Is this a replay?? Henry
----- Original Message ----- From: "Dora Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2002 3:09 PM Subject: Re: [LegacyUserGroup] How are PAF data bases set up? | Ken: | | I talked to someone at Legacy who I'm pretty sure was | not you, since I mentioned your e-mail about checking | your voice mail. | | It was he who said that the reason why you haven't | developed the ability to import PAF files is they are | written in Unicode and Legacy stores its data in I | think he said ANSI. He was trying to explain to me | that it isn't as easy to develop this particular | update as I had thought. | | But I strongly get the idea it's actually in ANSEL - | which is a kind of ASCII which is a subset of ANSI. | I don't know if I heard wrong, which I easily could | have, or he didn't want to get too specific. | | Does your program actually use ANSI or ANSEL, and does | it often make a substantive difference? Whoever on | your staff said he thinks I have no ancestors who used | other alphabets, diacritical marks and all of that was | right. | | None of us thought the problem was insurmountable. It | came across as more difficult than writing the code to | import earlier versions of PAF files. YOu're a good | company and doing an upstanding job for three and a | half people! It kind of sounded like you didn't have | time or something. I suspect that people in general | don't suppose that a company that is putting out so | many copies of such an outstanding product could be a | small company, and I didn't. But knowing that, we | were thinking about what it really would take to get | around it. | | I understand your proprietary position. I'd be | surprised if PAF's file structure were top secret | since they don't sell it, and they benefit by people | being able to import PAF files, but I know probably | you have a proprietary relationship with them to have | developed some of the things you have. | | It's too bad PAF doesn't just export to PAF 5 in ANSI | or ANSEL. Maybe in time they will. Since their | mission is to encourage people to do genealogy and not | to make money, it is to their advantage for the | databases people create in PAF to be portable! They | must have heard all the fussing about their date | formats. Their latest update is supposed to have fixed | some of the problem. | | It would be a good thing to be able to import PAF 5 | databases for the same reason it was a good thing to | import PAF 4 databases; to avoid loss of data due to | the inconsistencies between PAF formats and GEDCOM | formats. Now that I both know why it is harder to to | write a program update in PAF 5 then for earlier | versions of PAF, and know how little time you have for | the effort, I fully understand why you have not been | in such a rush to make such an update. | | I don't think it will take me more than a couple of | days to find out what happens to my dates when I | transfer my data. I won't have a proper opinion on | how badly I need to be able to import a PAF 5 database | until then. | | If I can't transfer my data without losing it, then in | time I would have to figure out how to change a PAF | file to make it importable to somewhere. | | Imagine, five days ago I believed that GEDCOM had | completely solved this sort of problem! | | Yours, | Dora | | | | --- Ken McGinnis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | wrote: | > I missed one. PAF is in a proprietary format | > developed internally by the | > LDS Church. Developers can obtain the file | > specification by contacting them | > and entering an agreement with them. | > | > I explained this to Dora when she asked a couple | > days ago but thought others | > might like to know the answer. Legacy does not | > import a PAF 5.x file | > directly for the simple reason that I haven't had | > time to work on a direct | | | __________________________________________________ | Do you Yahoo!? | New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! | http://sbc.yahoo.com | Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: | http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp | | To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: | http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ | | To unsubscribe please visit: | http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp | Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
