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aalston

How can I keep some structure in my Exhibits?

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I have been using TMG V6 since its release and have several projects stored on my system. However, it is time to upgrade my laptop, so I thought that it is probably time to upgrade to V7.

 

So I downloaded the latest version, and backed up the first of my projects. "Should be EASY", I thought. No it isn't.

 

Version 6's restore function carefully placed the restored exhibits in the correct locations on my hard drive. I know it did; I've used it several times.

 

Version 7' restore insists on lumping all the 5000+ exhibits together in a single folder.

 

This structure is very important. Birth, Marriage and Death certificates, Photos of people, places, churches, gravestones and posessions, various census images, military records and many other types of exhibits all have their homes. Some exhibits are referenced in the records of several hundred people.

 

So I copied the original structure from my previous machine and zapped the contents of this enormous exhibits folder. "Validate File Integrity" in version 6 allowed me to correct bad file paths on Exhibits.

 

Sure enough, the usual box popped up allowing me tio check that the correct exhibit locations were being checked. All the original exhibit locations had been correctly restored to the list. Press OK. "No problems found". Also, no mention of any exhibit files being checked as they were in V6.

 

Worse still, no corrections were made to the paths. Every exhibit shows the face-with-a-frown icon, which is a fair interpretation of my own expression.

 

How can this situation be fixed? I have searched the whole of the Preferences tabs without success.

 

Unless it can be fixed, I have no intention of upgrading. I estimate that it would take upwards of 100 hours to manually update the exhibit references just in this first project. That's over half a month, which I don't have to spare.

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See Help / Data File Storage, the last paragraph:

- "So what happens to my 'exhibit paths' when I restore my TMG v5/6 project to TMG v7?"

 

Also read the CAUTION box following that paragraph.

 

For more on missing exhibits:

- Thread here.

- The topic 'Missing Exhibits' in Help.

 

Virginia

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Read the TMG7 'Data File Storage' help topic carefully.

 

You need to move your exhibit tree outside of TMG. Do not use backup/restore to move your exhibits. (One option is to drag the exhibits tree out of the backup SQZ file (which is a ZIP file) to the target exhibits folder.)

 

After your exhibit tree is moved, use Validate File Integrity to update the exhibit links. Read the "Moving Exhibits' help topic. Be sure that the Preferences / Current Project Options / Advanced / exhibits path points to the base of your exhibits tree. Be sure to enter all folders where exhibits are located into the list in Validate File Integrity.

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This sounds harder than it is, but takes only moments. One Zip operation will separately backup and restore your entire exhibit tree. Then one TMG backup of everything except the exhibits and restore that. Finally, one time first in Preferences for the base of the tree and then in Validate to tell TMG about all your folders in the exhibit tree to relink to them and you are up and running.

 

I have found Version 7's new features well worth it and urge updating.

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OK, I now have my exhibits in their correct places. I had to close & restart TMG to make it action the tick box in Repair.

 

So I now do a backup of my project in TMG 7. Now there ought to be no issues about restoring. No conversions to do, so everything ought to go back to where it was backed up from.

 

After all, that is the WHOLE POINT of backup and restore.

 

Backed up OK. Wipe the relevant directories, just as though I had had a disaster. Start the restore.

 

IT DOES NOT WORK.

 

There is no option to put Exhibits back as they were. There are only two options - use the default location, or use a single, specified path.

 

How can I restore things as they used to be?

 

How can I even restore all the exhibits?

My original tree, for example, has the following files:-

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Genealogy\Documents\Certificates\Birth\Alston, Christopher b1865.jpg

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Genealogy\Documents\Certificates\Death\Alston, Christopher b1865.jpg

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Genealogy\Photos\Grave\Alston, Christopher b1865.jpg

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Genealogy\Documents\Census\1901\Alston, Christopher b1865.jpg

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Genealogy\Documents\Census\1911\Alston, Christopher b1865.jpg

 

TMG6's restore just put these back where they came from.

TMG7's restore loses 80% of these.

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Please read the Tmg7 help topics that you were referred to.

Data File Storage

Missing Exhibits

 

Restore will not restore a exhibits tree. You need to manage your external exhibits outside of TMG.

 

You need to move your exhibit tree to the new computer outside of TMG.

 

You can then use the external exhibits feature of Validate File Integrity to update the exhibit paths if the paths differ. There is no need to update the exhibits paths manually and there was no need to do so in v6.

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Please re-read my reply above. As both Jim and I pointed out, if you choose to make a folder tree of exhibits, the current TMG restore will not recreate that tree. You must backup and restore such folder trees separately from TMG. As I said above: "One Zip operation will separately backup and restore your entire exhibit tree. Then one TMG backup of everything except the exhibits and restore that."

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Let's get this clear.

 

TMG V6 was perfectly capable of backing up and restoring a whole project.

 

In TMG V7, this facility has been crippled. The menu items ought to read "Backup" and "Restore some of what you backed up".

 

Note that the help for Backup does not explain this; it is only when a user comes to restore that they find that their exhibits are lost.

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I am just a user like yourself and not associated with Wholly Genes, so cannot examine the code of the program. I may be wrong but both my notes and my recollection is that this has not changed from V6 to V7. My notes I made to myself several years ago mention the need to separately backup exhibits only if you choose to create a folder tree of exhibits. If all your exhibits exist in a single folder, then the TMG restore works just fine for exhibits.

 

Other users with more detailed historical notes may be able to comment with more precise information.

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I wish that I had thought of your external exhibit tree a decade ago. All of my exhibits are kept in a single folder. It's too late for my exhibit strategy to change (over 11,000 mostly JPG files).

 

Please consider the advantages of backing up your exhibits separately from TMG now that flash drives are so inexpensive. Every time that exhibits are added, back them up. It is unusual to find more than a few new exhibits per month once your database is long established. But it is rare that a day goes by without finding a new tidbit of data or a minor correction to your working dataset.

 

My working TMG dataset backup is about 200MB and my exhibits backup is in the GB category. I usually backup TMG data more than once per week (depending on TMG time spent). It is much faster to do and the backup is a more manageable size without the huge exhibit data. Also, it is very comforting that those hard to find, new exhibits are always backed up as I add them.

 

A backup of everything to DVD is made about 3 or 4 times a year.

 

I have no experience on v6 vs. v7 backup contents. I have always (except once in the old v4 days) backed up TMG data and external exhibits separately and highly recommend it.

 

 

Best wishes and good luck,

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Just to note... There is no difference in the code between v6 and v7 in that part of restore. Restore has never been able to restore an exhibit tree. Other users have said that Restore in v6 would restore an exhibit tree. I've taken several of their projects and tested this under the same version of Tmg that they were running and could not restore the tree from the backup. And I had one very competent user who told me that go back and retest and he couldn't restore the tree. I have no idea what's going on there.

 

We have played with restoring trees and that code is in the EXE but is disabled. I don't see how it could be accidentally turned on.

 

The reason why Restore does not restore exhibit trees is that to cover all possibilities would make the Restore Wizard much more complicated with additional user prompts and choices and Restore is already too complicated.

 

Note that Backup does back up your tree. Since the backup .SQZ file is a ZIP archive, you can use any ZIP utility and open the backup and drag the exhibit tree out of the ZIP file to the target location. You just need to right-click the SQZ file in Windows Explorer and use Open With and Choose Default Program and select your ZIP utility to open the SQZ file.

Edited by Jim Byram

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