Hi. I was watching a webinar about colour coding and it looks useful. However in use it seems quite limited. For example, I thought it would be really useful to colour code all those with military service, and also those who emmigrated. The problem is I have several individuals where both applies and one colour seems to overwrite another. So the problem arises I would need to remember everyone in all the groups so I didn’t apply colours that might cause a conflict with some. It would be great if the colour code bar could accept more than one colour.
It’s a good request, and a request that has been around for a really long time.
In the mean time, I have found that RM’s groups are a better way to indicate multiple conditions, such as one group for military service and another group for those who emigrated. I reserve color coding for short term projects.
Color coding is searchable and groups are not. So for example, you cannot search for descendants of John Doe who were born between 1850 and 1870 if the descendants of John Doe are a group. But you can search for descendants of John Doe who were born between 1850 and 1870 if the descendants of John Doe are all color coded the same color. That’s why I use color coding for short term projects.
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Thanks @thejerrybryan for your reply. Yes I set up groups for both of those conditions. It’s just that when I used to use Family Tree Maker (not anymore as I’m won over by RM8 
) it was quite helpful when scrolling through or viewing my tree to see certain colour codes for things such as this. So when I went to work on someone the colour was an instant visual reminder of important things about them. It did handle multiple colours for a person. No deal breaker though and groups work well.
Just revisiting this again since I have updated to RM9 - no change. Shame. It kind of makes colour coding a bit redundant and at best as @thejerrybryan said here only really good for short term work and then to take off. If applying a new colour to another subset overwrites the colour you are already using for other subsets then its value is lost. So I am not sure why so many colours are offered - maybe just because people prefer blue to red, etc. but I personally would not have any in play for more than the short term the way it works just now.
RM9 now supports 10 color sets. The new feature provides a great deal of flexibility as compared to the previous color coding system.
The new system still does not allow a person to have two different colors in the same color set at the same time. If a person is colored red in color set #1 they cannot also be colored blue in color set #1 at the same time. So there is still no possibility of having two color blocks at the same time. But you can establish a new color set without disturbing an existing color set in any way. For example, a person could be colored red in color set #1 and colored blue in color set #2.
As one of many examples of how this could be useful, “descendant of John Doe” is not something that can be tested for directly in RM when doing a search. You can make such a group, but you can’t test for group membership in a search. Prior to the new feature, you could have color coded all descendants of John Doe and then tested for the color coding, but that would have destroyed any previous color coding.
With the new feature you can now make a new color set #2 that does not disturb color set #1 at all. Then you can color code all descendants of John Doe in color set #2. Having done so, you can now do tests such as “color code is red in color set #2 AND birth date is before 1900”.
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Thanks @thejerrybryan for a follow up reply. I had to take a wee while to think about what your reply meant. The way I read it then, and how it makes sense to me, is the colour coding is acting like tags, and once you apply tags to a certain subset then you can combine those tags into searches. I’ll have a think about how that might be useful for me. However, when I used Family Tree Maker I really liked its use of colour coding as for me it was visual - I could scroll through a list of people and see instantly those who had say served in the military, emigrated, etc and when both (several of my ancestors) they had both colours applied. But, it is what it is and RM9 has a lot more to offer for me and maybe the “tagging” facility might prove useful.
With RM9’s new color sets feature, I guess you could say in your terminology that color coding now works both like tags and like color coding.
For example, you could go to color code set 2, clear all colors, and set all descendants of John Doe to purple, and then return to color code set 1. At this point, you would not see the descendants of John Doe as purple. Instead, you would see them as whatever color they are in color set 1, and they might not even all be the same color in color set 1.
But color set 2 would still be there behind the scenes. And you could even do searches for things like people who are red in color set 1 AND purple in color set 2 AND who were born after 1900. You can also make groups on such criteria. So the fact that you are displaying color set 1 doesn’t prevent you from searching for.color set 2 or any other color set. In effect, color sets that are not currently displayed can be thought of as working like tags.
I have by no means yet explored every possibility that the new color set feature might provide. But it’s obviously a very powerful feature.