Depends on what you call ‘fundamental problems’. We all have our own lists of what we have deemed a problem. As for a response, development doesn’t really respond in the sense that they are communicating with us. Their response is the occasional patch that may or may not correct things we consider issues.
Keep in mind that some of the things we consider issues, they consider design changes.
Good point, Kfunk, about what a fundamental problem is –
I can imagine that people had problems using RM7 – I probably used only some of the features of 7 – it worked fine for me, did everything I needed. But I suspect there were design features that made it difficult or impossible to keep up with technological advances.
– My main problem with 8 is that it seems to take more key strokes to do the simple things I normally do – that, to me, is a fundamental problem, at least on the user side.
Limited vision then. Keep rm7 intact &dabble with rm8 alpha hoplng to be beta someday.
…and that has long been established as a design change for which RM seems to have made in order to make all the other bits work. However, there are many that do see it as an issue, regardlesss of what the devs have to say about it. Personally, it is one of the many reasons why I am not using RM8. Another one of those issues would be wasted space. An easy example there is the Settings screen. It would not have been overly difficult to have put all of the settings on one screen. You have some of the groups where 80% of the screen is blank. I also have issues with the GUI design in many other areas. I am so sick of the little > which pop open things such as Notes. I am going to sit down one of these days and work through RM8 just so I can make a list of all of the fundamental problems that I have, or at least that I consider fundamental problems.
RM7 cannot be killed (it resides locally on your machine), only support for it can be killed. Given that, given RM8’s current inability to be as fully functional as RM7, given the lack of backward compatibility, and given RM8’s lack of real written documentation, I hope that RM8’s creators do not continue to take leave of their senses by discontinuing RM7 support, and recontinue supporting RM7 with the same enthusiasm that they have shown in the past.
There must be a tool (even if it is one created outside of the RM creators’ purvue) that will convert the data in rmtree files (i.e., RM8) back to the file structure(s) that RM7 understands. Only then will all RM users feel confident that RM8’s abilities will reach the level of those that RM7 possesses, confident enough to make a complete leap.
Windows users can use RM7 for some time but will lose hints with the next api change by ancestry. A killer os update will probably not happen for years given the slow microsoft release cycle.
Macs can only use RM7 in a crude windows xp fake environment which costs Bruce $$ to maintain. Since Apple releases a new OS every year instead of 5-10 like MS Bruce would have to pay for a new wrapper each year. This seems unlikely since Rootsmagic must be cash strapped given the multi-year RM8 development cycle and lost customers.
… and maybe not just hints - they will probably lose TreeShare as well
TreeShare is one tool that I have not used in RM7. It has far too many foibles that essentially make it useless.
Instead of going back to an unsupported program, why not explore some of the other fine programs out there?
Right. There is a high price to pay for hanging on to obsolete or dying software. You have to go forward with the flow to stay current. People seem to like family historian and legacy on windows and of the 4 other mac programs family tree maker is clearly the best. It is a fast stable mac program with a data structure closer to ancestry than RM8 and an excellent edit person screen showing all detail at once. Adding media one or many is a breeze and it gets hints from ancestry and family search. Heredis and mac family tree have terrible person screens and poor trees. Reunion has an older family focused interface, $100 and has no manual.
Personally, I loathe FTM, but that’s just me
ftipple, have you tried FTM since mackiev took it over? They made it functional for the first time and it has excellent pedigree and a better person edit screen than RM7…8. Media is a breeze unlike RM8. However, it does have small text and a lousy fix missing media tool. RM8 wins there. FTM edit screen shows you every fact, media item, source and citation essentially at once to grasp what you do and do not have.
Yes - still don’t like it, sorry!
To each his own. Unfortunately FTM and RM are the only mac genealogy programs with a functional person edit screen showing all items in one screen. Heredis, macfamilytree and reunion all lack that and have other deal-killer issues. Heredis is support when/if in french; MFT a truly ghastly pedigree view; reunion no manual, different source citation approach and a dated interface.
RM8 also has no manual which was a strong virture of prior versions and is not mac useable with the current access violation crashes. FTM has a terrible 20 screen website to get through for an update and no trial version.
So I should dig out my PAF on floppy disks from the 1980s.
Not my choice but if you want PAF just go with Ancestral Quest which PAF was based on. AQ is very basic but does get updated and runs on windows. Reviews are not encouraging.
PAF is not based on Ancestral Quest. Ancestral Quest sprang forth from PAF. You got it backwards!
You could do what I do.
I now use RM8 as my main program. However it does not include a built in module to create your own website on your own server - It has one that creates a website on the server they host (Not quite the same - you cannot modify what is on their server) and so I export my RM8 to RM7 solely for the purpose of creating the website - still do all my editing and family tree building in the newer RM8.
To export RM8 to RM7 I do NOT use a gedcom file but instead use the routine developed by the clever people at https://sqlitetoolsforrootsmagic.com/ which transfers more of your data across than simply relying on a gedcom
I was referring to the original PAF. I got it in 1982 and used it at the computer in my husband’s office. The computer cost something like $800 and had DOS 3.1.
Yeah, I was definitely thrilled with RM8 when I realized that after seeing one of those handy dandy error messages, you had to close and reopen the program. It failed to save anything I inputted if I didn’t close down. Lost a lot of edits I had done. Thankfully, I was in the mode of cleaning up sources, etc, since I could see them better. I am worried that RM8 is going to continue to be buggy, like I am hearing about Legacy. Don’t care about doing websites or connecting with Ancestry, etc., just want to keep my data safe and uncorrupted. The best thing I can think to do right now is continue with RM7, kick a gedcom into 8 when I want to see overviews of sources, and do the actual editing in 7. Also, will look at AQ.