Joe Cummings

Found statement in help that conditional brackets cannot be nested. Did another test: <[R:paP] and [R:paPO] adopted [R:achW]> and it produces the correct sentence provided all three roles have a name association. This means that I could make conditional sentences but have unique roles for each sentence. For example, add another sentence <[R:pa1P] adopted [R:achW]> and sentence <[R:pa1PO]>. Must be careful assigning names to correct roles. Two new questions: (1) Sometimes I get the following error when changing principle/other principle roles and name assignment and also adding new role names to the tag type using master tag type list. If I click "Ignore" the changes do appear ok. Have experienced when encountering the error adding new role names to the master tag, must click "Ignore" up to 6 times to close the error window. Using TMG 7.04 on Windows 7. What does this error mean? ErrorMarker: Operator/operand type mismatch. 200 FRMEVENTS.CUSCODEHOLDER1.MSAVEEVENTS (2) Working with this sentence structure: [R:1alone] <is alone|and [R:2alone] both used> test over .<[M]> <[D]> <[L]> In all cases (name assigned either to 1anlone or 2alone only and both) Sentence comes out acurately. When both roles are assigned names, I get "He and Mary" for him and "Frank and Mary for her" regardless of who is labeled in the P or PO position. For both principles they are preceeded by text in the same paragraph. Just curious!

The Problem: I wish to provide the exact age of the mother at the time of the birth of her children. Basically, a sentence <The age of the mother at the time of delivery was [AE].> I have tried [AOE} and [RE:Mother]. Put in the Birth tag, new Birth mother age tag and even a tag "other event" and no luck. The "other event" attempt would require that the tag immediately follow the Birt tag. I tried to have it follow the xxx-bio for the parent but no luck there. I prefer to have tha age info follow the Birth tag. Any suggestions? Using TMG V7 on Windows 7 Home Pro.

Jim, For item1 1, understand the thought process now. Jim and Michael, Thanks for the item 2 explaination. I thought that be be the logic but needed some verification.

Terry, Thanks for the good information. Have decided to keep the "standard" Birth tag just in case I find a need for it. Copied that tag and named it "Birth w/mom age". Two roles: Principle and Mother. Since the tag allows only one principle that assigns name of child. Mother is a "witness". The Child's sentence is: [P] was born <[DD]> <[L]>. <Mother's ([RF:Mother]) age on the delivery date was [RE:Mother].> <[M]>. The Mother's sentence is: --<[:CR:][RS:Mother] age on the delivery date of [P] was [RE:Mother].>. Used the double exclusion marker to insure Mother's sentence is not printed for her reports since did not like the control of report placement for her. I think this is basically what you suggested. Next added a new "other event tag" named "Age mom child birth". This allows two principles to be defined. For "Mother", the sentence is: <[:CR:][RS:Mother] age on the delivery date of [R:Child] was [RE:Mother].>. For Child, the sentence is: --<[:CR:][RS:Mother] age on the delivery date of [R:Child] was [RE:Mother].>. Again, the double exclusion marker since do not want a printable item for the Child due to this tag. This tag has some flexibility in its placement on reports. It is not a major need, to me, to have it in the Birth tags area. Still experimenting with this. May look at this as a paragraph to summarize this information for multiple children families or place it following the son/daughter tags. If you see anything wrong let me know. I do have two questions: (1) Is there any way to prevent excluded sentences to not show on the Person view? (2) What determines which sentence is used (male or female) for the report? I ran into this for the "other event" tag. I had set the male sentence to have "son" in front of [R:Child] and the female sentence to use "daughter". It always printed the female sentence for a male. I had thought that the male/female selection would be based on the Child's sex not the Mother in this case.

Terry, Thanks for the response. I would prefer to have the information in the child's narrative. The Mother's narritive would be my second choice. Here is what I just tried. Selected the "mom age birth" custom tag (other event) with the child as the focus person. This tag has the default RE:mother sentence and three roles: Witness, Mother and Principle. With the selected focus person child, the tag has two fields to designate people for the sentence. Set both to "Mother" and set the Mother's ID; thus, name. Clicked OK. The tag does not appear in the child's list but is placed in the Mother's set of tags. The Mother's narrative contains the resolved sentence. The interesting thing is that the two field role/person assignment in the focus person is set identical for both fields even though the role selection options show Principle and Mother. In other words if I set the top field to "Mother" the bottom field is set to same role value automatically. Same for setting Principle. In either case, I can set one of the two fields to the desired Mother's name and leave the other field with its default ID of zero. For example, I set the upper field role to Mother and set the name to Elizabeth. The lower field is automatically set to "Mother" but the name ID remains at "0". Joe

New PC with Windows 7 64bit. Installed TMG 7.04 on new machine. TMG itself functions as on the old XP machine. Problem on the new W7 is when VCF is called for a box chart, it starts but then hangs (not responding). The message bar at low right is about 2/3 along the full window. I can start VCF by iteself and build charts ok. Any idea as to what the problem would be?

I'm back!. Several days ago, used VCF to generate four descendant charts with images (my own project). All ok. Yesterday could not generate descendant charts with images. Can build ancestor, descendant and hourglass charts with NO images but all fail if images are included. When I create a chart with images (my own project), the progress bar stops at 3 units long then the VCF window turns gray and "not responding". Can build ancestor, descendant and hourglass charts with or without images using the sample project. Running Validate File Integrity makes no difference. The last descendant chart created displayed two images "all black". That was because they were 16 bit grayscale. Went to the images and resized to 8 bits. Ran the chart create again and it generated ok including the two, corrected images. The only thing I have done between the good/bad image charts is several computer shut downs and start ups. No new images or data. Any ideas? Joe

New Windows 7-64 PC. Installed TMG V7 ok, transferred my project data over ok. Thanks to validate file inegrity was able to my external exhibits references established. Today went to Help-->Check for updates.Got following error message: "No application in C:\p;rogram files (x86)\ the master genealogist v7 is associated with the update engine so it cannot check for updates. Please make sure that this software is installed properly." Any suggestions on a fix?

Yes. You should exit TMG from the procedure that I described before testing 'Check for an update'. Jim, I had to re-enter my S/N when I restarted TMG but that went fine and all ok there. Now when I check for updates, I still get the window containing the proxy option. Just click next and I get to the updates. I can live with that. Thanks.

I still had TMG on my old PC. Did a backup then moved that file to the new (w7) machine and did a restore. TMG on the W7 machine does now work correctly with VCF. After I ran the Validate File Integraty, all my exhibit images also show up correctly. Can't explain why I had trouble before the backup/restore but it works now! Thanks for your interest and suggestions. Joe

The project that has the problem does utilize images in the box charts; however, the sample project which also has images runs fine.

Robin, just ran some tests here are the results. (1) Using the project in question (my main project). * Ancestor Box Chart: Error msg "Msoft Visual C++ Runtime Lib window, Runtime error, Prog=c:\program files(x86)\The Mater Genealogist\v7\vcf.exe" * Descendancy Narritive, Family Group Sheet, Fan Chart, Journal and Pedigree all ok. * Descendant Box Chart: hangs.....click close (X) and get VCF window "VCF has stopped working" * Hourglass Box Chart: same error as Ancestor BOx Chart. (2) Using the Sample project * No errors for any report. (3) Another smaller project I had built before installing TMG on the W7 PC (previous machine was XP) . * No errors for any report. (4) Can open VCF and load several charts generated from the "project in question" before installing TMG on W7 and all charts come in ok.

Thanks Jim. In your referenced forum instructions, it ends with, "Do NOT run "check for update" while running program as administrator". I am the only user on the PC; thus, I am the administrator. Did you mean do not click the "run as administrator" (right click on TMG7 shortcut)? Maybe I messed it up. When I restarted TMG I got the unlock screen again, clicked close, got program up, check for update, got a "check for updats to the Master Genealogist v7 window (that window mentions a proxy....I clicked next and got the update info ok. Do I need to have another account for non-admistrator and re-run the procedure?

Basically, I would like to see a way to set TMG Exhibit "Property" data fields automatically when I select an object or item for placement in a particular tag. I currently make extensive use of IPTC metadata for every file in my archive library (image, audio, pdf, multimedia, etc.). The primary field I use that are applicable to TMG are the IPTC "Headline" and "Description" fields. When I assign a file to the exhibit, would like to see the metadata "Headline" data copied to the TMG "Properites-Caption" field and the IPTC "Description" data copied to the TMG "Properties-Description" field. In addition, have the file name place in the TMG "Reference" field. Not sure how many TMG users utilize file IPTC metadata so may not be cost effective to implement this enhancement. Maybe an on line poll may applicable to obtain this information. Probably, the ideal implementation would be to provide a mapping function in preferences for the Topic, Reference, Caption and Description. A blank entry for a field's data would indicate manual input for the field. This way, people who use IPTC metadata but different metadata fields could map their preferences. Just a thought!

Hi John, Thanks for your reply. Your "another idea" sounds much better but I thought that would be asking too much. The point about being out of sync is not a problem with my situation. An example would be images. I have an "archive library" in which I place all my images I want to save for future use. This is similar to a book library. When I need to utilize an image in that library for another application, I copy the image from the library to the application. In the application, I may make any number of changes (e.g., crop, resize and even change to a jpeg). At that point I have the potential to have my metadata "out of sync" due to changes made for that application. The copying is how I add images to my TMG exhibit folder. Another point is that the organization of images in my archive is different from that of the copied file set in the TMG exhibit folder. The main reasons for changing the library metadata after the intial entry is normally spelling errors and identification of previous "unknowns". The frequency of this is low; thus, I can live with updating the metadata manually in both the library and TMG exhbit file as needed. The main reason for bringing up this enhancement is to save me the work of copying metadata for the initial assignment of the copy to the TMG tag from the TMG exhibit folder. I was unable to find the IPTC "Caption_Abstract" field in either Phtotshop/Bridge/Acrobat File Properties (CS2, CS3, CS4). In fact, CS3 and CS4 (may have also been in CS2) list a sub-set of fields called "IPTC Content". The use of this content is "Use this panel to describe the visual content of the page", It's fields are: "Headline", "Description", "Keywords", IPTC Subject Code" and "Description Writer". I also have "Thumbs Plus" software which is a database management application. In there they have IPTC fields called "Headline" and "Caption". This maps to Adobe "Headline" and "Description" IPTC fields. This terminology goes back to the inception of this data used for transmitting news photos. Headline is the Title of the image and Description the details (what, why, when, where). Hope this makes sense (in understanding if not in why I have implemented this way)! Joe Joe

TMG Gold V7.04: Windows XP Home SP3. Select either a descendant or anscestor box chart output. If I select images to be included, create report brings up the VCF window (empty) for about one second and then returns to the regular TMG window. If I run the same report with images = none, VCF runs ok and builds a valid chart. The images in question appear ok in other reports; such as, journals. I have run "validate file integrity" and "optimize" with no change in results. The interesting thing is this situation occurs only for one part of a specific family line (e.g., a father, his children and grandchildren). If I go one ancestor level above the father and select 2 generations (descendant box) then VCF generates the chart with images including the father.If I select 3 generations (descendant box), the "momentary" VCF situation occurs. Appears the problem is when going from the father level to his children. This worked correctly a week ago. Any ideas on the problem solution?

ROBIN, You correctly identified the problem....many thanks. I had several images in 16 bit mode. VCF must only handle 8 bit mode. Joe

Back working with TMG after several years of archiving and indexing my data sources. (1) Had put format notes in sentence structure enclosed by [HID:]---------[:HID] followed by the actual sentence structure(s). Noticed that in the "Preview" I see [HID:]followed by part of one sentence only. If I cut the HID variables section and paste at end of the sentence structure, the preview shows correctly. Just wonder if this is correct. (2) Selected the tag type list and entered the format notes in the tag "reminder" and removed the format notes from the sentence structure. This should now be the default sentence for the tag's default. When I look at the same tag after that change, the old sentence structure is still present; however, there is the proper default reminder for the tag. The sentence structure window shows the structure as (Default). How can I make the tag for the people actually take on the default structure? (3) How can I get a list of one tag's use for all people in the project? I have one tag, "Note", defined in the "Other event" group. Created a new tag "Death-funeral" in the "Death" group. Need a way to replace the Note tag with the Death-funeral tag in all persons having that Note tag. Need to include the current "Note" place and memo data in the "Death-funeral" tag and include the new sentence structure. (4) Have always been confused with the use of the "Addressee" and "Detail" fields of the Place Names data. Do most people enter the data as: 513 State St. for Addressee and John's Funeral Home for Detail or vice-versa? Thanks, Joe

Using latest version of TMG with Windows XP home. Is there any way to correlate the files in my TMG exhibit library folder with those actually assigned (or not assigned) to a TMG exhibit? I have moved many potential exhibit files into the library but not sure how many I have actually assigned (used) as a TMG exhibit. Thanks.

Glenn, I have, as of now, 1342 image files in the TMG exhibit folder. These have been copied from my much larger archived photos. I am not sure how many of them have been assigned to an exhibit. That is the problem. It sounds like Jeff's suggestion (thanks Jeff) for PathWiz might help. Have placed an order for it. Thanks to both of you for your reply. Joe

Would like to be able to add a "death age" line to charts. Created a "Death Age" tag in other group. In Memo section placed <[AE]>. Designated the tag for a test person. Then selected the descendant chart with one line set for the death tag memo. There was a valid birth/death date for this person. The chart box shows an unresolved [AE] instead of an age value. Is there anyway to accomplish this goal? It is not uncommon for people to look at charts and spend time calculating death ages instead of being able to see the value directly. Also, death age is important when generating genome-like charts. If this cannot be done now, would like to place it on the "wish list". Thanks.

Would like to add places to the Master Source List via some kind of "Add" function like that available when you bring up the Master Tag Type, Source, Repository and Style Lists. This just lets me take a list of places, input them first and then select their assignment later in tags. Is there a way to do this now? Thanks, Joe

When you copy an image from the exhibit log to the slideshow, the log caption is placed in the description for the slideshow. Saves a lot of time composing slideshows. Would like to see the following considered for future updates. (1) Option to designate the log caption or description to be placed in the slideshow description on an image basis. (2) Images support the IPTC metadata which is very useful for carrying image descriptive data with the image file. Two of the four fields I use for every image is the IPTC "headline" and "description". Would like to see the ability when adding an image to the log, that the IPTC headline and description in the image metadata be placed in the caption and description fields respectively of the exhibit log. A consideration of this function is the byte size of each such field. The "headline" data is (per the IPTC standard), I think, fixed at a maximum of 256 characters while the "description" field is unlimited in size. Some of my descriptions approach 2KB in size. Would be nice if I could denote truncate to size "X" or "no truncate" when designating the log "description" data for the slideshow description. Other object types that could also be considered for this support are: Audio files: RIFF "Subject" and "Comments" to log "Caption" and "Description". PDF files: PDF "Doc Title" and "Description" to log "Caption" and "Description". I see that Adobe Acrobat now allows one to place IPTC data fields in the PDF "Document Properties" so that would even be a better choice of support. Multimedia Files: Poorly supported at this time; however, I think MPEG-7 has architected metafile data realizing the need to carry descriptive data with each such file. Joe