http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/view.php?view=postdate-2 The Behold User Forum: Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/blog/../beholddiscuss.gif Posts by Louis Kessler are Copyright 2000-2013 Louis Kessler, All Rights Reserved. Posts by others belong to the people who made them. en http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=291#post-602 Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:57:25 GMT hsmyers 602@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ <p>I'd like to see 3 things:</p> <p>1. load last file on start up option<br /> 2. reload current file<br /> 3. sense change to current loaded file externally and offer to reload</p> <p>The change, close, open loop is kind of tedious. Yes I suppose I could use Behold to edit my file, but I prefer other methods---Perl, C++ and text editors for instance. I usually have my GEDCOM file open in another window with the other screen using Behold and as I said going through the loop gets old.</p> <p>Great program thus far despite my quibbles :)</p> <p>--hsm </p> Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=279#post-587 Sun, 10 Feb 2013 01:22:43 GMT serenity2006 587@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ <p>I looked through the FUTURE plans list of ideas for BEHOLD software and the description of your approach. I like the Everything Report. You struck a cord with me in the issue encounted with multiple data entry screens in software applications and the need to click through about 5 screens to do any task. I saw that SOURCES was on your "sometime" list and it hit on one of my biggest rants with genealogy software. Here is my take on this feature.</p> <p>Frankly, while the genealogy world espouses the importance of sources, the genealogy software industry does a HORRIBLE job of handling sources and the associated media. </p> <p>Can you imagine what it would be like if genealogy software treated the PEOPLE facts the same way they treated SOURCES?. It would look something like this:<br /> - All information on a person is limited to 3 data-entry fields Person, Person Detail, Person Note.<br /> - While the program MAY allow you to choose templates for the different types of people, or free-form type the information, the report output and search capabilities of the software still limited you to three fields.<br /> - A new person entry is required for each location the person lived during their lifetime<br /> - A new person entry is required for each name or name variation a person has over their lifetime<br /> - The software has no capability to search, group, and cross-reference those separate person entries</p> <p>This is how sources, repositories, and media are treated by genealogy software and it is apparent that little time or thought has gone into creating a truly dynamic and user friendly approach to these areas. Again, this is one of my biggest rants with the genealogy software industry. Below is a description of how I have approached genealogy research and it may give you a better idea of the workflow and the difficulties encountered.</p> <p>My Source-Driven Workflow:</p> <p>I am doing a one-place study for a town's 150 year celebration in 2018. This is a completely different approach to genealogy research than the traditional one-name or one-family research approach - which seems to be the way most genealogy programs are designed. With a one-place study, you start from the source documents and build the list of individuals based on known source documents (census records, county birth, marriage, and death records, local newspaper obituaries, local cemetery records, etc.). In my current project, I have 5 repositories, about 500 source documents, about 5000 media files, about 168,0000 citations, each citation is linked to numerous fact tags..Every single fact has a source (including a person's gender) because it all starts with the source document. Each source document has an image file.</p> <p>My approach to this project was to start with the federal census records for the town. For my current project, the 1870 census for the town has 8 pages with 277 individuals grouped into 60 households (one person appears twice in this census record so the census shows a total of 278 individuals). The census for 1870 has a minumum of 5 data items in the title of the page and then another 25 data items in the census page for each individual. Organized into a spreadsheet it works out to about 30 columns and with 50 rows of data per census page (or about 1500 pieces of data). Each piece of data is a potential clue to another source document, so the column with the check box for "attended school within the census year" could lead to a school yearbook, class photo, report card, or even the school registration records with the parents names. The "rent or own" column could lead to land records or farm schedule records. Census records are a fantastic starting point when doing a one-place study and provide all sorts of clues into the community and potential other source records. I have not found a genealogy program that will easily capture every field from a census record, most only capture the title, location, and date and then leave it to the user to enter all of the data into a notes field. How in the heck can you sort, filter or search the notes fields from all your sources?</p> <p>I am still using Excel spreadsheets for my one-place study. The spreadsheet allows me to easily sort and filter data in a variety of ways as I began examining each individual person and researching beyond the town records to fill in the life events. For the one-place study, I created ONE Excel workbook with multiple tabs.<br /> - Master person index - given name, surname, gender, birth year, death year, and a column for each source document - this allows me to quickly spot where I have holes in my research<br /> - Master sources index - source name, year, publisher, etc, and then a column for each repository where I found that source document with the call-number entered into the field<br /> - Master repository index - repository name and address columns, and columns to capture hours, cost of making copies, whether or not they allow computers or portable scanning of records, and a notes field for misc notes<br /> - Tab for Each SOURCE - (i.e. 1870 US census, 1880 census, etc). For example, on the 1870 US census tab, there are columns for each question on the 1870 US census, with a few additional columns to indicate the state, county, enumeration district, and page. It took me ONE weekend to transcribe all the census records (7 federal censuses,and 6 state censuses) for the town into Excel spreadsheets and capture EVERY piece of data. I also have tabs for birth records, marriage records, death records, and cemetery records.</p> <p>The Search for Genealogy Software:</p> <p>After over 35 years of working on research, it is time to start putting it all together into a report format that can be published in a 150 year book format, create group records to link families (currently in family group sheets in multiple binders) and link the media files (in a portable drive with 1000s of document images, photos, maps, stories, etc.). So my search for genealogy software began.</p> <p>I have tried about 20 different genealogy software products so far and am always looking at new ones, but still can't find one that is friendly to the source driven or one-place study approach. It took over 1000 hours of data entry time to input the data from ONE census record into the genealogy software program and then when I exported to GEDCOM realized that there was no way to view or sort the data into a spreadsheet view. This made it very difficult to begin adding the next census record into the tree and with each additional source document. What was originally a 2mb Excel spreadsheet file became a 68mb file in a 250mb software application BEFORE I started adding all the media links. Then the software began bogging down, locking up my computer and corrupting my data.</p> <p>On to another software product and I got to start the entire date entry exercise again. Another 1000 hours of data entry time because the software requires multiple screens to input data, multiple source entries for each repository, multiple image links, I am surprised that since genealogy software is basically a database comprised of tables that only a few genealogy programs offer a spreadsheet view of data and none that I have found give you the option to do data-entry or editing from a spreadsheet or table view. Only ONE allowed me the option of importing a csv file, but only for people fields and not for sources. </p> <p>Sources, Repositories, and Media:</p> <p>Page 8 from 1870 US Federal Census Population Schedule for Willow Township, Cherokee County, Iowa is the same darn source record whether you find it on Ancestry.com, NARA, Family Search, or the state archives, or your own personal filing system. Only ONE original document exists and I shouldn't need to create a separate source citation in my genealogy software program for every repository that has a copy of the document. The REPOSITORY is what varies, each with it's own call number. I should be able to create a source document that is based on the DOCUMENT and enter ALL of the data from that document into a single screen. Then associate that DOCUMENT with the REPOSITORY and the call number and date accessed for that repository. Perhaps add a note field to that repository so that you can indicate if the copy they have has been altered or is just a really poor quality. Thus the citation for the document would be the same across all repositories. ,Can you imagine if you had to know the exact URL for a website page before you could search for a record online? Imagine if Family Search required you to know the Ancestral File number for the person you were researching and wouldn't let you search for a person by name. Then imagine going back to that record a few years later only to discover that they have changed the way they index the file numbers. No wonder people have such a hard time documenting sources in genealogy software or end up with a separate copy of the same source image for each citation because the online database has created a separate url for each person who appears on the page of the census. </p> <p>Here is what I would like to see in genealogy software:</p> <p>1. Organize Sources using Keywords/Groups - (i.e. Source Year, Source Title, Source Place, Source Type) - would require allowing user to create keyword list or flags for each source. Result - user could sort, filter, or search sources in a number of ways or select or exclude sources from GEDCOMS or Reports</p> <p>2. DATA ENTRY TEMPLATEs for sources. </p> <p>Third-Party User, or pre-loaded templates for major sources such as census records would be a HUGE plus. This would allow users to come up with templates for specific source documents enountered making the software more dynamic without being dependent on upgrades. It would require creating the ability to add data-entry templates as an add-in feature. You could establish the format required for user contributed templates so that they are always compatible with the software and even set up an "Approved Template" system where users can submit templates through the forum, get feedback, make changes, and receive your final approval before being added to the library of templates. Being able to upload a csv file into a template would be another HUGE timesaver so that even when the software isn't able to handle the spreadsheet view it can at least import the data from one.</p> <p>An example of a template for a US Federal Census record would be:<br /> SOURCE - would contain the Source level fields (Source Title, link to media items, link to repositories, link to Places)<br /> Action to be done by template - Create Event for each individual<br /> Columns would be created in template by selecting TAGS to match field where data is to be entered for each individual with option to add any conflicting data as an alternate fact.<br /> Rows in template would be a linked to an existing person in tree or add as new person and create the separate citation for that source.(ideally, for data entry speed, allow user to key in all the data first, then go back and link each row to an existing person in the tree or choose to have the system create as new person.<br /> GO or similar button would tell the system that you have completed the data entry or edits and want it to execute the tasks.</p> <p>Once you create a master template for say the 1870 US Federal Census, then it would be available to select from the library of templates, fill in the fields to specify the place and page number for the individual page of the census being transcribed, then open the spreadsheet and transcribe the census page, then use a lookup field column to either link to an existing person or add as new person. Once a page of the census has been completed, click the GO button and all the indiviuduals now have an EVENT for the census, linked to the source, with an individual citation to that source. Any new people found in the census page have been added as new individuals with a source record. Then it is an easy task of going into the individual's record and creating the relationship links between family members. </p> <p>3. Associate the SOURCE table with the PLACE table - same place table used for People/Events so that when pulling a PLACE report, the user would also see source documents associated with the place</p> <p>4. Associate REPOSITORY to SOURCE (many-to-many relationship) - the junction table would have the call-number, date accessed, web/media link and could be entered from either the SOURCE or the REPOSITORY view. This would mean that when you find a new repository for a source document (i.e. a census record), it would only require the addition of ONE repository level citation associated with ONE source, not 50 separate citations for each person who appears on the census page and citation links to each fact on that census page. </p> <p>5. Associate a REPOSITORY to a PLACE - so that a place report would also have a list of repositories for that PLACE</p> <p>Like I said in the beginning, I like the fact that you are moving away from the multiple screens to do a single task. As you reach the point of working on SOURCES, REPOSITORIES, and MEDIA, I hope that the long-winded rant above gives you some ideas. </p> Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=31#post-101 Mon, 08 Aug 2005 22:39:36 GMT sjm1010 101@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Lou,<br><br>What about the ability to load two separate GED files at once for a side by side comparison, this would allow the program to compare and search out duplicate files or for the user to manually edit and remove files from either GED. When you complete the editing you can merge the new file with your master or just save it as a separate file. I suppose this would be a great way to merge one or more files that contain your family rather than performing a merge for each individual GED that you come across. Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=81#post-280 Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:39:21 GMT brett 280@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ <p>Is there any reason the View GEDCOM loads in NotePad, rather than a preferred text file editor, such as NotePad ++ etc. </p> Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=79#post-269 Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:15:09 GMT brett 269@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ <p>Should there be a Close and also a Print button in the Print Preview display? </p> Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=74#post-255 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:22:31 GMT brett 255@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ <p>While not obsolutely essential, I would use the Close icon from toolbar if it were located next to exit. </p> Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=68#post-233 Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:11:01 GMT sjm1010 233@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Louis,<br><br>Okay, this might have been covered already and I was just too lazy to look for it. Say you Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=62#post-217 Sat, 19 May 2007 02:06:08 GMT sjm1010 217@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Hi Louis,<br><br>I was wondering if it was possible to change the way sentence or paragraph structures are presented in Beholds Everything Report, the current structure that appears under the "NOTE" tag? <br><br>If you look at each individuals "NOTE" section you will see that the first three to four lines line up under the letter "e" in the word (Note). Every sentence that follows these first few lines are now indented up to three letters. There are also no paragraph breaks in the notes section itself, even though my original notes have them. <br><br>This makes the notes appear as if their just one big paragraph, troublesome to read clearly. Is this Beholds way or is it Legacy?<br><br>My suggestion is, if possible, that every sentence "under" the "Note" heading should line up under the letter "e" after the initial sentence, cleaner look. My second suggestion would be paragraph breaks in the "Note" section. <br><br>If you understand what I just wrote.....your a better man than me!! Thank you.<br><br>Stephen<br><br> Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=51#post-176 Wed, 31 May 2006 20:41:22 GMT MaxHaiflichJr 176@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ In getting GEDCOMs from LDS, they do not include the info of who submitted the data to them. You can look it up on site, but you can't download it. I have had to mark, copy, and save it, then include it in my PAF5 Source citation manually.<br><br>Is there anyway that Behold could do that and include it in the .bho file? I mean, after you get the other LDS related improvements done.<br><br>Max Haiflich, Jr. Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=37#post-127 Tue, 25 Oct 2005 21:21:30 GMT larrycada 127@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Dear Louis,<br>All my forebears and many of my relatives are Czech. I would like to enter their names and their places in Czech with the correct diacritic marks or accents on the letters. I decided not to use Family Tree Maker, becuse it only supports the Latin-1 character set for data entry. (That's enough for French, German, and Spanish; but not for Czech.) I switched to PAF, which supports all special characters needed for data entry of Czech names of people and places.<br>Will this someday be possible with Behold? (Or is it already possible with the alpha version I have now downloaded?) When I made a GEDCOM file and exported it from PAF to Behold, it displayed strange letters and symbols where ever there was a letter with a Czech diacritic mark in the original PAF file.<br>While I am writing, let me add a few words of praise, Louis, for the Behold program. For many years, I consulted your webpage on genealogy software and found it very helpful. When I found out that you were developing your own program, I decided to give it a try. I have to say that I am very pleased with what I have been able to do with it so far. Many thanks for devoting your computer know-how and your genealogy know-how to this project.<br>I will look forward to whatever help you can give me with the Czech diacritics. Let me know if you need more information from me in order to give an answer.<br>Sincerely, Larry Cada Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=38#post-131 Sat, 29 Oct 2005 20:58:45 GMT lkessler 131@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Currently, Behold displays information for people, marriages, places and sources in one font without any highlighting or color. I plan to add options in Version 1.1 to allow you to set your preferred format for names, events and other parts of this information.<br><br>But what I haven't settled on yet is what the default should be. I've had two suggestions: (1) That Names be made bold, and (2) That Events be made bold.<br><br>What do you think would look best? Names bold? Events bold? Both of them bold? Maybe some other format or color instead? <br><br>I'd love to hear your opinion on this to help me decide what the default should be.<br><br>Louis<br> Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=36#post-119 Tue, 27 Sep 2005 08:53:39 GMT rwcrooks 119@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Louis, this latest release is really nice, tieing up a lot of loose ends.<br><br>It would be nice to have the OPTION to print the source title and citation (Page) in the report instead of just the code. I know that this could add many pages to a printout (mine is 408 pages long now), but it would be nice to not have to always refer to another page of a printout or follow a hyperlink and then back-button it back to where you were.<br><br>I could see this as a check box option that the user could select or not depending on their manner of working.<br><br>Keep up the good work! Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=26#post-87 Mon, 18 Apr 2005 12:29:40 GMT rwcrooks 87@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ I'm still working on figuring out the organize function, but it seems like it would be helpful to have the "active individual" name displayed on he status bar. Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=11#post- Wed, 31 Dec 1969 23:59:59 GMT Anonymous @http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=14#post-51 Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:32:22 GMT rwcrooks 51@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Currently, when I am following a line of descent, the line ends in a female's record who married into another family. There is a nice hyperlink there that moves you over to her husband's line. It would be nice to have a link from this female at the point she is married into the new male line back to her line. I guess that I'm asking for a 2-way hyperlink so I can follow both down the line and if I want to go up the line, I can hyperlink out of my male line into a female line. Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=16#post-54 Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:12:00 GMT rwcrooks 54@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ Handling looks pretty good.<br><br>But I would like to see Behold leave a blank line when there is a CONT tag with no data. Many people leave a blank line in the notes to make them a little more readable. This would probably increase the size of the report, but not greatly.<br><br>Also, PAF uses a couple of indicators in notes. These are ! and ~. When used as the first character in a note, ! signifies a general note, ~ signifies a private note. It would be nice if Behold could strip these characters from the notes.<br><br>I'm including an excerpt from one of my GEDCOMs that illustrate both tthe blank line and the ! indicator.<br><br>1 NOTE !You probably know by now that Jack Barron was up to visit me and we had a good time. We too<br>2 CONC k about a 500 mile trip and really had a lot of laughs. He sure is a grand guy and I look fo<br>2 CONC rward to some good times and laughs with him when we get home. By the way we took in the wa<br>2 CONC r trials while we were in Nurenberg. Yhey were really worth seeing. Especially the Criminal<br>2 CONC s. It was worth the while to see the Palace of Justice alone. Then to the town of Nurenber<br>2 CONC g is one of the hardest hit towns in Germany. They say that it is the only town that you ca<br>2 CONC n lay down on your stomach and see the whole town because there is nothing higher than tha<br>2 CONC t to stop or rather hinder your vision. But all in all we had a good time. We bumbed gass<br>2 CONC , meals and lodgings as we went along and did right well by ourselves.<br>2 CONT Source: Barron, Edward, "Letter from Edward Barron to Frank and May Barron (22 Feb 1946)"<br>2 CONC , (Unpublished, 1946)<br>2 CONT <br>2 CONT !Jack Barron passed away April 5, 2003. He was born January 19, 1924 in Detroit, son of Floy<br>2 CONC d E. and Elizabeth Davidson Barron. He graduated from Cooley High School. Enlisted in the U.<br>2 CONC S. Army and served in OSS (Predecessor of CIA), receiving an honorable discharge on October 1<br>2 CONC st, 1945. He graduated from Wayne State University. He is survived by his sister Shirlie Croo<br>2 CONC ks Shinn and his dear friends the Rev. and Mrs. Calvin Simpson in whose care and home he live<br>2 CONC d for many years. Also surviving are nephews Richard Crooks (son Steven), Douglas Crooks (dau<br>2 CONC ghters Mary and Tori), Aunts Virginia, Beatrice and Helen. His Cremains will be inured with M<br>2 CONC ilitary Honors at Arlington National Cemetery, Columbarium at a later date.<br>2 CONT Source: Obituary of Jack A. Barron, (Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, 2003), Apri<br>2 CONC l 8, 2003 p 3B<br>2 CONT <br>2 CONT !Jack Barron is buried at Section 5-Y, Row 1, Site 4 in the Columbarium at Arlington Nationa<br>2 CONC l Cemetery. Feature Suggestions http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/topic.php?id=11#post-46 Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:32:49 GMT lkessler 46@http://www.beholdgenealogy.com/forum/ The Feature Suggestions forum is now open.<br><br>Louis Feature Suggestions