Well, I’m finally caught up from the RootsMagic cruise, and ready to wrap up the last 5 or 6 new features coming in RootsMagic 4.

Welcome to the new edit screen.  Now, before you say “It’s different so I hate it”, let’s talk a little bit.

One big problem in most genealogy programs is all the screens required to enter information.  Currently in RootsMagic (versions 1-3), there are 3 different edit screens… 1) Edit Person, 2) Edit Fact, and 3) Edit Family.  I bet there are some RootsMagic users who didn’t even know about the Edit Family screen (found by doing Edit > Family from the main menu).  And most other programs split a person’s information among even more screens.

Let’s take a look at RootsMagic 4’s new edit screen.  The left half of the edit screen is a list of every piece of information about the person: their name(s), spouses, parents, facts, events, and even DNA tests.  The right half of the screen is a “live edit” panel for the currently highlighted row.

Select the “Person” row, and the live edit panel lets you edit the person’s name and sex.  Select a different row (like the “Emigration” fact in the screen below), and the live edit panel lets you edit the details for that piece of information.

In addition to the live edit fields, RootsMagic 4 also shows whether there are any notes, sources, media, or XXXXX for that piece of information (looks like Bruce got ahold of the blurring tool again).

And if you select one of the family rows (like the parents in the screen below), you can edit details about that family (like the relationship to each parent).  And don’t worry about losing those shortcuts you have gotten used to… you can still click the little green checkmarks to directly edit notes, sources, and media.

So there you have it.  The ultimate edit screen.  The one-stop place for a person’s names (primary and alternate), families, events, facts, DNA tests, and more.  And we’ll have more fun next time when I break out the un-blurring tool.

If you have ever selected a group of people for a report or search and wished you could save that group of people to use again later, then your wish has been granted.  The fifth (and final) tab of the side list is the Groups tab.

Click the Groups button to add, edit, or delete groups of people.  You can select any group of people from the selection screen, and then give that group of people a name (like “People born in England” or “Ancestors of John Smith”).  You can then select from these names in the side list to show the people in that group.

You can create new groups, edit groups (change which people are in the group), or delete groups.  You can also change the name of a group.

Once you have some named groups created, the fun begins.  Any time you are asked whether you want to include all or some people (such as when printing a custom report), RootsMagic will also let you select any of the named groups as well.

Of course there is no limit to the number of groups you create, and since you can name them anything you want there is no need to remember cryptic tag or flag numbers.  Using named groups is fun and easy.

In case you are wondering how I wrote this article during the middle of the RootsMagic cruise, the secret is I didn’t.  I am sitting here Saturday night before the cruise writing this and will have the blog magically publish it during mid-week.  And then it is back to live blogging and unwrapping!

RootsMagic has always been heads and shoulders above the competition when it comes to custom reports, but we have found ways to make them even better in RootsMagic 4.

Easier Design Screen

Anyone who has designed a custom report in RootsMagic knows that it takes special concentration and good hand-eye coordination to get fields to line up the way you want.  RootsMagic 4’s new custom report designer makes it easy for anyone to create professional looking custom reports.

For simple custom lists, just add the number of columns you want, and enter the header text and fields into the cells.  The report will automatically size to fit the width of whatever page you print to, so just size the columns proportionally.  If you want multiple rows, just add them and tell RootsMagic 4 what to print in them.

Including multiple facts of the same kind

Have you ever included a field like “Occupation” in a custom report and discovered that your report only included the first occurrence of that fact type?  That’s because RootsMagic custom reports limited a field to only a single line on the page.  We have zapped that limitation and now your custom reports will include all instances of a fact type in the report.

Including notes

Zapping that single line limitation also let us add support for one of the most commonly requested custom report features… including notes in a custom report.

More layout options

What if you wanted to mix and match simple fields with notes in a custom report?  RootsMagic 4 lets you join fields in your custom report to get the layout you actually want.  For example, you can join a row of fields into a single field to allow your note to print under multiple rows of simple fields, like this:

This is the report which created the note entry above.  You can see that I merged the two cells which hold the note so it could span both the date and place columns.  The 3 columns in row 1 have also been merged so that the name can span the full width of the report if necessary.  You can also merge a column of fields in case you want the note to print to the side of several rows of fields.

So that’s a quick overview of some of the new custom report capabilities.  The layout of your new RootsMagic 4 custom reports is limited only by your imagination.

And we’re still not finished with the sneak previews.

WebSearch.

And why is it that every time a tab is disclosed another blurred one (2) appears?

RootsMagic 4 makes it easier than ever to search online for information about your family.  Just switch to the WebSearch tab and RootsMagic will do an online search for the currently selected person.  And if you want to find someone else just click their name in the side list and RootsMagic will automatically search for them on the selected site.

Of course nobody wants to search just one site, so RootsMagic lets you select which site you want it to use.  Click the little drop arrow to the right of the search button and choose the site you want to search. If you want to add additional sites that we don’t include (or if you want to hide some of the built-in sites), choose “Manage Search Providers…”.

Here you can uncheck any sites you are boycotting or just don’t want appearing in the list.  Or you can select the “Custom Search Providers” tab to add new search engines.  I won’t go into gory details about adding a new search engine here, but it really is quite easy to do, even for a non-programmer.

Well, that’s one more new feature, with at least 10 more to go.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure that last new blurred tab above is the last one (for now).  I think we figured out what keeps causing them to appear and got it taken care of <g>.

RootsMagic has long had the ability to display an online map for places in your database (it was even a recent “tip of the month” in the RootsMagic newsletter).  We have expanded that capability in RootsMagic 4.

When you open the mapping feature in RootsMagic 4, you will have a list of (1) all the places in your database.  Click on a place in the list and RootsMagic will display a map of the place for you.  You can use all the Virtual Earth tools (zoom, aerial, birds-eye, etc).  You can even print your map or copy it to the clipboard to paste into other programs.

If you select the Aerial option, you can view the satellite image of your map.  You can view the satellite image either with or without the labels for towns, streets, etc.

The new RootsMagic 4 mapping makes it easy to see where the events in a person’s life happened.  Just switch (1) from “Places” to “People” and RootsMagic will display a list of the people in your database.  Click on anyone in the list and RootsMagic will display a map showing that person’s events.

You can move your mouse over any marker to see what events in that person’s life occurred there.  And of course you can see these markers on either the map or aerial view.

Stay tuned as we continue to map out the new features in RootsMagic 4 (my wife told me that was a dumb line, but I decided to run with it anyways).

Have you ever been entering a place and wished you knew what county, province, state or country the place was in?  RootsMagic 4 now provides a worldwide place database with 3.5 million places in it.  Just pop up the place search and enter what you know about the place and RootsMagic will display matching places.  Select a place and click OK and RootsMagic will paste the fully standardized place into the place field for you.

But what if you don’t want a full “standardized” place (like if you have an historical place name)?  When you edit a place from the master place list, you can enter the place 1) the way you want it normally displayed, 2) as a standardized place, and 3) as an abbreviated version of the place.  Of course the standardized and abbreviated places are both optional.

I’m guessing a lot of you noticed the “GeoCode” button on the Edit Place screen above.  Clicking that button in RootsMagic 4 will geocode your place for you.  Geocode just means that RootsMagic will check its 3.5 million place name database to find a match for your place, and insert the latitude, longitude, and standardized place name for you.  Now of course we won’t make you geocode your database one place at a time.  RootsMagic 4 can also geocode your entire database, and let you hand pick the places that are ambiguous.

And finally, RootsMagic 4 offers a gazetteer on the tools menu to look up any place in the world.

We know how much current RootsMagic users like the free PlaceFinder program we’ve included all these years.  Think of the Gazetteer as a world-wide PlaceFinder on steroids.  Like the Place Search above, just type in as much of the place as you know and click Search.  The Gazetteer will show you all matches, and will even let you view an online map of any of those matching places (you need to be online to view the online map of course).

Think we’re done with places?  You’ll need to check out my next blog entry to find out.