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Helmut Leininger

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Everything posted by Helmut Leininger

  1. GEDCOM export - witnesses etc.

    Glenn, Basically, I agree with your comments (I cannot say anything about the problems with your webtrees site). The reasons, why I came around webtrees are: I have used another free program to make HTML from a GEDCOM file. It creates a static website, looks nice (for me), has some statistics, and the access is fast. The main problem is, that with about 25000 people I am running out of webspace - it uses nearly 200 MB, around 4000 files, size increasing relatively fast. Also uploading a new tree to the website takes some time (some hours). I experimented a bit with SecondSite (the free version), but it did not convince me. The big advantage is that it integrates seamlessly with TMG and you can bring everything you have in TMG to the website. In my tries, I did not achieve an output that pleased me. I agree there are many switches and options, so with more work maybe I could have come closer to my imaginations. But I did not feel "at home" with it. And besides that, it generates static output with all its advantages (fast access etc.) and disadvantages (many files, total size etc.) So I found webtrees. For me, the installation (once I hade found a webspace with PHP and mySQL) was fairly easy (I admit I have some decades of experience with computers and programs). It needed some thinking and experimenting to set the privacy options etc. Now, for a new (updated) tree I have to upload a GEDCOM file of about 8 MB (instead of 4000 files and 200 MB), and load it in the webtrees database (one mouse-click and a few minutes of time). It took me less than three days to have webtrees up and running with my data. Webtrees has slightly more than 40 MB of code on the website, the database at the moment (for about 25000 people) is 80 MB, growing slowly. Sure, I have to manipulate the GEDCOM file produced by TMG a little bit. But I (would) have to do so also for any other product. I am running a little AWK script aginst it, mainly for adapting - alias names (name variants) - splitting up EITHER - OR dates this takes a few seconds Just to say it again: I will stay with TMG for "development" as it has quite good features that I have not seen anywhere else, I do not like others fiddling in my data (so "multiuser data input" is nothing I need), data entry via WEB is slow, ... But it would be nice to be able to export/import a little bit more between programs that have adequate features (as in my example).
  2. GEDCOM export - witnesses etc.

    Hallo Vera, Das kommt von Webtrees. Ich experimentiere damit um meine Daten (kostenlos) ins Netz zu bekommen. Die Hauptarbeit ist natürlich weiterhin TMG, der Datentransfer an Webtrees erfolgt via GEDCOM Dateien (obwohl Webtrees auch gedacht ist für Multiuser Datenerfassung und Wartung über Internet siehe http://webtrees.net).
  3. GEDCOM export - witnesses etc.

    Michael, Thanks for the explanation. It's a pity, but I can't change it.
  4. Hi, I have tried several times to export my databse to GEDCOM. But it is like gambling. I tried to export "all individuals". It starts saying exporting 13625 people. First try: No error message, the resulting GEDCOM file contained only 11997 INDI records (= people) Second Try: I got an error message like this one: File Access is denied [..TEMP....\tmgnnnnnn\_file_e.fpt 4397 MSUBSTITUTION_E I clicked on Wiederholen (Repeat) and got 6873 individuals. Third Try (Antivirus switched off): Result seems to be ok. For sure, I always used the same settings. A week ago, I had also tried with less people (applying a filter, using focus groups). Several tries, always using the same paramaters, no error messages but every time a different number of people in the resulting GEDCOM file.
  5. Hi, I had reported a bug (see below) which has been solved in TMG 8.03 (Thanks to Jim Byram!). There are some annoyances still remaining: 1) After the Merge process, the events/tags merged in cannot be seen in the target persons's detail view until a Verify is run (restarting TMG does not help). 2) The verify reports "1 potential problem repaired" in the message box; but in the VFI log there are 0 errors (this repair is not reported in it). However, as far as I have seen until now, there is no data loss any more. Regards Helmut Scenario:You have 3 persons in you database.Person 1:Mary Smith, with name Variant Mary Johnson (married name oer alias name)Person 2:Maria NN, with name Variant Mary Johnson (same as for person 2)Person 3:John AnybodyPerson 2 is "attached" as witness to an event of person 3 (say Godmother at the birth of John Anybody) using the name variant Mry Johnson.Then, you decide person 1 and person 2 are the same and you merge them:"Main" is person 1 (Mary Smith), the second in the right window is person 2 (Maria NN). You do not take over the name variant "Mary Johnson" from Maria NN as this name already exists for person 21 (Mary Smith). But you take over the witness tag.The merge does not show any problem, but when you look at the witnesses for the birth of person 3 it looks somewhat strange: there is no name and the entry cannot be accessed.A subsequent verification "solves one potential problem" and the information about the witness is lost (no witness for the birth of person 3 any more).
  6. Hi, Additional info: the "associates" view is correct even if the details view is not. Regards Helmut
  7. Thanks again Jim. FYI: I am running Windows 7 64-bit, TMG 8.03 has been installed over 8.02 using the "Check for an update" feature. When I disovered this behaviour, I downloaded the TMG trial from Whollygenes and installed it using the "Repair". The isuue was still reproduceable with the Example project. Regards Helmut
  8. wishlist - "Verify" details

    Hi, Maintenance - Verification often indicates a numer of potential problems have been repaired. I would like to have some details about the repaired items (not just only a sum) in the logfile. Reason: I have seen that in some cases when potential problems are repaired, a previously present information gets lost. So I am concerned not knowing if something happened.
  9. wishlist - "Verify" details

    Thanks, Jim. I asked about VFI because I thought that with more information in this file I could eventually reconstruct lost information (caused by this bug or maybe others I have not seen yet). I think that VFI should not find any (potential) problems during normal operation. For me, if it has to repair something it indicates that something has gone wrong before, either due to a bug or a system malfunction.
  10. wishlist - "Verify" details

    Jim, In this case I want to file a bug that leads to information loss. Scenario: You have 3 persons in you database. Person 1: Mary Smith, with name Variant Mary Johnson (married name oer alias name) Person 2: Maria NN, with name Variant Mary Johnson (same as for person 2) Person 3: John Anybody Person 2 is "attached" as witness to an event of person 3 (say Godmother at the birth of John Anybody) using the name variant Mry Johnson. Then, you decide person 1 and person 2 are the same and you merge them: "Main" is person 1 (Mary Smith), the second in the right window is person 2 (Maria NN). You do not take over the name variant "Mary Johnson" from Maria NN as this name already exists for person 21 (Mary Smith). But you take over the witness tag. The merge does not show any problem, but when you look at the witnesses for the birth of person 3 it looks somewhat strange: there is no name and the entry cannot be accessed. A subsequent verification "solves one potential problem" and the information about the witness is lost (no witness for the birth of person 3 any more). You may imagine this causes a problem that is very difficult to trace when you have done more modifications to your database (e.g. merging several people) as you usually do not write down every witness information before merging, just to enter it again afterwards. Information loss cannot be accepted.
  11. F3 Repeat Key

    Just guessing: Are there access right problems to the folder where the repeat-files are stored? See Settings / current project / advanced for the folder location.
  12. Report of Marriages

    Hi, I want to create a report of all marriages which are not marked as primary. Can it be done? Regards Helmut
  13. Report of Marriages

    Hi Michael, Thanks for your reply. I will try it.
  14. Merge 2 Individuals is corrupt

    Hi John, just FYI I have discovered another problem when merging individuals (and already reported thgis bug to WG): There is person A with several events There is person B with several events and some where person B is indicated as a witness (or role) not using person B's "primary" name but an alias name like married name or another spelling. When you merge person B into person A (A is at left, B at right), the information "B witnessed event ..." is lost. Regards Helmut
  15. Linking Internal Exhibits

    Hi, Just my two cents: I remember trying thissomeyears ago and I thinkitis notpossible. You may link a source to severeal events, but not an exhibit. I myself would see 2 ways: 1) I do not store images internally because of too many drawbacks (project size an backup size increases very much, time to verify andoptimize the project uncreases - you may find several threads covering these issues). So, I can attach the same external image to several tags/events/persons and still have only one physical copy. 2) Create a source containing the image as an exhibit and attach the source to several events. This is what I do with Church records: the image, transcription and possibly the translation as exhibits in one source and linking this source to several events (e.g. marriage and 3proclamations, birth and baptizm, death and burial ...)
  16. Split field marker

    Alternatively, you may compose it by Alt+0124
  17. Sentence structure and AE variable

    Hi Joe, You might run a plausability check (in the reports section). You can set various options and it will report if a person's age at death is (say) greater than 100 years.
  18. Sentence structure and AE variable

    Hi Joe, I do not know about the age. But the periods should be within < > , i.e. conditional output. In your example, they are unconditional output. Regards Helmut
  19. V. 7.00 Slow?

    Hi Andrew, From time to time I encounter the same problem without knowing the reason. CPU (on a mono-CPU system) is eaten up by TMG. For me, restarting TMG (and eventually Optimize) helps in most cases.
  20. Splitting Project file

    Hi, one method could be to copy the project and then delete the unwanted persons. But why sould you? At present, I have more than 12000 people (and even more names) in my project, tendency increasing. Without problems. To differentiate between "my" family and that of my wife, I defined a flag (like ANCESTRYBRANCH) indicating the part (actually , I am using five values: one for my wife's part ond one for each of my grand-parents). I did also set accents using this flag, so I can see immediately to which part of the family the individual belongs to.
  21. File Sharing

    Terry, That is interesting, I did not assume that. Because in normal case, you need to have a database server (not necessarily on another machine, but at least an own process), normally apart from the client (the application program).
  22. File Sharing

    Hi Raleigh, I doubt TMG is designed for sharing. Even when it *seems* to work (as you did in Windows XP) aou are lucky when you do not destroy your database. Sharing (multiple users working on the same database at the same time) needs more than being able to to access the files. Every program that uses a database (whichever it may be) buffers data to reduce disk accesses. So, the state on disk and that seen by the user may be different. And look at this: you "read" a persons data and your wife does the same (on another computer). Then you modify the birth date and write back. Yopur wife is a bit slower and modifies the death date and writes back. What will happen? The last one wins - you will loose the modified birth date. An it may be even worse. You cannot control when the program flushes the data onto disk (also valid for indexes which is "behind the scenes"). If program 1 writes back (modifies) some part of an index or data, program 2 modifies another part it may happen that the database (index and/or data) gets corrupted and inaccessible. Multiple users working on the same database at the same time needs a mechanism that protects the database against the above mentionned problems. Programs must be designed for that (using record locking, transactions, ...). I doubt that TMG is designed for that. Otherwise they would have put this feature on the list of strong points. Regards Helmut (36 years of experience in EDP, 20 years working with databases)
  23. Backup Problems Continued

    Hi Afina, I have no prove. But usually, when something goes wrong in various different manners asa you describe, in the most cases the reasons are access problems, such as - running out of temporary space (how much free space do you have on your disks?) - hardware problems (probklems also with other applications than TMG)? - Virus scanner that locks a folder/file (try to switch off the AntiVirus before you make an attempt to backup/create reports) This is based on more than 3 decades experience in working with computers. But I also know, that there may be a number of other reasons, too. Regards and good luck Helmut
  24. Backup Failure

    Hi, just an idea: Are you short of space on your local disk? Maybe TMG uses temporary disk space in the TMP or TEMP folder (not the destination disk).
  25. How to repair and maintain database

    Hi, I think one of the questions should be: Why is your database so large? If it is because you have a lot of exhibits (images) stored internally to the database, you could possibly store them externally. This reduces the size of your TMG database dramatically and probably would remove most of your problems. Remark: you may "convert" your internal exhibits to external ones by opening the Exhibit log, showing the properties of an exhibit (right click - properties) and then click on "Save As". Do not forget to enter the correct extension (e.g. .jpg, ...). After that, run File Maintenance - Optimize. Regards Helmut
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