JCK74656

Thanks for the input. But the part of your post that I quoted cinches it for me. I have had enough of 'emulators' and 'virtual machines'. Another layer of complications and potential bugs. More support. More cost. IMO just not worth the hassle any more.

I fully understand, sadly the Mac market does have less choice in genealogy siftware.

Perhaps it would be helpful for experienced genealogists (not me) to list alternative software programs they have found as potential replacements for the mythical but anticipated RM8? Switching is not easy due to gedcom data transfer issues and any other program will have it's own warts.

 

Family Tree Maker 2017 (and 2019 update soon) has gone from a buggy disaster in Ancestry's hands to a capable native mac app under MacKiev. Definitely not perfect but it provides Ancestry and Family Search hints and syncs well even for people with huge files claiming to go back to Neanderthal ancestors. Since the data structures match better, syncing causes less manual redo than in RM7.

 

I have looked at most other native mac programs casually without much joy and refuse to use virtualization which is as bad as the current RM7 crossover app.

 

Bruce's reluctance to provide any timeline information on RM8 is understandable but if he really has a viable product near completion then it is time to prepare his customers with possible release, feature and other information. Hopefully he will also have a simple manual available as usual. 

I was gifted Rootsmagic 18 months ago, I'm not on a Mac but already considering the switch to Family Historian but waiting to see what the next RM brings. Personally I find Family Historian much superior and polished, less jumping about windows and a great ancestor and mapping view. Also their version of people view can show family events and most things can be filtered straight on screen to narrow down what I need to find. Switching will take a bit of work so I don't loose data via gedcom so I am waiting for now to see what comes along, and when. There are many videos online showing the features and a full feature trial, personally I am finding it much quicker to use and much more informative which is important to me, it doesn't work native Mac but the link below discusses that.

https://www.fhug.org...pad_android_etc

 

I would say deliberately confusing, frustrating and opaque placing the onus on the customer to search out previous discussions and well received accepted requests, there can only be one reason?

 

In my previous employment I outlined and projects and improvement ideas to my manager early in the year, these were also tracked in a tracker available for all employees to see. Updates were sought by my manager during 1:1 meetings throughout the year and one success measurement end of year was the number and quality of the improvements I had logged, the quality in several terms and that they were implemented in a timely manner. Micky mouse ideas were dismissed at the outset and just logging improvement ideas and not seeing them through was probably viewed is a worse light than not logging them at all.

 

The wish list at Family Historian appears to work very much the same, firstly the company accept the request as a valid one and thereafter users have their say in voting the idea up or down from memory. Worthless quirky personal ideas will quickly become page 2 or beyond under such a system leaving the good and valid ideas bubbling to the top. The problem, I would imagine, Rootsmagic would have with such a system is the visibility and age of popular and valid user enhancement requests, these would effectively highlight deficiencies within the program and give those shopping for genealogy software a list of why not to choose Rootsmagic. I would also imagine there would be a desire to keep such public genealogy software ideas from easy extraction by their competitors, however Rootsmagic hold no IP over such public ideas. I would also say if Rootsmagic are not willing or determined to act on such, often inspired, improvement ideas then at least back away from holding back the genealogy community at large.

 

The world of genealogy software and researching techniques is an ever evolving market, I simply don’t see the problem in having the determination to give the customer what then want in terms of genuine researching and reporting needs. I have seen many users dump Rootsmagic after buying, why?, well my view from speaking to several individuals is that the FULL program fell short of their expectations. Family Historian offer a FULL 30 day evaluation with no feature restrictions so those who take the trial either like FH or don’t. Rootsmagic could easily do the same falling back to Essentials if not purchased within the 30 days, that’s what I would call vendor confidence in their product.

I believe that's a pretty good impression of where things would appear to be but I still don't understand the resistance to giving the customer wht they desire and need, especially simple to program little things like sorting, filtering and reporting?

If I'm not mistaken, one of our competitors publishes a lits showing how many of their users have asked for each particular change. One of that program's deficiencies IMO is the want of bold, italic & underlining in the printed reports. Last time I looked that enhancement was very high on the list of desirable changes. Were I using that program I would be confident that the programmers would be considering the change seriously.

 

I'd like to see the RM8 wish list similarly set up. Users would be given a greater sense of participation and I cannot see that the company would be risking anything by the disclosure of what users are hoping for.

I believe you are refering to Famiy Historian, unless there is another, and a competitor software invariably voted above Rootsmagic on a number of fronts yet there are still likable things about Rootsmagic. Many of those wishes hang around for quite a while but at lease you can see they have been put forward and voted on by users so more structured than this list. I have seen many quirky wishes which may suit a particular users non standard way of working and on that type of voting based wish list they woud not garner support so would quickly fall by the wayside. I like many things about that software and the current version looks to be the same age as Rootsmagic V7 so simply matching it might result in a shock in the near future if they release a new version. I also like their support for user developed scripts through their plugin store, if it were not for SQL I think I would have dropped Rootsmagic before now but I am very conscious those who can use SQL are probably a small minority so either Rootsmagic overcomes the various program limitations within the build or they make running of plugins more simple for all users.

I avoid creating new fact types unless it's for something really, really necessary. For instance, I would never create a fact type for getting a driver's license or having an appendix removed.  Those events are handled adequately by Miscellaneous and Illness.  I feel the same way about people taking overseas trips. It's just a Miscellaneous event. If I were forced to create a fact type, it would probably be called "Travel". 

I was using emigration but many people returned home before death and emigration is a permanent state so not correct. Ancestry use Departure and Arrival facts, at first I didn't like the Ancestry way but on reflection of the fact Arrival and Departure facts are a more accurate notation. I now use them and more closely align with Ancestry and others which is important to me. Like Don Newcomb I avoid custom facts where possible and try to stay with built in facts and close to some kind of standard, the only emigrations I have now is where I have confirmed deaths in a country other than the birth country anything else is travel no matter how they were away, an exception would be someone who died when on a vacation.