RootsMagic Blog

I keep getting busy programming and forget to blog about all the great stuff coming in version 4, so I’m going to skip the rest of the little things and start sneak previewing the bigger stuff. I’ll leave the little stuff for you to find on your own when we release version 4 before the end of the year (there… there’s your first hint about the release date).

Back in a previous post, several people wondered what that button (1) on the left side of the screen was for. Of course I didn’t tell, which led to a lot of rampant guessing and speculation. So let’s put an end to the speculation. If you click on the image below you’ll see RootsMagic 4’s new collapsible side bar. Click the button to access the side bar, and again if you want it hidden. The side bar is available regardless of which main view you are using.

The side bar has four (count’em) 4 tabs. The Index tab shown above is a list of the people in your database. You have incremental search and alternate name support, and if you are using color coding it will show as well. Select a person from the index list and RootsMagic will select that person in the current view (pedigree, family, etc).

Tab 2 is the family tab which will show you all the immediate family members (spouses, kids, parents, and siblings) of the person selected on the main screen. You can select any of those family members and click the Go button to switch to that person.

Tab 3 is the bookmark tab. Just press Ctrl+B or click the “Add bookmark” button to add the current person to the bookmark list.

And tab 4 is the history tab. Every time you edit a person, RootsMagic will automatically add that person to the history tab. Need to get back to someone you edited half an hour ago? This is where you’ll find them.

Oh, and just to make sure you can’t stop speculating, I wanted to point out (if you hadn’t noticed already), that there is another blurred tab that has magically appeared on the main screen. Where do those things keep coming from? Guess you’ll just have to keep reading the blog.

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OK, so here’s a feature we have gotten a lot of requests for, and in RootsMagic 4 we’re going to deliver it.

If you have ever added alternate names for people in your database, you can now have those alternate names appear in lists of people (like the RootsMagic Explorer). If you think you might get confused having a person appear under their multiple names in the lists, just unmark the “Show alternate names” checkbox and it will only list each person once under their primary name.

Clicking on an alternate name in the list will take you to the same place that clicking on the primary name would. It’s just that you can now find people by all those other names they may have been known as during their lifetime.

Stay tuned for more cool stuff. And thanks for telling your friends and families to check out what will be our biggest upgrade ever.

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Today’s sneak preview is going to be short and sweet (and no screen shot on top of that).  But don’t worry, we still have plenty of new screen shots left to go.

While website creation in RootsMagic 4 is very similar to that in version 3, there is one big difference.  RootsMagic 4 uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) when creating a website.  If you don’t create websites, or don’t know what CSS is, you probably won’t find this very exciting.

However, if you have ever had to modify fonts, colors or other settings in a RootsMagic generated website, I can hear you saying “yes” all the way from here.  No more having to modify hundreds of individual html files.  Just edit the single .CSS file and all your pages will use the modified styles.

So for all you html’ers, this one’s for you.  For everyone else, we’ll be right back with more cool screenshots and features.

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