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So, as Posts 48 and 49 show, there is quite a diversity to the personalities attracted to TMG.

 

For now, I'm keeping my large amount of data in 6.12, and experimenting with others' suggestions on my 7 (which only has 3 people in it, with 1-4 Tag lines apiece). I don't feel worried about losing data that way. I figure on holding off converting my large database until I see the type of changes I mention in Post 48 here, unless there's some other compelling reason that I can get to understand. /Kim.

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So, as Posts 48 and 49 show, there is quite a diversity to the personalities attracted to TMG.

 

For now, I'm keeping my large amount of data in 6.12, and experimenting with others' suggestions on my 7 (which only has 3 people in it, with 1-4 Tag lines apiece). I don't feel worried about losing data that way. I figure on holding off converting my large database until I see the type of changes I mention in Post 48 here, unless there's some other compelling reason that I can get to understand. /Kim.

 

If you won't be upgrading until everything in your post #48 is available then I'm willing to bet that 6.12 is the last version of TMG that you'll be using as I just don't believe that they will ever be available.

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I'm not as set as all that, Andy. It would appear that even John Cardinal feels that flexibility and inclusiveness do seem viable. To repeat his final words in Post #47, "it might be useful to make all toolbar icons optional: the feature is not about saving RAM, it's about making it more convenient for users to customize the program to suit their preferences." That speaks volumes, to my mind. /Kim.

Edited by Mr.Kim.Sanders

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Maybe a better suggestion would be we pick a global language and start teaching the entire world to speak that language. :unsure:

 

You mean like Esperanto ?

 

You may have a valid point Sam :rolleyes: As far as language goes, those of us who are English Canadian have a major challenge as our language is a hybrid of English (UK) & English (US). Using the OS language certainly doesn't help us as setting it as Canadian turns our keyboard into a French Canadian keyboard so our only option is US which then gives us spelling errors all over the place when we use the Canadian spelling of so many words :wacko: I've learned to ignore a lot of spelling 'error' markings in many of my programs. As for my ancestry, much of it is from the UK - Ireland, Scotland, Wales & England; the Netherlands; the Palatinate (now Germany); the US; and early Canada. I haven't yet decided whether to switch to the UK version for my UK ancestry or not. I've also toyed with Teresa's multi-language method without having decided on that either :unsure:

 

I can certainly understand the need for unicode for those trying to record info in other languages and hope that will be forthcoming eventually.

 

I'm more than happy with the customizing available for toolbars/icons and flags and make use of both.

 

Yes, the Research Log certainly can use improvement Teresa & Halfpint.

 

Another feature that doesn't rate as much mention as I believe it deserves is the Timeline. I've used it several times to help sort out some very confusing and intertwined ancestral lives and it helps immensely. It's also very useful for creating a Genealogy Research Plan when used with an Individual Narrative report.

 

All in all, any changes I'd want in v8 are pretty minor and more under 'personal preference' than 'universally required' <_<

 

B)

Joan

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I have been on a break from geneaology and just did the whole upgrade to v7 and was wandering around this site looking for help for some upgrade issues I was having. I stumbled on this thread and felt I had to respond.

 

First the whole get rid of the FoxPro both look and database. I think a number of people responded to the look question that echo the way I feel, I want large quanities of data visable on the screen. It helps me make questions and see things that I hadn't seen before. The baby food "clean" interfaces so popular today doesn't help me research. 32 clicks to get to what I want to see just makes me forget what I was looking at.

 

The backend FoxPro Unicode deal is a completely different issue. I understand why multi-lingual users need unicode, but I chose this tool so that I could hook on to the data with an ODBC driver and report on it any way I wanted. Unless WG is contemplating moving to an Oracle DB (which by the way will make the cost go up significantly maybe 20 times), I'd hate to see them change the database format. Because of the cost of the licensing of a third party database most vendors choose to use their own propriatary format. This makes the data completly in accessable without special SDKs and would make third party development of things like TMG Utility way less likely. I'd hate to see them move to some propriatary format that I couldn't use an ODBC driver with.

 

All of the remove icons, let me create my own screen with just my stuff on it, make apps bigger, clunkier, harder for the vendor to maintain, slower and more resource intensive to run. You will never get a speed improvement or fewer resources used by making the toolbar allow the user to remove icons, the configurable tool bar will load 100 times more code to support the remove, rearrange functionality then a few hardcoded icons. Requesting this functionality to speed up your computer doesn't make sense, however requesting this functionality to make data entry go faster when you have thousands of people to enter or edit might make sense. But you need to be aware that it will add to the overhead required to run the app.

 

I really hope the WG takes this thread with a grain of salt. This is virtually the only tool out there that works like it does. There are plenty of comercial tools that keep up with all the trends and interface styles, I'd say a lot of the TMG users are using this tool to get away from those issues, I just hope there are enough of us to keel them viable.

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I understand why multi-lingual users need unicode, but I chose this tool so that I could hook on to the data with an ODBC driver and report on it any way I wanted. Unless WG is contemplating moving to an Oracle DB (which by the way will make the cost go up significantly maybe 20 times), I'd hate to see them change the database format.

 

Marcie,

 

There are several freely available databases (besides Oracle) that support Unicode, ODBC and JDBC interfaces, known names like mySQL, PostgrSQL and others. Some of them may also be embedded into the program.

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I understand why multi-lingual users need unicode, but I chose this tool so that I could hook on to the data with an ODBC driver and report on it any way I wanted. Unless WG is contemplating moving to an Oracle DB (which by the way will make the cost go up significantly maybe 20 times), I'd hate to see them change the database format.

 

Marcie,

 

There are several freely available databases (besides Oracle) that support Unicode, ODBC and JDBC interfaces, known names like mySQL, PostgrSQL and others. Some of them may also be embedded into the program.

since when did mySQL start supporting Unicode?? I had been following Unicode in databases for awhile now and as of 5.0 mySQL didn't support Unicode.

 

But yes there are several other underlying database choices out there, the primary issue is the lack of a Data language that Foxpro offered.

 

Even in the realm of MS you have SQL CE which can be embedded or SQL Server express, which would handle most data sizes that are encountered

within TMG. (SQL Server Express has the same limitation on data size that Foxpro has for instance) both are free.

 

In either case moving to a different underlying database would not be a small undertaking.

 

Foxpro also offered its own windowing system. Which some have noted doesn't necessarily follow the underlying changes in the OS or common in usage systems.

 

So replacing Foxpro would be a three fold undertaking. Replacing the language, replacing the windowing system (yes I am aware there are several features in TMG

that extend the Foxpro) and replacing the database. (that said Foxpro provides provisions to talk to other databases besides dBase which is the base of the foxpro

database system)

 

So in other words a complete rewrite of TMG.

 

(and I can think of much better database interfacing mechanisms than odbc but that is a different topic all together)

 

Douglas

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Found an interesting project, called Guineu The FoxPro runtime.

 

Guineu list one of it's features as allowing the use of unicode you can see an example here of Unicode on Foxpro not sure if TMG could use it?

 

Guineu describes itself as a runtime executable for desktop applications. It runs on Windows using the Microsoft .NET Framework and on multiple other platforms with Mono (eg Linux). Guineu.EXE is a console application that covers text-based applications as well as form-based applications. It also creates executables for mobile applications and say it runs on Pocket PC 2003 and Windows Mobile.

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The way I see it the clock is ticking for the time when FoxPro will just not run on the latest Operating System. I dare to say that within 4 years FoxPro will not be able to run on the latest OS especially when the extended support ends in I believe 2014, regular microsoft support for foxpro has already ended. In another couple of years the majority of people will be on 64bit windows or some other OS.

 

FoxPro will never natively support unicode and Microsoft will never add any more features to FoxPro which means no native web services, no 64bit support, only certified to run on Vista 32bit and earlier, I can go on and on if you want... I think these are reason's enough for TMG to be written in another development environment. As for the concerns with the ability to see all the data that you currently see on the screen in TMG, that can all be done in any programming language.. If Wholly Genes wants to get a good jump on the market they could rewrite TMG in Java using MySQL on the back end so that it would be compatible with Mac OS/LINUX and Windows.

 

The bigger issue to worry about is that if whollygenes does not start a rewrite now (which will take about 4 years) then TMG will reach a dead end not being compatible with operating systems coming out in a couple of years from now. This is a very scary scenario since your data from TMG does not really transfer cleanly to other genealogy programs if you are using certain advanced features like witnesses ( no fault of TMG ).

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The way I see it the clock is ticking for the time when FoxPro ....................

The bigger issue to worry about is that if whollygenes does not start a rewrite now (which will take about 4 years) then TMG will reach a dead end not being compatible with operating systems coming out in a couple of years from now. This is a very scary scenario since your data from TMG does not really transfer cleanly to other genealogy programs if you are using certain advanced features like witnesses ( no fault of TMG ).

 

How do you know what Wholly Genes are or are not doing.

 

Peter

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How do you know what Wholly Genes are or are not doing.

 

Peter

I like to believe Whollygenes are working quietly in the background. Based on their great past efforts, having supported and grown TMG through many upgrades and versions of foxpro 2 to MS-VFP 9, starting in the DOS days right to present day working under the most current "Microsoft Windows 7" Operating systems.

 

For now we can only go by Bob Velke's statement "We are not prepared to make any announcement at this time regarding future migration " (21 Jan 2009)

 

Lets keep on wishing for an incrementally better TMG

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Personally I'd like to see the tab key function finally fixed properly on all screens. I know it's a small thing but the lack of attention to detail feels unprofessional.

 

For example the Tag Entry screen opens with date highlighted. Pressing the tab key proceeds through the fields nearly as one might expect until the "Cancel" button is highlighted. The next tab key press does not go to the Help button. Instead it goes to the "Search for Digital Books" button. The next tab key press goes from the "Search Digital Books" to the Help button instead of "Look up this place on the web"

 

The Master Source List goes Add, Edit, Delete, then jumps to Close, Help then jumps back to Search, Search Again, Copy, Renumber, then skips Merge to land on Cite Globally, Import, Export, then backtracks to Merge, then skips ahead to Less.

Edited by okrick

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I just got word that "SQL Server Express is a free download and supports Unicode." So it will be interesting to see how TMG works with SQL Server Express replacing VFP as the base.

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I just got word that "SQL Server Express is a free download and supports Unicode." So it will be interesting to see how TMG works with SQL Server Express replacing VFP as the base.

 

I was unaware that TMG had announced that future products would be based on SQL Server Express - can you provide a link to the announcement?

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There is no such announcement. WhollyGenes never publishes details about future products, only details of a new product when it is released.

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My reason for mentioning SQL Server Express is simply to say that perhaps Microsoft has finally done what they need to, and now TMG can do [underline]its[/underline] work. It would appear that there are a variety of options, SQL Server Express being just one in just the SQL Server series. I am optimistic after all. Enough so that I finally upgraded my main project from 6.12 to 7.04. There are also a variety of Tech Support forums, which can be quite helpful if you know the language, which is how I found out about SQL Server Express in the first place. Of course, no surprise really, those with other genealogical program bents always want a person to convert their way, such as to PAF. But for me, there are 2 reasons I have chosen, and stick with, TMG: the ability to tie other people in to a line using Witnesses/Associates, and the ability to have a variety of separate line entries regarding birth estimates, etc.

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I would love to see a drag-and-drop interface for images. Lori

What are you referring to? You can now drag and drop image files from Windows Explorer into the Exhibit Log.

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I would love to see a drag-and-drop interface for images. Lori

What are you referring to? You can now drag and drop image files from Windows Explorer into the Exhibit Log.

 

Sorry. I did notice that later. I have never found the media portion to be very intuitive though. I don't know if you have seen the new software My Blood, but it has a very visual interface for things like data, media, mapping, including sibling, parent, child data in the timeline, etc. I'm not looking to switch because from what I can see there are also drawbacks and things I would miss, like the some of the flexibility of the interface and reports - it just has a different and somewhat more current feel. For example, being able to put one picture in and identify all of the people in it, linking it to each of those in the database. I couldn't get the map portion to work at all but the way it is 'supposed to look' ;)

from the documentation looks very interesting. It might prevent me from putting New York in the country space or misspelling Manhattan.

 

Just thoughts. I love TMG. Lori

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I would love to see a drag-and-drop interface for images. Lori

What are you referring to? You can now drag and drop image files from Windows Explorer into the Exhibit Log.

 

Sorry. I did notice that later. I have never found the media portion to be very intuitive though. I don't know if you have seen the new software My Blood, but it has a very visual interface for things like data, media, mapping, including sibling, parent, child data in the timeline, etc. I'm not looking to switch because from what I can see there are also drawbacks and things I would miss, like the some of the flexibility of the interface and reports - it just has a different and somewhat more current feel. For example, being able to put one picture in and identify all of the people in it, linking it to each of those in the database. I couldn't get the map portion to work at all but the way it is 'supposed to look' ;)

from the documentation looks very interesting. It might prevent me from putting New York in the country space or misspelling Manhattan.

 

Just thoughts. I love TMG. Lori

 

I feel the same way about media portion of TMG. I have also seen the myblood software and looks impressive in that front. I will also stay with TMG for now. I was wondering if it would be possible to add an option when you right click on the different tags to let you open directly our exhibits on our preferred image viewer. (Windows Live Photo Gallery for me). That will permit us to look fast our exhibit and bypass TMG's when we want and let us use xmp and other options, cheers, Raymundo

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