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Mike Talbot

Wishlist: VCF enhancement

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TMG output of charts to VCF is the greatest feature of any commercial genealogy program.

 

A glaring inconvenience of VCF is the way that external images are imported and rescaled.

 

My wishes:

 

1. Use standard "drag and drop" procedure for importing images

2. There is no way to rescale the image while accurately maintaining aspect ratio. Fix: use the corner dots of selected image to rescale image while maintaing aspect ratio. Use the side dots of the selected image to rescale in one direction, only.

 

To add an apple to this orange,

have TMG output the Relationship Chart to VCF. The current (word processor) relationship chart posseses none of the beauty of a VCF chart. It does not do images and a bug truncates long person and place names instead of making multi-lines. Having a VCF "Relationship Chart" would be a great boon, it fixes all of the many shortcomings of the current chart and makes it pretty.

 

Thank you,

Mike Talbot

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Mike,

 

The handling of images in VCF has some pluses and minuses.

 

However, there are some things that you may not be aware of:

(1) an image is imported and initially displayed based on the number of pixels in each direction (based as far as I can tell at 96ppi at 100% zoom).

 

(2) If you select the corner handle of image and hold SHIFT down, then the image scales with constant aspect ratio as you drag that corner.

 

I can see that drop and drag import of an image to the canvas of a VCF chart would be a useful enhancement.

 

RELATIONSHIP CHART:

It has been requested before TMG 6 that a VCF form of the relationship chart would be useful. I think that request got inadvertently discarded in the changeover to the new Wholly Genes forum so this is a good suggestion.

 

[Here is a suggestion that might work to get that result with all the features of VCF.

 

Create a custom flag and set it using 2 runs of a List of People (LOP) report, one run for each person of interest setting the flag for that person's ancestors.

 

Then if you know the common ancestor (may take a run of the Relationship Chart to check this), create a Descendant Box Chart starting at this common ancestor, filtering that chart on the custom flag value that you set in the LOP runs above.

 

Of course, this process can be extended to get other branches to show at the same time, so that you could have a relationship chart between 3 or more persons on different branches. It will also show to some extent where there is multiple relationships (duplicate persons will be marked) and this is feature that you can't get from the current relationship chart.]

 

TMG output of charts to VCF is the greatest feature of any commercial genealogy program.

 

A glaring inconvenience of VCF is the way that external images are imported and rescaled.

 

My wishes:

 

1. Use standard "drag and drop" procedure for importing images

2. There is no way to rescale the image while accurately maintaining aspect ratio. Fix: use the corner dots of selected image to rescale image while maintaing aspect ratio. Use the side dots of the selected image to rescale in one direction, only.

 

To add an apple to this orange,

have TMG output the Relationship Chart to VCF. The current (word processor) relationship chart posseses none of the beauty of a VCF chart. It does not do images and a bug truncates long person and place names instead of making multi-lines. Having a VCF "Relationship Chart" would be a great boon, it fixes all of the many shortcomings of the current chart and makes it pretty.

 

Thank you,

Mike Talbot

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Mike,

 

The handling of images in VCF has some pluses and minuses.

 

However, there are some things that you may not be aware of:

(1) an image is imported and initially displayed based on the number of pixels in each direction (based as far as I can tell at 96ppi at 100% zoom).

 

(2) If you select the corner handle of image and hold SHIFT down, then the image scales with constant aspect ratio as you drag that corner.

 

I can see that drop and drag import of an image to the canvas of a VCF chart would be a useful enhancement.

 

RELATIONSHIP CHART:

It has been requested before TMG 6 that a VCF form of the relationship chart would be useful. I think that request got inadvertently discarded in the changeover to the new Wholly Genes forum so this is a good suggestion.

 

[Here is a suggestion that might work to get that result with all the features of VCF.

 

Create a custom flag and set it using 2 runs of a List of People (LOP) report, one run for each person of interest setting the flag for that person's ancestors.

 

Then if you know the common ancestor (may take a run of the Relationship Chart to check this), create a Descendant Box Chart starting at this common ancestor, filtering that chart on the custom flag value that you set in the LOP runs above.

 

Of course, this process can be extended to get other branches to show at the same time, so that you could have a relationship chart between 3 or more persons on different branches. It will also show to some extent where there is multiple relationships (duplicate persons will be marked) and this is feature that you can't get from the current relationship chart.]

 

That's great news on the shift key maintainiing aspect ratio, when rescaling images. A special thanks for this one.

 

I've made composite Relationship Charts many ways with VCF. The TMG6 current implementation serves as a guide. Even a little seven gen. chart is too time consuming to be practical, manually with VCF. It does prove that it can be done and the results are simply gorgeous. I posted a shorter one in the TMG 6 forum, a while back.

 

The relationship chart would also replace the Direct Line Ahnentafel report for me, which current TMG6 implementation is useless to me since it does not show the spouse of record.

 

Thank you,

 

Mike Talbot

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I've made composite Relationship Charts many ways with VCF. The TMG6 current implementation serves as a guide. Even a little seven gen. chart is too time consuming to be practical, manually with VCF. It does prove that it can be done and the results are simply gorgeous. I posted a shorter one in the TMG 6 forum, a while back.

Thank you,

 

Mike Talbot

 

I think this may be the chart to which you refer:

 

http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index...post&id=997

 

It really is gorgeous.

 

Virginia

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I think this may be the chart to which you refer:

 

http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index...post&id=997

 

It really is gorgeous.

 

Virginia

 

Yes. Thank you. I hope others will think so, too.

 

From measurements, 9 gens. will fit on a letter size page. The sample was a scale model to obscure some personal data, the actual chart was an important bit larger.

 

The chart is not only gorgeous, but very useful as well. Relatives love to see it as a relationship chart. When used as a replacement for the Direct Line Ahnentafel Report, you can get to Charlemagne in about 4 attractive pages. Two or three letter pages if you hand edit to double lines of descent columns on a page. There are lots of portraits of nobles and royalty available on the net.

 

Thanks, again,

 

Mike Talbot

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