those digital assets, perhaps integrated with backups for other images that are not exhibits. Including exhibits in a TMG backup increases the size of the backup SQZ file and increases the amount of time that TMG takes to write the backup file. Meanwhile, the exhibits don't change very often. Lastly, if you have a lot of exhibits, the image data---which doesn't compress much--can cause the SQZ file to exceed the maximum size of a ZIP file. (SQZ files are ZIP files in disguise.)

TMG always performs reasonably well for me. The only operations that are slow enough to annoy me are (A) opening the Master Place List, which is glacial, (B) importing GEDCOM files (which I do rarely as part of testing), and (C) exporting GEDCOM files (which I also do only rarely).

The only other performance issue I have seen is when there was a "ghost" instance of TMG running that was using a lot of CPU. That was affecting all the other programs running on my PC, but had a particularly nasty impact on TMG, which was so sluggish it was almost unusable. I do not know what caused it. I only remember it happening once. I killed the ghost TMG process after I noticed it, and that solved the problem. Users who don't have the skills to check what processes are running and manipulate them can solve the problem by rebooting.

John

Doris,

Do you still need help with this? I don't check the Forum every day, and without that habit, I sometimes skip multiple weeks.

Yes, you can remove a trailing "*" from a name part such as the given name. You use Change Name Parts to do it. Changing a "*" is a little more difficult than changing other characters because "*" has a special meaning in the pattern-based replace operation, and that's what you need to use. You have to "escape" the "*" character so that it does not have its special meaning.

I changed one person in a TMG project to have a trailing "*" in the given name of her primary name. She had a couple non-primary names that were using the same given name, for a total of three names that needed fixing. Here is the TMG Utility log that shows the Change Name Part rules and the resulting changes:

TMG Utility v7.3.7
Copyright (C) 1999-2016 by John Cardinal. All Rights Reserved. Do not redistribute.

Function=Change Name Parts
Project=test09
Started at 16:57:29

Options:
  Match case: False
  Show All Name Fields: False
  Flag Filter: <No Filter>

Rules:
If GivenName ends with "*"
Change GivenName replace pattern "\*$" with ""

ID, Old Name, New Name
#3, 'Mary* Millet', 'Mary Millet'
#3, 'Mrs. Mary* Bezanson (Millet)', 'Mrs. Mary Bezanson (Millet)'
#3, 'Mrs. Mary* Vaughan (Millet)', 'Mrs. Mary Vaughan (Millet)'

Finished at 16:57:32
Elapsed Time=3 seconds
People=24,849
Names read=33,072
If GivenName ends with "*" = 3
Names changed=3

If you have any questions, contact me. It's probably best to contact me via email...

Leslie,

For SS output, don't use a JPG. Use an HTML table. That will leave the text as text, which has several advantages. If you have a scan of an original document, then include that, but add the transcription as an HTML table.

John

Gedcom Publisher is a ground-breaking application that creates an electronic book in EPUB format by combining text and images you enter with information taken from your GEDCOM file or TMG project. Gedcom Publisher knows the ins and outs of constructing a book in EPUB format, and it knows how to read your genealogy data. That means you can focus on the content of your family history book.

Digital publishing is very popular, and it's likely that when our grandchildren mature, most if not all their reading will be e-books, not paper books. It's unlikely that paper books will disappear, but the trend is clear.

Electronic books in EPUB format use HTML and CSS, which are also used in web sites. Unlike web sites, however, the result is a single file that is easy to share.

Using Gedcom Publisher is like using Second Site, but the result is an EPUB file rather than a web site. Second Site users will be familiar with some of the basic building blocks, like the Person Entry section. There are many differences, however, owing to the capabilities, rules, and limitations of reading devices and the EPUB format.

For more information, please visit the home page for Gedcom Publisher here: https://www.gedcompublisher.com

You may also be interested to review an example book: https://www.gedcompublisher.com/en/example.htm

The example book link above uses a browser-based e-book reader. That reader is not very robust and has a few rendering issues. For the best results, you can download the example book to your tablet or PC. Download the "AZK" version for sideloading to a Kindle app on your iOS device (iPad, iPhone).

John Cardinal

Author of Gedcom Publisher, GedSite, Second Site, and TMG Utility

Bert,

This is an unusual issue. If it was pure data corruption, the dates would not change in a regular way, i.e., they might all change to the first of the month, or all change to invalid date values. Changing by one day indicates the program is inspecting the initial value and then adding one to it.

Many programs store dates as an integer value based on a starting point. So, for example, if the starting point is 1 Jan 1970, and the integer date value is 17725, the date is 13 July 2018. However, TMG does not do that. TMG supports partial and approximate dates, and it uses a character format to store dates. So, 13 July 2018 is stored as "20180713" whereas "July 2018" is stored as "20180700". The "00" indicates no day number was entered. (The format is actually more complicated than what I have shown here. In order for the day to change, TMG would have to change "20180712" to "20180713", for example. That's not random, and that's why I don't think the issue is random data corruption.

I am not aware of any processes or features in TMG where dates are modified automatically and so I don't think the issue is a mis-configuration of some TMG feature.

I presume you have used the VFI command in TMG. If not, you should do that.

If you can provide any more details, that would help. For example, are the changes always in specific tag types? Does it happen for all date types, (before, after, circa, exact, between, etc.)?

John

Doris,

TMG's report writer has a couple DNA-related filters. Check there to see if you can select father of father (etc.) ancestors. I think you can. If so, then you can use an LoP report and that filter to update a flag.

John

UPDATE: Use the "Is a Patrilineal Ancestor" filter

rhude,

Is your restore path using a network path, i.e., starts with "//"?

John

Never give your credit card number to someone who calls you. For all you know, a rogue MyHeritage employee is calling you when they are off-the-clock and they are going to rip you off.

I would never do business with MyHeritage because they have used some questionable sales tactics, such as making it hard to quit a free trial before automatic conversion to a paid subscription. The Legacy mailing list had a post this week about someone getting charged for something they didn't want, and it wasn't clear if My Heritage was part of the issue, or if the charge was legit or part of a scam. Careful!

Campbell Stanford posted this on TMG-L:

Quote

I had similar problems after a new Windows 10 installation.  Report previews wouldn't work and word files went into a weird place and only as "rtf" files.

The answer was under Settings/Apps/Default Apps/Choose default applications by file type. The settings for ".doc" and ".docx" file type had disappeared. I replaced them with Word and all problems went away.

I am not sure why .doc and .docx settings would matter because TMG uses .rtf for its screen preview feature. Also, it seems odd to me that a default application would need to be set. However, it's worth a review of the settings. How are .doc, .docx, and .rtf set on your system?

23 hours ago, Michael Hannah said:

If the virtual desktop in running on the user's own desktop then it would not have the problems warned about as shown by TMG's successful operation with Parallels.  But if the virtual desktop is running on some external cloud computer, I would definitely worry that it might have the same problems we have seen before, depending upon the implementation of the interaction with the external cloud.  It "may" work, but I wouldn't trust it.

If the virtual desktop worked by remoting the display, keyboard, and mouse, that would probably work. Of course, any non-standard use of TMG should be tested before relying on it to work.

Any backup program that accesses TMG project files while TMG is running may interfere with the proper operation of TMG and may create copies of the project files where those files are not valid when taken as a whole. That's why it's a bad idea to use a backup program that is active when TMG is running. (Excepting, of course, TMG's Backup feature.) The two technical issues are shared access to the project files and the timing of making backup copies. Regarding the latter, if a program copies file "A" at moment 1 and copies file "B" at moment 2, the copy of "B" may no longer be in sync with the copy of "A" because of a data update between moment 1 and moment 2. Those issues may or may not arise with a virtual desktop, but I suspect they aren't likely. There may be other issues, however, so I understand your skepticism.

On 6/5/2018 at 12:18 AM, Michael Hannah said:

No, sorry I was so brief, but you misunderstood. I meant that, yes, one should expect the same problems mentioned, and I would not recommend it.

Michael,

I assume that Helge was asking about using a Windows virtual desktop to run TMG. If so, I don't think that would be subject to the issues with cloud-based backup programs. There may be other issues depending on exactly how the virtual desktop is implemented.

Have you edited / customized any name styles?

I doubt there are many people visiting the forum who have Win2K running somewhere. I checked my VMs, and I don't have one.

You can get Windows 10 for about $80 USD. I know it's an extra expense, and you may have other reasons for avoiding Win10, but it's probably the most practical solution. Even if I had a Win2K box, and installed TMG v9.05, there's no guarantee I could figure out how to make it work.

GedSite now includes a TMG "Direct Import" facility!

 

GedSite 2.02 is now available. It includes a direct import facility that reads data directly from TMG's database tables. This allows GedSite to support TMG sentence and source templates, name styles, place styles, etc.

 

Please see today's newsletter that explains which TMG users should opt for GedSite, and who should choose (or remain with) Second Site:

 

https://goo.gl/Na4Cbn

 

The Change Log includes descriptions of all the changes in release 2.02 of GedSite:

 

https://goo.gl/oEqykn

 

Version 2.02 is free for users with a GedSite 2 license. If you do not have a license for GedSite 2, you can start the purchase process here:

 

https://goo.gl/NAhVfq

Does this fix also apply within Second Site?

 

Thanks

Bob Fleck

 

The problem does not affect Second Site. SS will put the citation references after the last visible character in the output. If you use the "curly quotes" as described by Michael above, SS will still work fine because the curly quotes are visible characters.

Near the end of March, I announced a free license offer: purchase a web hosting package from my Family History Hosting service, and receive a free license for either Second Site or GedSite.
That offer expired on March 31st.

I published the offer via Dick Eastman's newsletter, and I don't think many TMG users heard about it. Almost all the responses were for GedSite. I should have announced the offer here, too, given it's a
popular spot for TMG users.

So, for the next ten days, I am repeating the offer but only announcing it here and on the TMG-L list.

If you want to get online, this is the way to do it. You'll get a free license for Second Site (or GedSite, if you want), and I will personally help you through the steps of publishing your first site.
If you already have a license for Second Site, you can give the free license to someone else.

To take advantage of the offer, contact me off-list at JFCardinal@gmail.com. This offer expires at midnight on April 20th, 2017.

There have been more than a dozen updates to GedSite since the initial release described above. The current version, released today, is v1.3.8. The new release features a Lightbox facility, new options for Image User Items, an Accent facility to highlight entries in charts, and other enhancements.

 

For more information, see the GedSite home page:

 

http://www.gedsite.com

I am pleased to announce GedSite, a program to build web sites from GEDCOM files.

 

GedSite has been optimized to support many features that are common in TMG, but often neglected by GEDCOM-based web site builders including witnesses and roles. GedSite also supports RootsMagic, Family Historian, and Legacy sentences.

 

For TMG users who are in the process of moving to another program, or contemplating it, GedSite will help you decide which program to choose, and what cleanup needs to be done before and after the move. GedSite is a great tool for reviewing your own work, even if you don't share a site with family, other researchers, or the world.

 

People who are familiar with Second Site will appreciate the Second Site features that are included in GedSite: the powerful controls to configure person page entries, the ability to include some tags in narrative form and others in tables or lists, and support for custom pages.

 

To read more about GedSite, visit its homepage:

 

http://www.gedsite.com

 

... or contact me

Don,

My advice is to focus on a single exhibit that is not working the way you expect. Focusing on a single image allows you to inspect the details and make changes without spending a lot of time. Keep track of what you did so that when you discover the problem/solution, you'll know what has to be done for the other exhibits.

 

Make sure that the path stored in the TMG exhibit record is correct. That assumes that you can access the external exhibit image file from Windows. If the path is not correct, but the image file is visible in a Windows folder, then re-load the image file. If the image file is not visible in a Windows folder, then you have to correct that issue: you could copy exhibit files to the Windows side, or perhaps add a network share so that Windows can access Mac files.