Great rebuttal!
On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 23:02:50 +1100, Rob Weiss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've embedded comments below. > Cheers, > Rob Weiss > > > > > Thanks for your suggestion of Legacy. Have just loaded it and entered a > > GEDCOM file. > > > > My first reactions after playing with it for an hour - > > > I can find no way to create extra note sheets - there are only three > > available - with fixed names that cannot be changed - General, Research and > > Medical. > You can add notes in lots of different places throughout Legacy. > Each of the notes can be as large as you like, and the location of > each is highly appropriate to the purpose. If you are used to > recording details on note pages, Legacy uses a different approach for > much of the data. I suspect that what you are looking for are termed > "Events" in Legacy. In Family view, click in the vital stats area to > open the details for that individual. Then click on Add to add a new > event. This is like a structured Note sheet, and is highly > customisable. You can select from standard events or add your own. You > can set up templates and assign sources with single clicks of the > mouse. They can be ordered in different ways. You can include quite > complex dates, which still sort, for example. Each event has one or > more sentences associated with it which can be structured in various > ways. They are way more sophisticated than typical note sheets. (The > note sheets you mentioned are mainly for the stuff that's left over, > for recording research history or for writing your own biography of > that person!) > > > > > Within the note sheets I cannot find a way to format text - bold, text > > colour, underline or italic. > You can format the note sheets for printing, by selecting the text > and applying the appropriate shortcut e.g. Ctrl+B for bold. The notes > on screen are not changed, however. > > > > > The screen is very childish with its enormous lettering. I used 'customise' > > to try to change the font size but only the titles change not the data. The > > icons and buttons are enormous - they do not need to be as big as that - > > maybe that is what makes the screen look as if it is intended to be used by > > a seven year old. This large lettering means that if you enter a full > > address of the place where a person was born or died you can only see about > > the first 30 letters of it. > One of the BIG strengths of the guys who design Legacy is that they > really understand their user base. Many users of Legacy are "of > advanced years" and their eyesight is not as good as when they were > young. (I am in this category!). So by default the user interface uses > larger fonts. i.e. it IS designed for a sevenTY old! If you see my > 80-year-old father use Legacy with shaky hands you will understand why > the icons are as large as they are. This is a strength, not a weakness > for many of us. Ther user interface is also very efficient to use when > you get the hang of it, (and one prominent user drives Legacy all with > one hand as she has lost the use of the other one). > However, it is possible to change the size of the fonts to suit your > own needs. Select Options > Customise > Fonts and you have lots of > options, including the ability to allow dynamic resizing of fonts when > you resize a dialogue box. If you leave this turned on, it overrides > the font size you specify. (By the way, if you were trying to enter a > full address into the location field, that's not where it is meant to > go. Click on the + icon and enter it under the appropriate Address > dialogue, which also has its own notes page, as well as the separate > Notes for Birth etc., and allows you to reference the same address > form multiple locations within the database) > > > When you try to add more than 10 children to a family it creates a new list > > - you cannot see all the children at the same time - this is what I disliked > > so much about the old FTM. > This is a configurable option that trades people shown with font size. > Go to Options > Customise > View : Child Columns on Family View and > select 3. > > > It won't accept Chapman Codes as capitals - it turns them into a Cap + lower > > case. > This is a configurable option. Options > Customise > Data Format and > uncheck Initial caps. (Though sounds like the Chapman codes are not > going in quite the right place, because they shouldn't be affected by > this option? Which field are you putting them in? They would normally > go in the UserID field which can be set up in a variety of different > ways, and shouldn't auto case) > > > > > True - it is simple to use. Maybe the deluxe version is better with more > > editing facilities and more note pages; I will have to look into that, but > > so far I do not think it has anything which would make me want to turn over > > to it. > All of the features mentioned above are available in the standard > version (I think). If you are after a flashy product with lots of > fancy bells and whistles, please look elsewhere. If you are looking > for a tool with enormous depth and that is written by people who > really understand the way genealogists and family historians work, > then I'd urge you to look into Legacy a bit further. The free tutorial > on http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/videos.asp is a good place to > start. (Even experienced users learn stuff from this!) > > (And no, I don't work for Legacy - I'm just a happy user on a very > active users news group, which is another of the joys of using Legacy > - help is never far away!) > 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
