Moving from TMG to RM8. Currently, I store my exhibits under the TMG folder named ‘exhibits’.
what is the easiest/bet way to move them to the rootsmagic media folder? What ‘gotchas’ do I have to worry about?
Thanks.
You do not have to move your exhibits at all if you do not wish to do so. RM simply maintains links to where the exhibits are actually stored.
I’m assuming that you will use RM’s direct import from TMG. If so, then what RM calls media links will simply point to your TMG folder named “exhibits” after the import. You need not do anything else at all.
That’s the short answer. The long answer is very much longer and very much more complex. I realize that you are using RM8 rather than RM7, but this is easier to explain if I start with RM7. In RM7 you could define a “RootsMagic media folder” but doing so was almost completely meaningless. You stored your media files (AKA “exhibits”) wherever you wanted to store them on your computer and then you linked them into RM based on where they really were. The media files could be in the “RootsMagic media folder” or not and they were linked into RM7 in the same way in either case. Namely, they were linked in based on the full media path all the way back to the C:\ drive and all intervening folders and subfolders. As you can see, if you were doing this with RM7, your TMG exhibits would be linked into your RM based on still being in the TMG “exhibits” folder.
Still in RM7 terms, what if you wanted to make an RM media folder instead of using the TMG exhibits folder. Well, you would make a new folder for RM media files and you would copy all the exhibits from their TMG folder to the new RM media folder. You would copy the exhibits using Windows File Explorer or the Mac equivalent if you were on a Mac. After a direct import from TMG into RM7, RM’s media links would still be pointing to the TMG “exhibits” folder. You can change the links either by using RM’s Fix Broken Links tool or by using RM’s global search and replace tool for file and folder names. You would simply change the folder name part of the file path to point to the RM folder instead of to the TMG folder. Fix Broken Links is easier to use, but RM’s global search and replace tool is much faster.
But you are on RM8. In RM8 there is a new feature called relative file paths where the file paths for media files that RM stored are not absolute back to the C:\ drive but rather are relative to default RM media folder that you have set. But what if you have not set the RM media folder correctly or what if you have not set the RM media folder at all or what if you have set it correctly but you have media files that are not in the default media folder?
The answer is that everything still works to the user about the same as RM7. The fact that there are relative file paths for media files is transparent to the user. You can’t see the relative links at all and everything to do with media links looks about the same as it did on RM7. If you do a direct import from TMG to RM8, the media links will still work fine and will still be pointing to your TMG “Exhibits” folder. You can still just leave it that way. Or you can still make a new media folder for RM, copy your exhibits to the new RM media folder, and run Fix Broken Links or global search and replace.
The real advantage to the way RM8’s relative file paths works is if you are running RM on two different computers and if the file path to the media files is different in the two computers. For example, this could be because the media files are on your D: drive on one computer an on your E: drive on the other computer. Or this could be because your Windows user id is different on the two computers, and remember that the windows user id is a part of the folder and subfolder structure for all your files.
I’m probably leaving out a few details, but that should get you going. I do encourage you to set your RM8 default media folder to some meaningful value before you import from TMG. One consequence RM8’s support for relative media paths is that changing the RM8 default media folder will immediately break all existing media links and require them to be fixed with the Fix Broken Links tool or with the global search and replace. So set the default media folder before importing anything and even before entering any media files manually.
My external files are still in the old TMG exhibits folder.
Have you made sure that none of your exhibits in TMG are internal?
I don’t believe RM will import those.
I had created lots of internal text exhibits in TMG and it took a lot of effort to make them all external.
Be aware that on import to RM, name type is not preserved. So all married names in TMG get imported as alternate names with no type set. One needs to manually edit each and change the type to married.
My import initially had a big problem with custom source templates I created in TMG. Check them after a trial import. If you see a problem, I have the fix.
Thanks Jerry. My reason for wanting to move the location was to eventually remove TMG and all folders from my computer.
However, you gave me an excellent suggestion about having the photos in a ‘neutral’ site. Since I use a Mac, I’m going to put them as a sub-folder under pictures.
(would be nice if RM could read my photos app so I could have ALL of my pics in one location).
Richard. My exhibits are all external (One of the few good decisions I made) .Thanks for the caution on the names. I had not noticed that.
Regarding source templates. Not sure what constitutes ‘custom’. I modify the templates as needed, such as for different censuses, but not sure that qualifies as custom.
It does. Built-in templates cannot be modified through the user interface.
Richard, I do have a problem. What is the fix?
Thanks
What do you mean exactly by “modify the templates”? Do you go into Sources => Three Dots => Source Template List? Or do you just use the same template for a different census source and enter different data into the same template?
Here are some notes I took when I did my migration. I found out about the problem somewhere on the web, but I lost the original reference.
The bug seems to be in RM and hasn’t been fixed, so the only solution is to modify a copy of the TMG data before import. One needs to open _M.DBF file in a dbase read/writer app and copy the contents of one column into another.
I used the Visual FoxPro ODBC driver with Visual studio. The data modification is simply-
update genedb_m set genedb_m.type = genedb_m.custtype;
That fixed my issue. Here are the raw notes-
This is a very strange RM import bug.
Some sources are being imported using the TYPE value rather than the CUSTTYPE value and end up with the wrong source types. The CUSTTYPE value is required when sources are ruleset #3 (custom source types).
The conditions for this issue are strange. It happens for an import of a full project with many sources (and not for every source) but does not happen for a subset of the project (which has fewer sources).
The fix is to edit the M-table and copy the CUSTTYPE values to TYPE replacing the TYPE values. You select all values in the CUSTTYPE column and copy them to the TYPE column overwriting the existing values. Then when RM imports, it will get the correct source type value irrespective of which column the source type data comes from.
copy the GENEDB_M.DBF and genedb_m.fpt to a folder.
install- VFPOLEDBSetup.msi
Open in
in VS2017 community, server explorer
Data connections
Add connection
Data Source
select other
then in drop down select-
.NET Framework Data Provider for OLE DB
in next dialog,
OLE DB Provider Microsoft OL DB Provider for Visual FoxPro
the paste the path to the GENEDB_M.DBF. The fpt seems to be needed in same folder.
OK
do a retrieve data (right click on table genedb_m) and
open SQL panel (right click on VFPROOLEBD / new query)
enter at bottom, just below table
update genedb_m set genedb_m.type = genedb_m.custtype;
then right click - Execute SQL
get a warning about can’t display in the query by design, but hit continue.
2593 rows affected
Works
right click on VFPROOLEBD- disconnect
I use the duplicate the template and just enter the new data.
I checked and while my sources are in rm8, they are not linked to the people.
The concept is that you have one template for each type of exhibit - one template for census, one template for death records, one template for birth records, one template for marriage records, etc. Then you have multiple sources associated with each template and multiple citations associated with each source. The templates themselves need not be duplicated.
Well, for RM’s built-in templates there are lots of different birth templates and lots of different census templates, etc. But you are likely to need only one of RM’s birth templates and one of of RM’s census templates, etc. And even if you need two or three of RM’s birth templates because you have birth records from different kinds of birth sources, those two or three birth templates themselves wouldn’t need to be duplicated.
Well said.
Maybe I’m too used to TMG, but the attached screenshots has me confused.
Source screenshot shows a TMG Probate source (census)linked to a person, but the person screenshot show 1 source, but not the census data.
What am I seeing and do I have manually link each source with the person?
More I look, more confused I am.
I think that experienced TMG and RM8 users can be more help than me. But let me try to comment a little bit anyway.
In RM, “Sources” are fairly generic and are not connected to people or to their facts (tags in TMG). A “Source” in RM might not be much more specific than “1850 US Census”. The fact that the census is for the Jonathan Adams family would be in the “Citation” in RM.
You are using Source Type _TMG_Probate File. In RM terminology, that is the name of a Source Template. That’s where RM has three levels - Source Template, Source (aka Master Source), and Citation (AKA Source Detail). What you have posted is only showing the Source Template and the Master Source information. It is not showing the Source Detail information. If you look in the Source Detail information, you will see where the information is linked to a person or to a fact for a person. I repeat that a Master Source is never connected to a person or to a fact to a person. It’s only the Source Detail that is connected to a Person or to a Fact for a person.
There are lot’s of things I really like about RM8 as compared to RM7, but there are some areas of RM8 that seem very weak to me. One of those weak areas is that RM8 is not really capable of getting all your sourcing data for a particular citation on the screen at the same time. That being said, here is a screenshot showing where to look in RM8 to see where a citation is really used. I got as much on the screen at the same time as I could, but it’s not enough. Part of the Master Source information is not visible and you have to click the > to slide in the information about where the citation is really used.
I have another comment that’s related but I didn’t want to clutter up my first comment with it.
I can’t speak to TMG, but RM model of Master Source and Source Details seems to me to be pretty standard in genealogy software. Different software calls the model different things, but the concept is the same. In GEDCOM, the terminology is TITL for the Master Source and PAGE for the Source Details. These things are often called Source and Citation, which in my view is not really very correct. In any case, the information from the Master Source and from the Source Detail (or from the Source and Citation or from the TITL and PAGE) is combined to create a footnote sentence.
The source template concept is not very standard, even though it is supported by quite a lot of genealogy software. It’s just a tool to help you to produce correct footnote sentences. I don’t know about TMG, but in RM you can bypass the source templates entirely and you can enter the Master Source and the Source Detail information totally by hand by using what is called the Free Form template. RM’s Free Form template is not really a template. Rather, it’s the absence of a template.
I use my own source templates in RM7. It turns out that for good and valid reasons that don’t matter to this discussion, my templates place all of the source information into the Master Source and none of the source information into the Source Details. But I still have to use the Source Details. And that’s because it is the Source Details and not the Master Source that links the source data to people and to facts (AKA tags) for people.
Now this is where users who are TMG experts and RM experts need to chime in. It looks to me as if RM’s direct import from TMG is creating templates in RM that are specific to the import from TMG, and that these special templates are acting a lot like the templates I created for myself in RM. Namely, it looks like the templates created in the direct import process are placing most or all of the sourcing information into RM’s Master Source and little or none of the information into RM’s Source Detail. But just like with the templates I created form myself in RM, it is still the otherwise empty Source Detail that is linking to people and to facts (AKA tags) for people. The Master Source does not include those kinds of links.
Sorry about the delayed response, I’ve had to deal with some unexpected matters.
Thanks to all. Jerry, I am going to study your response as it requires a change of thought for me.
Aside from that, I’ve just updated to RM 9, and ordered the manual. Hopefully between your responses and this book, I can grasp things.