Can I get a witness?

Here is that new edit screen from the last preview, and I’ve unblurred the new magic button.

“Share”.  This feature (sometimes called “witnesses”) lets you share a person’s fact or event with other people in your database.  Click the Share button for a fact and RootsMagic 4 lets you select any group of people in your database who will share that fact.  You can even say what each person’s “role” in that event is.

So what happens when you look at the edit screen of one of those people sharing that fact?  Here’s what:

The fact or event will show just like it does in the event owner’s screen, except that you will see a pair of binoculars to indicate this person is sharing the event rather than owning it.  If you don’t want to see the shared events, click the Options button and tell RootsMagic to hide those shared events.

So how might you use this Share button?  Here are a couple of examples…

1. Witnesses to an event – You’ve entered a marriage event for a couple, but would like to link other family members who were in attendance.  Just click the Share button for the marriage event and you can select those family members and even enter any specific roles they may have played (“best man”, “maid of honor”, “witness”, or anything else).
2. People sharing a fact – One great example of this is a census fact.  Let’s say you find a family in the census.  Just add that census fact to the head of the household, then click the Share button for the census fact and add the other family members found in the census.  Not only can you add the people to that fact, but you can also enter a role (like “Spouse”, “Child”, “Boarder”, etc) of the person in that census record.  You can also use Shared facts for family members in a residence fact also.

Pretty cool, eh?  Still a few more to go, then we’ll start making some announcements.

Oh, and for those anonymous comments that I shouldn’t be wasting your time with blog tags or tributes to friends, just select “RootsMagic” from the Category over there in the right column and you won’t see those other articles.  As for whether it is wasting *my* time, I’m spending 16+ hours a day (including Saturdays) working on RM4, so I think I’m entitled to a little freedom as to what I post.  Just remember, I could start working a standard 40 hour week like most people 😉

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.