9 replies to this topic

[seaweed007]

RootsMagic is the BEST! Now I don't have to lug my laptop around when I am 'hunting' for more photos, headstones, etc. I can not wait for the 'editable' version to be released... will save time transferring photos, etc to main system then sync back to the iPad... Great Job Guys !

[anneoutterson]

I agree totally. I am finding this tree viewer invaluable on research trips.

I am wondering if there will be an editable app sometime? Will there possibly be two apps, this viewer and an editable version which can sync back to my laptop? I would be very happy to pay for the latter.

[Renee Zamora]

We haven't decided on an editable version yet. It's very troublesome and expensive to create such a thing. If we did have one it wouldn't be free.

[anneoutterson]

Thanks for the reply, Renee. The app as it is has already proved very useful to me.

[MVS]

"We haven't decided on an editable version yet". This is rather depressing news. The current read only version is useful but severely limited with regards to media. The real excitement and usefulness would come with a version that made use of iPhone/iPads GPS and camera facilities. I would not expect it to be free. MVS.

[Dale DePriest]

It would be nice to have a notes screen that could be used to gather data in the app and perhaps this could be incorporated into the main database in the PC. I do not see the need to edit informaiton in the database.

[Jerry Bryan]

We haven't decided on an editable version yet. It's very troublesome and expensive to create such a thing. If we did have one it wouldn't be free.

I run the not-free GedView mobile app instead of the free RootsMagic mobile app for the simple reason that GedView was available first, and inertia and laziness so far have prevented me from switching to the free RootsMagic mobile app. When I first purchased the GedView mobile app, it was not editable (or at least, I don't think it was).

The current version of GedView is editable. But I have no intention using the GedView mobile app for editing, and I may well switch over to the free RootsMagic mobile app instead just for viewing a copy of my RootsMagic database on my mobile devices (iPad and iPhone). The reason for not using GedView for editing is that GedView uses GEDCOM import/export for synchronization. The GEDCOM import/export means that I have to import GEDCOM from GedView into RootsMagic and then do a merge in RootsMagic. But such a merge is a very manual, labor intensive, and burdensome process. That's because a RootsMagic merge only merges at the level of the individual, and does not merge at the level of the fact. So all fact merging is completely manual. What's really needed in this situation is that if I edit a person in my mobile app and import that person back into RootsMagic that RootsMagic do a total replacement of my person in Rootsmagic with the data from GedView. Obviously, I don't expect RootsMagic to support a competitor's product in this manner, or at least not exactly. But if RootsMagic were to develop an editable mobile app that required manual synchronization the same way GedView does, then I wouldn't use it. I would consider any time and resources that RootsMagic might someday choose to put into an editable mobile app to be a huge waste unless they were willing to deal with the merge issue headon.

By contrast, consider RootsMagic-to-Go. It's not a true mobile app, but it certainly supports mobile storage devices. Data is first synchronized from Rootsmagic to the mobile storage device by a total repacement operation, the data is edited on the mobile storage device, and then data is synchronized back to Rootsmagic from the mobile storage device by a total replacement operation. So I don't have to fight with a merge operation within RootsMagic in order to take advantage of RootsMagic-to-Go. A true mobile app with editing capability would need this same kind of freedom from the RootsMagic merge process.

Jerry

[Renee Zamora]

I'm not saying we are making an editable version of the iPhone app, at least not now. But I just wanted to comment to Jerry that the app is reading a RootsMagic database file (.rmgc) directly so an editable version is my opinion would be making changes directly to that. There would be no concern over using a GEDCOM and merging. It would be the same concept as using RootsMagic To-Go in my opinion.

[Dale DePriest]

To me the major difference as to the reason I don't want a second editing platform is one of accidently getting the two out of sync. Perhas I make a change to the portable vesion and then a separate change to the master. This is the real risk that I worry about. So for me changing a note, perhaps at TODO list note is the safest way. I do agree that being able to view the rootsmagic database directly is a very distinct advantage, both in have the same or similar look and feel and having all the data preserved exactly as it was created in the database. GEDCOM merging can be very scary to me. I spend a lot of time whenever I need to merge two databases.

Dale

[TomH]

The leader in database synchronization among multiple interfaces has to be Ancestry.com. You can build, edit and synchronize among three different interfaces that I know of: the website, Family Tree Maker and the iPhone/iPad app.