skolnick

It seemed simple enough. I upgraded through the Help Menu. TMG 9.04 started fine, I entered my 9.0 password, and then 9.04 would not recognize any .pjc file I had. (As a matter of fact, the "Open" dialogue box had two options -- .ocx files and *.* (all files). The computer spit out a series of Windows error messages and then TMG would not shut down except through a <Ctrl>+<alt>+<delete>. Rebooted and tried it all again. Same result. By the way, I can see all of my .PJC files in Windows Explorer. So what's the deal? If 9.04 is going to be problematic, I'm happy to go back to 9.01... I'm just not sure how to do that.

Thanks, Jim. Appreciate the assistance. It's all working now.

I've been through the archives and there's not much at all on this topic. I am following a line in which first cousins married (not all that unusual in 19th and early 20th Century Eastern Europe). On a descendant chart, I have the mother's line with all the right descendants. But on the father's line on the same chart, the chart truncates one generation after the marriage. Is there a control in Options that I'm misunderstanding that would display all descendant generations of both the father and the mother? (Could it be that suppressing duplicates deal with just this situation?) There's a possible work-around, I suppose, in creating a "ghost" person with all of the descendants... but I'd prefer not doing that if there's a way to maintain the link with a single entry.

Hi Terry. Thanks for taking this one one. I'm using TMG 8.02.0000, and the issue is a descendant box chart. I suspect the box chart options are different than the indented chart options, because there's nothing under the OTHER > MISCELLANEOUS sections in the box chart to "repeat duplicate lines."

I would like to export in any format possible -- csv, tsv, or any other -- a list of all the persons in my project AND their ID numbers. I've taken a romp through the "export" function in FILE and I don't see a way to do that easily. Is there one? Ultimately, here's the kind of list I'd like to end up with: Jones, Joseph A.,1 Jones, Mary B.,2 etc. I don't need any of the other person data, but if the only way to get the list I'm after is to take other data, I'll do that and then delete it from the resulting file. Any ideas? skolnick

I'm having trouble exporting a descendant box chart to JPG (or, for that matter, BMP). The chart is large -- perhaps a thousand names, many with thumbnail photos. (It measures 824 inches x 17" by VCF's rulers.) After I make the selections and click "Export," my system freezes. All other Windows functions are immobilized. After several minutes (like 15), VCF gives me an Windows error that it has crashed. If file size is indeed the issue here, what's a better way to export VCF files for display? Paul Skolnick

MIKE, Thanks for the great ideas. I tried them step by step and -- sadly -- the system still crashed. Reducing the link distances, box borders, etc to minimums did not substantially reduce the horizontal dimension of the chart. (It did cut the vertical by a little less than 50 per cent. Also, jpg size on export reduced minimally -- from about 299 MB to 288 MB. (I suspect we're still over VCF's maximums with that.) As far as cloudiness of the image posted online, I suspect some of that is in the conversion process to JPG... and some may be in the AOL browser. So the questions remains -- how to display on the web the huge expanse of this family? The limitation seems to be in VCF's lack of controls on its export features. I mean, it'll send a high-res file to the printing company... but won't allow export to relatively high-end standard graphics software. skolnick

Sorry. I've been sidetracked on an unrelated project for a few weeks and am just getting back to this issue. I've come up with a way to replicate online a VCF wall chart... to some extent. You can see what I'm playing around with here -- http://www.paulskolnick.com/tree.html. The steps are these -- 1) export JPG of the full family tree from VCF. 2) Open exported JPG in PhotoShop CS3. 3) Use PhotoShop's "Zoomify" feature to create an online, zoom-able family tree. To my eye, the results are much better than the clunky add-ons TMG and VCF provide. For one thing, much of the data about individuals is on the chart. For another, each individual has a thumbnail photo (not allowed, as best I could tell, in any of the other add-ons or methods. The issue is how best to share with an unlimited number of others the full scope of the family tree... and to do it in a way that will allow for additions and changes relatively easily. In other words, the VCF files BECOMES the virtual wall chart... and pretty standard web technology would allow the addition of hotspots, etc. to jump immediately to an individual. Can the tree be broken up? Yes, it can be. However, I'm notificing that spacing becomes an issue in trying to add individual branches into a cohesive whole in PhotoShop. The whole in that case is, graphically, less than the sum of its parts. Look forward to any ideas you may have. skolnick

I tried a number of experiments reducing box and image size, and reducing the settings for box separation... and still crashed the export function. Other options? (Is Visual Chart Form a third-party vendor? I'm wondering if having stand-alone VCF software might not give me greater export capacity.) skolnick

As a test, does it work if you turn off the images? Sam, I turned off the images, as you suggested... but it still hangs. It reports the size of the uncompressed image as 299,792 KB (which is huge, but still about 10 per cent of the size of the uncompressed image with the images turned on). skolnick

I recently migrated my TMG project from an XP system to a Windows Vista system. Images I had added to PERSONS did not survive (possibly because the location of the JPG files changed). I'm trying to add those images back in... and having some trouble doing it. The TMG HELP files don't work at all under WinVista, so I'm working completely on memory... which is not a surefire method. Any help anyone can offer? The JPG image files don't seem to drag in WinVista from Windows Explorer to the IMAGE box. Nor do they copy. Thanks for your assistance. skolnick