I upgraded from RootsMagic7 to RootsMagic8 and disliked the interface so much that I went back to RootsMagic7. Now I have RootsMagic9 and it works mostly like RootsMagic8. Does anyone know a way to get RootsMagic9 to present an interface more like RootsMagic7?
No, RM8 and RM9 simply don’t work that way.
Roots Magic 7 still works on my PC.
Thank you for your reply. I upgraded from RootsMagic7 to RootsMagic8 and tried 8, but did not like the way it worked - the interface. I switched back to 7, but when I got a new laptop I tried installing 7, but it would never “take” - I would always need to enter the installation code each time I launched it. I am perfectly satisfied with 7, but 8 has an interface that I just don’t like, and 9 is very similar. I may just need to get used to it and switch over completely to 9. I haven’t tried it yet but I am pretty sure that 9 will install on my laptop without a problem. Which do you use?
I currently use RM7 but I am in the middle of moving to Family Historian 7.
I’m going through and correcting a bunch of errors and inconsistencies and then doing a direct import in FH7. I then use their Work With Data tool and several user-written addons to see how much more needs to be fixed. Then in RM, I make the changes and reimport.
It’s quite an iterative process, but my data is much, much cleaner than it has been in years.
I too tried RM8 but never took the plunge for the same reasons and stayed with RM7 - but when the recent bargain $20 for RM9 was offered I just took the plunge. At first I felt like I had entered a strange new world and missed the cosy warmth and familiarity of RM7. Things weren’t in their normal places and it just felt and looked ‘wrong’. 10 days later and I’m really enjoying RM9. I made some cosmetic changes which helped me…
In the Settings/Display Settings I did the following.
Set the ‘Theme color’ to Green
Set the ‘Background color…’ to a nice pastel.
Un-tick the ‘High Contrast grid highlight’ option
Set the ‘People side view position’ to right
Set the ‘Search criteria position’ to right
Setting those positions to ‘right’ may seem a strange thing to do if you want it to be like RM7 where they are on the left, but it just ‘felt’ nicer.
Also - once I’d got used to what the left-hand selection-list icons are for I minimised that column width to remove the text and just leave the icons.
I do feel like I’m settling in now - although I do have a lot of trees for other people in RM7 and I went there earlier and it was like meeting an old friend who I realised I missed a lot! But the new features have been useful - I added a lot of Associations and realised that witnesses at weddings were also cousins etc and I hadn’t previously noticed. I also like the color sets - I’ve got one for birth counties and it’s interesting to see the groups of people in the Pedigree view.
The ‘tasks’ work in a different way and I found that difficult to understand until I was directed to some videos and I invested an hour to watch them and experiment. The word ‘task’ is a little misleading - you can use them for whatever you like so not necessarily something that needs doing (for instance - I’ve created a task called ‘Links’ and it contains a bunch of Web Tags to family history websites etc. I have another task called ‘Census Dates’ which just contains information about when census’ were taken. etc. I then made a ‘Folder’ called ‘Useful Info’ and put those two tasks in there… So I’m using them as a kind of notepad for general information. Using the filters is also a great way of aiding your workflow.
I use the 32bit version even though my laptop is 64bit - this is so that I can make a ‘to-go’ pen drive to use on any version of WIN10 machine I come across on my travels regardless of what bit size it uses.
On the whole I’m glad I’ve made the move - but I’m not deleting RM7 yet! By the way - the two versions work independently and you can have them both running at the same time. Of course once you make a change in RM9 then your old RM7 version is out of step. My main tree is now so far behind in RM7 that I’m committed to RM9 as far as that goes!
I hope this helps
Congratulations! Sounds like a tedious, painstaking and laborious effort. But it sounds like the results will be very rewarding. If you have the time, would you be willing to explain what your process is? I have a large RM database (12,800 people) and like a lot of newbies, when I started I just sort of shoveled in names without much attentions to sources or citation validity. As I review I am aghast at how many entries have no sources or notes at all. You seem to have devised what appears to be a good method of cleanup, so if you would be so kind as to share I would appreciate it greatly.
Thank you so much! I appreciate the time and effort you took on this reply - very helpful and much appreciated. I will take the time to make the changes you indicated and let you know how it goes. I do want the new features but I miss RM7. I started out with PAF for DOS, then PAF die Windows, then Family Origins for Windows, then RootsMagic. The changes in RM8 were a shock, but I will adapt.
I still sometimes import my family tree into PAF (via GEDCOM) just so that I can produce the ‘Standard chart’ format of the ‘Ancestry’ report which I then print out and cut and glue the pages together to give me a long scroll of my family tree. It was a wonderful little program when I started and at my favourite price - free!