Grimesgang

I'm using Windows Vista.

I followed the instructions, and I am now able to get into my V7. However, it still is being strange. When I start it up, I get the "Unlock the trial version" screen. If I click on the "unlock" button, it asks for all my info (including the s/n). Then if I click "cancel" on that screen, or if I click the "close" button on the earlier screen, the front splash screen then appears. It says (expired trial version), but a serial number does show in the lower portion of the screen. Then it takes me into the program with no further problems. I do not know if I can make changes or additions.

BTW, do you think upgrading to V8 will clear this up? That's my longer-term intention, anyway.

After being unsuccessful several times in opening TMG V7 and getting the above message shown in the title, I did a search on my hard drive. I found 25 instances of that .dll file, but none of them seem to be in the correct place for TMG to find it. It has been a while since I opened TMG and it is possible that, for some stupid reason, I thought it was a duplicate file and erased it.

The most stupid part is that I cannot find my original TMG DVD. Is there any way just to get hold of that .dll file?

I am a new user of Version 6.12 (received for Christmas). I received "The Master Genealogist Users Guide" also and have recently purchased the first 3 dvd helpers.

 

So how much would I really get out of the above title book? I saw the offer for the scratch and dent sale of them and might be considering one.

 

Kathy

I found the book to be an excellent source for Sentences and Citations, along with several other things. I still refer to it often. Another excellent source is the collection of websites by TMG supporters. I especially find Terry Riegel's site to be very informative. It can help you formulate a research and domumentation structure before getting too deep.

In the project folder, locate the file: Last VFI.log, open it with Notepad or any text editor, near the top of the file you will find a list of the missing exhibits

That worked. Thanks.

Thanks also to you, Lorna, but this time it turned out that the files weren't missing from the correct subdirectory, but the exhibit file was being pointed incorrectly. It turns out the exhibits in question were looking for files that had no extension, instead of a .jpg extension. Consequently, I was seeing an old thumbnail image on the layout screen.

Personally I'm quite happy with V6, and would rather have amendments to V6 than a whole new version.

 

Take windows bringing out a new version every 2 years or so, it becomes a bit of a pain as you feel you always need to have the latest one, which brings more expense and then ultimately a new PC! Very frustrating.

 

Shaun

I could live with that myself, also. I wasn't pushing for a new version; just being nosy, etc. (as I said above). However, at some point I would surmise there would either enough changes or some large change that Wholly Genes wants to get paid for , and I don't blame them for that, either. After all, I suspect that V6 is slightly better than V3, shall we say, and worth an upgrade payment.

I have a number role sentences that use split memo segments. They segments are just referenced as M1, M2, etc. in the sentence templates. Of course, they will have different uses for different sentences, and in any case could be used for whatever makes sense.

 

However, there usually is a purpose for each of the different segments, at least when the sentence is first created. Is there a good way to document what each segment is intended for? That certainly would be useful when wanting to add standard fields into sentences that I am not familiar with. Split memo segments also appear in sentences converted from UFT, where the UFT fields were given specific names on the Event windows. Having standard meanings for each segment would almost be necessary if you wanted to do a global change to the sentence template.

 

Pierce Reid

I use a split CM for my census tags, but you can see a better explanation than I can give you on Terry Riegel's site, talking about Advanced Census Tags. My memo segments stand for something different, depending on census year. As for documenting, all I have found is to actually have a written explanation of the tag to remind myself. I don't think there is a renaming capability for memo splits, especially just for a particulat tag. Then again, I'm still a newbie and trying to nail this stuff down myself.

Every time I do a VFI, I have no problems with errors, except that I am told there are two exhibits that are missing. That is quite possible, since I have moved my pictures around, and even now I am in the process of shifting them to a common subdirectory. I used to have maybe 4 subdirectories where I had genealogy photos, and I am consolidating to avoid duplications.

During the move, though, I must have lost the links to two of them, or not changed the link to the correct spot. How can I find the "missing" (actually misfiled, for now) exhibits? I went through the master exhibit list, and I got no clues from that.

The answer to that is simple. The day that it is released.

Woah!! Captain Obvious strikes again!

I must say, Jim, that one got me rolling.

v6.12 runs under WinVista as a legacy program. See the document on this:

http://www.whollygenes.com/files/tmg6andwinvista.pdf

 

Hopefully, v7 will be WinVista-compatible.

I confess, I'm not up on Vista and how it's different from XP. I also figure I'm at least a year away from needing to know in detail, since I figure my P3 laptop w/ XP Home has some life in it yet, and I see no way I'll upgrade just an OS. When I change, I replace the 'puter, too.

Grimesgang, like RGC, I wonder "why" too? Is there some TMG feature or function you are waiting for that won't be available before version 7.0? There is still an average chance that, whatever the feature or function is, it won't make it into version 7.0. Are you looking for Vista compatibility? As noted elsewhere on this Forum, Vista compatibility is already being looked at. Additionally, TMG-Vista compatibility might not warrant a major release of TMG.

 

Just wondering?

I guess I don't know why this is such a touchy subject.

First, as for desired features, I'm so new, in many cases I don't even know what features I might want that I don't have. Also, I have put in some wishlist items, and for the most part it's been inferred that I don't really need it, or it already exists if I do thus & such a workaround. Sorry, just my impression. Consequently, I now leave the wishlisting to the more senior types. Many wishlist items others have voiced in the past also coincide with some desires I have, but since they have been voiced, I don't see the need to repeat them.

Next, I'm nosy. I also like to know that the product I am switching to, investing one heck of a lot of time in cleaning up conversion mistakes (multiple months so far and not even close to being done), and changing a large part of my entire research methods for, will continue to improve and be supported. My last one (Family Matters), even though it is shareware, was excellent for a long time, made web pages without an add-on product (sorry, John, even though SS is superior, at least for TMG data), and dealt with chronicle-type data very well. The biggest problem is that the FM product seems to be stagnant; while TMG deals with sentence data, and helps to build "the book", which I am finally starting on for at least one of my multiple family lines.

Finally, I'm cheap. TMG is one of the most expensive genealogy products out there, and I don't want to pay for a product upgrade directly on the heels of a product purchase if I don't have to. Knowing an approximate upgrade timing path helps to at least assuage my perception of paying twice for a single product.

Traffic on Rootsweb TMG-L suggests version 5.0 was released in May 2002 - for a hoot you should scan through the messages in the preceding months, and May.

April 2002 1458 messages

May 2002 5330 messages

Hmmm..... I didn't even think you could reference that far back on TMG-L. I might check that out. It's not surprising the dramatic rise in messages after a new release, especially if it changed things a lot. I'd still like to know a ballpark date for v7, though.

OK, I'm not trying to be difficult, but when might TMG 7.0 be appearing? Granted, I am rather a newer user (v6-type only), so I have no feel for the historical upgrade path of this program, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't show in a listing anywhere on this site. The upgrades MS-Word file only goes back to 6.05.

Now, after some digging into the old newsletters, and an archive of old TMG Tips articles Lee Hoffman has on his site, I have approximated the following:

v4.0 - Maybe about June 1999 or so. I suspect it was to make TMG Y2K compatible and work with some newer Windows versions, besides lots of charting features and whatever else.

v5.0 - About December 2001 - Maybe to work with XP? Again, lots of new features, I think.

v6.0 - About December 2004 - More improvements to features than anything (since GTMOOTMG covers v5 and v6).

Now, that might imply a hoped-for release of v7 about the end of 2007 , if the v5 to v6 timeline is adhered to. It's overdue if the v4 to v5 line is followed, but I think that was a bit more of a quick turnaround anomaly based on the systems advances at the time.

I would think that with the advent of Vista, there might be something over the horizon. Is there any feel for this from the powers-that-be? Maybe some thoughts or words of sage wisdom from the old-timers?

Not exactly, I think. It's actually the name of at tag in the Parent/child relationship group. While it might appear that you have six tags - Father-Bio, Mother-Bio, Parent-Bio, Son-Bio, Daughter-Bio, and Child-Bio - in fact there is only one Bio tag. The prefix (Father, Mother, Son, etc.) is added depending on whose view-point you are looking from (parent or child) and the sex of the other people.

 

While I've not tested, I'm sure any attempt to use any of the other names used for relationships (step, ado, etc) will give the same result.

I just tested it with "ado" in my sample project, and got the same error message. It appears you are correct.

I guess it just surprises me that "Mother-Bio" is not a distinct tag from "Bio". It seems to be that would the equivalent of the tag "1234-567" being the same as "567". Perhaps it is some type of melding of two tags ("Mother" and "Bio"). Since I don't know all the inner workings of TMG, I'll just accept the "limitation" (such as it is, since it's not really limiting me, except in the use of one term), and move on.

Here's a surprising twist, though. Just before I finished this post and sent it, I tried another experiment. I tried to add a tag called "Mother" (with no dashed suffix) and it was ACCEPTED. Therefore your explanation of the Bio (or Ado, etc) being the tag and the relationship being a descriptor is correct.

So what I've found is:

You CAN have both a "Mother-Bio" and "Mother" tag

You CANNOT have both a "Mother-Bio" and a "Bio" tag.

Clear as mud.

Thanks for the input! Just one more thing I've learned about this program.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is reserved - given the special status of relationship tags (-bio). You could use 'biog' or 'biography' - which are accepted. In that case, I'd use the abbreviation 'biog' and stay away from 'bio', even though bio. is accepted.

 

Virginia

It looks like you may be right. I went into the sample project and tried to add the Bio tag there as well. No dice - same error message. It must be a reserved word.

Because I use several of these type books, Perrins, Beers, etc. I set up a separate tag for each. That way in the Person's PV I can see that the text comes from Perrins.

 

THe sentence is: [P] was listed in Perrin's "History of Kentucky." The listing stated: [M].

 

As Lee says, hope this helps.

That's an interesting way to go about it. I just figured to put it in as a tag with memo and let the sources and endnotes spell it out. From a sentence/conversational POV, I like your way better. Since the books we're talking about here are specially for area and family history, I can see where they would deserve more than just a standard source/endnote.

Anyone else handle this type thing in a different way? I find that I get most of my best improvements from the people on this forum, so I'm always open to listen to ideas.

Hi Phil,

 

You've probably thought of this already, and it's just a shot in the dark, but...

 

Is there any chance that you already have a "Bio" tag out there, but as inactive, and maybe your Show Inactive checkbox isn't checked?

 

Mike Daugherty

Frederick, Maryland

If you mean the boxes below the list, yes. I checked both the "show LDS" and the "show deactivated" boxes, with no luck. I tried to find a list of forbidden/reserved/sytem words, as it might be on that, but I found no help reference for that.

I am trying to add a custom tag called "Bio", which would be for a biographical sketch of a person or family, like those found in many books printed in the 1880s by Beers, and have been done by others since.

I tried to create one in the 'Other Events' group. It would accept all my sentences and the like, but when it came time to save it, I could not. I just got the message, 'a tag type called "Bio" already exists'. However, when I listed the Master Tag Type list, "Bio" was not on it.

Any ideas what I've run into?

To attempt a broad overview of the process...

 

Teresa is making a very clever use of the Language feature, which was designed for the more convention purpose of allowing TMG to used in different languages.

 

**

 

TMG allows a separate Sentence Structure for each language. Generally, these would be "real" languages, like English, German, French, Dutch, etc. But TMG is equally happy with invented languages, like Teresa's "Tabular."

 

**

 

Details for setting up a custom language are on my site, as shown in the links above, and lots more on the creation of Sentences for his purpose on Teresa's.

Thanks, Terry. I rather thought that she was referring to the "languages" area, which I had read about on your site, and filed for advanced future investigation when I have time and finally get up to speed on everything else more basic in TMG (like maybe in my next life ). I can see the value in this very powerful function.

With the holiday season in full swing and my work still demanding my time (they're funny about that), I had been filing the TMG-L digests for later consumption. Guess I'll have to dig into them.

Here is an example of the report I got using my tabular language and what many of you consider source imformation as places. This research report is very helpful when I am trying to prove that something like a will or probate doesn't exist.

Huh?

Whilst the people search and filter options in TMG are very powerful, they are a bit pedantic and very very slow if all you want is to look for a person by SURNAME and/or FORENAME (or parts of).

 

 

3. While I am at it, another thing that slows down the finding of individuals is on the Project Explorer. If you drag the scroll bar with your mouse, it does not scroll the data at the same time, you have to wait until you remove your mouse, you could end up anywhere! You can only move it up and down by clicking in the scroll bar, you can't even use the page up/down keys. The EZSearch toolbar is very old hat and takes up desktop, surely the modern option for that would be to just press the key on the keyboard which would take you to the alphabetical position in the list.

 

Are there faster ways of moving around the Project Explorer?

I second the request for the data scroll with the Project Explorer bar. I brought that up as a wishlist item a few weeks ago, but it seemed to land here with a thud. I think the PE would be far more useful if it had that feature. As for the EZSearch bar, I've given up on that. It does nothing of any use that I can see.

At one time I seem to recall that printing a Family Group Sheet automatically included the endnotes. It has been soooooo frustrating trying to get them to print. So un-user friendly. I have really had it with this program.

While I understand your frustration (I have felt it myself with issues here from time to time), perhaps you should recognize the flexibility available that actually seems to be causing your issue. Granted, what would be nice is some type of checkbox to tie the endnotes to a report so one doesn't have to think so much, but the fact is that just by running an FGS report, then the endnotes report for that FGS report, you get the same thing. In addition, those other people who are trying to create their book with multiple reports and continuous endnotes also get what they need.

Perhaps for what you are doing with your data, you don't need a Ferrari; maybe a Cooper Mini will do. If so,there's no need to bad-mouth the Ferrari. Both have their place.

You can't do blockquotes in TMG, but you can set the blockquote by selecting the desired text, like an obit, in your word processor and then move the left & right margins to where you want them.

 

So, you set the overall page margins to whatever you want, and then you can use the rulers at the top (in Word) to set up the blockquotes. The blockquotes look much nicer than just indenting more on the left (but not right margins). Also, using the rulers helps to avoid formatting problems.

 

Hope this helps.

I'm quite well versed in MS Word, so I know how to do it there. My goal was to do it within TMG. Guess that's a no-go for the moment.

Thanks for your post. Read the one below yours for more information. You can change the L and R page margins and if you run the index AFTER you fix up your report, the index will be correct.

That works for your situation. I was looking for flexible control of margins for extended quotes within a report, not for an entire report. Essentially, what I wanted to do was change the margins, to, say, 2" for a specific quote (which might even be a couple paragraphs). For me, this is to put the text of an obituary within a report and distinguish it from the surrounding text, more than what using italics alone would do. I was also trying to do this within TMG, not outputting to any word processor.

Is it possible to set a Journal Report, for example, to have 1" page margins? When I print my report, there are .5" margins. It matters because it changes the number of pages and, therefore, changes your index, when you increase the margins.

 

Thanks for any help!

Good Luck. I asked for essentially the same thing (changeable margins) regarding narrative reports (the subject is further down the first page topic list). From the reaction I got, I would say such a thing isn't available.

MS Word dominates the Text Editor and Office Suite market.

 

If you currently have a recent version of MS Word and are familiar with *Styles* (see help in MS Word) you may already be using the feature to create and select from different paragraph setups within Word documents. If not, see MS Word Help on the subject of Styles.

 

But if you only have an older version of MS Word, it may be worthwhile to download the free Office Suite software application from the OpenOffice.org web site. (200 mb!!!). OOo Writer, the text editor in this suite handles paragraph styles somewhat differently from MS Word, but the competition has resulted in better paragraph style control in both programs in recent years.

 

The Style feature of either program may help with the margin changes you desire.

Actually, I think you missed the point of my original question. I already know I can do it in MS Word. It isn't difficult. I want to know if there's a way to do it within TMG.

(BTW, I looked at the OpenOffice.org site. That looks very interesting, and if I didn't already have a copy of MS Office, I would probably try the OO suite of products.)

Sounds like a good excuse to download the new release of OpenOffice.org writer to read up on "Styles".

Translation? Can this be an add-on or external utility to TMG?