Opening RM by double clicking an RM database in Windows File Explorer

Windows 10, RM 10.0.1, 64 bit

Since the beginnings of RM with Family Origins, I have always opened RM by opening Family Origins or RM and then doing File > Open or whatever the equivalent is for File > Open in that version of RM. In RM10, I typically start RM10 and then click on the recent database list that’s visible under the main Home tab to choose an RM database to open. As you can tell, I normally have I have the option Settings > Program Settings > Open Last Closed File > Open Last Database When Starting RootsMagic unchecked.

Therefore, I have basically no experience using Windows File Explorer to double click on the .rmtree file for RM8, RM9, and RM10 nor for double clicking on the .rmgc file for RM4, RM5, RM6, and R7 (and no similar experience with earlier versions of RM and Family Origins). So I decided to try it out with RM10.

I used Windows File Explorer and double clicked on my test database called jerryrm10_test.rmtree. RM10 did open, which means that the .rmtree file extension is properly associated with RM10 rather than with RM8 or RM9. But the jerryrm10_test.rmtree database did not open. Rather, no database opened. I’m assuming that’s because I have the option Settings > Program Settings > Open Last Closed File > Open Last Database When Starting RootsMagic unchecked.

My next test then was to check that option, to open my production database which is jerryrm10.rmtree, to close RM, and then to double click again on jerryrm10_test.rmtree. This time RM opened and it did open a database, but opened my production database instead of the test database I had double clicked.

This seems like very strange behavior. For most software that I run, I do double click the file to be opened rather than starting the program and doing a File > Open. Under these circumstances, I have never seen a failure to start the program and to open the file automatically that I had just double clicked.

So I was just curious if everybody else sees the same behavior. And I was also curious if this is the intended behavior, or if there is a bug. It seems to me that if I double click jerryrm10_test.rmtree, then RM should start up and should open jerryrm10_test.rmtree no matter the setting of Settings > Program Settings > Open Last Closed File > Open Last Database When Starting RootsMagic and no matter which database I had most recently closed.

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This is standard behavior now and it has been since RM8. It has also been mentioned more than once in the various support channels. For some reason this was done by design. I think Renee once responded as such. I don’t remember whether it was here or on Facebook.

Odd behavior, yes!

Here is one such previous discussion on the topic:

( thejerrybryan)
I was able to load my database by dbl-clicking the file in win explorer.
I didn’t have RM running at the time I clicked it.
Now saying that, I decided to click an additional database file with the first one loaded and that file wouldn’t load.

Not possible, unless you are using RM7. When you double click an .rmtree file, it opens the program but not the database itself. You still have to select it from the Recent list or using the ‘Open File’ option. If you use the icon to launch the program, then yes, the datafle will open if you have that option chosen.

(kfunk)
After reading (thejerrybryan) message I promptly went to my file location and dbl-clicked my database (without RM running) and it loaded. Now I just realised that I had RM set up to auto-load my database when I normally start RM. This may have something to do with it?
Now I closed RM and went and clicked on a different database and it didn’t load but RM started and loaded my first (selected to auto-load) database.
I don’t underatand RM’s actions. I wish they would let us use Windows OS as designed. I was running RM10 not 7.

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The point here is that UNLESS you have load last database set, it does NOT open the database. In RM7 and earlier, it did. If you have load last database set, then no matter what .rmtree file you click on, it will open the last database. For example, if I am working in Ken.rmtree and RM is set to open the last database, I can click on Ken99.rmtree and it will still open Ken.rmtree.

If I do not have the last open option checked, then no matter what .rmtree file I click on, it does NOT open a database, it simply launches the program as Jerry described it.

On mac right click and open with shows that RM files are considered text files. If you choose RM 10 to open the file it opens the program with the last file open per my setting to do so. The selected file is not opened and you get an error message that RM10 can’t open that type of file. Very unmac like behaviour and the same as on Windows.

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(kfunk)
Thanks, I understand your point now.
I turned off auto-load database and RM does as you described.
I don’t own another program that messes with my OS like RM.

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That change along with having to use X to Exit RM (as opposed to File>Exit).

How many have accidentally hit X ? There goes your History.

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BTDT not too often – but definitely more than once --“oh crap (moment)”)

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I could dig up the bug report I submitted for this for ver 8 beta.
I think it could be a source of confusion where users lose track of which file they are working on. We see posts about that all the time.

I really hate this bug as it goes against all OS conventions since MacOS ver 1.

I’ve never seen this described as the designed behavior by RM inc.

She doesn’t exactly say ‘by design’ but Renee is pretty much saying that this behavior is normal.

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There is a raft of such posts going around right now, something like “I lost everything I did in my last session”. I totally believe such reports, but they sound impossible given that RM is based on a relational database that updates as you enter the data. The most plausible explanations seem to be in the vein of that the user was putting the data into the wrong database by accident or that the database was synced with a cloud storage and the problem was caused by the sync with the cloud overwriting what the user had entered.

It’s hard to believe that quite so many RM users are putting their data into the wrong database. I know that sync activity with the cloud can cause RM database corruption by preventing RM’s write operations from completing properly. But it’s hard to believe the sync operations are writing on top of a whole session’s worth of work. The sync operations would be going in the opposite direction - from the local disk to the cloud. So the raft of “I lost everything I did in the last session” problems is a deep puzzle.

Given that, I do wonder if double clicking an .rmtree file and getting the wrong database might have more to do with these “I lost everything I did in the last session” problems than we might think. Here’s a scenario. Suppose a user works for a brief time in a test database that looks a lot like a their real database - like maybe the test database started out as a copy of the real database. In that case, the test database will have all the same colors as the real database. Then the user shuts down the test database and restarts RM by double clicking their real database. Unbeknown to them, the test database opens again because it was the last database closed. They spend two hours putting new data into what they think is their real database but is actually their test database. Then they get back to their real database and the data they just entered isn’t there.

This scenario doesn’t fit all the reports of lost data, but I still think it’s a very plausible scenario.

ah…
thanks for pointing that out – though I really have not tried to open form outside of RM

quite plausible explanation – maybe someone is willing to test that – but I am not right now.
I suspect most massive losses is something outside of RM directly. More user “error” or misunderstanding of what they actually are working on. (Maybe RM could make it a little more clear.
it does tell you at top

image

it also does tell user the most recent files - this might help show us if something more is going on

image

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What so X and File>Exit have two different actions? That’s not cool. They should be identical!

There is no File>Exit in RM10. There is only X to exit from the program.

I click X by accident a lot with RM10. I always manage to cancel out of the exit, but it’s still a pain. The reasons for hitting X by accident are so deeply ingrained in the design of the RM10 user interface that I don’t see any way to change it without a complete rewrite of the user interface. I don’t see that happening, so I simply accept that which I cannot change.

So here is how I end up hitting X by accident so much. In a typical Windows app, you open a sub-window to do something, do your thing, and X out of the sub-window to go back. For the most part in the RM10 user interface, there is no X to go back. For example if you are in the main people tab and click on the main sources tab or the main media tab, the way to go back is not to X out. If you X out, you are X-ing out of RM as a whole. So the “go back” is simply to click on the main people tab. This can feel really funny if you are used to using X to go back, and it can feel especially funny if while in the main sources tab or the main media tab you have done multiple slides to the right, which is the RM10 way of drilling down.

Despite all that, you get used to it. Sort of. There are two problems for me. One is that like most RM users, I spend a lot of time in Edit Person and that gets me into X-ing out of Edit Person a lot. That keeps me in the habit of X-ing out. I realize that I can Close out of Edit person, but X-ing is the natural way. More importantly, I spend a lot of time in Publish because I run a one generation descendant narrative report for nearly every person immediately after exiting their Edit Person screen. I can see problems in such reports that are hard to see in Edit Person. And the only way out of Publish after running a report is to X out of the report and then to click on the People tab to go back.

Anyway, Windows has me X-ing out a lot. And despite it’s new user interface, RM10 has me X-ing out a lot. So my muscle memory will regularly click the main RM X when I am really just trying to go back.

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Or the “standard” Windows keyboard shortcut Alt-F4 key combo
For the secondary windows like Edit Person or Descendant Chart or whatever… instead of the X use “standard” Windows keyboard shortcut Esc key.

This seems far less common in Windows program/app UI design than 5-10 years ago. It’s all about tabs (tabbed windows that close by double-clicking the tab and via right-click context menus), ribbon bar menus (and right-click context menus), sidebar windows, draggable panels that can be “pinned” to existing open windows and/or opened standalone or a grid (and with tabs, menus and controls of their own). The quintessential X in the upper right-corner of RM program windows is not some foreign action. It’s been there, by design, in Windows (sorry Apple folks) for such a long time and remains functionally the same today.

My “take” on the double-clicking a file (to open) is that it was “kind of” a feature in Windows of past decades because “file associations” were way less sophisticated. There were way fewer programs and apps and way less user interface and/or menus …so a filename extension was easily recognized and “associated” with the particular innovative programs of the day (almost proprietary in consideration). Modern computing interfaces, programs/capabilities, number of software companies and offerings …all that can open and act upon any one particular file type (extension) has forced Windows to offer a setting for “default”… but if you want to open a photo from your phone, nowadays, do you want to use your camera software, a commercial photo program, or just make copies or have it in a library/gallery or just view it in your browser? Today, that means open the particular app/program and say file open (or import or whatever).
stumbles back off the soapbox

Ah, I’m still on 9.

We are talking about the X at the top right of every Windows app right? Or does 10 have a new X?

Screenshot 2024-08-07 212022

version 7 and prior had File>Exit but RM did away with that starting in v8

When doing beta testing for 8 I pointed out there was no File>Exit and the response was to use the X