Sally,
Thanks for the input. Your comments reflect almost exactly what I was thinking. I have always been troubled by the filenames attached to media by Ancestry. However, as you said, it really doesn’t matter so long as RM can follow the link. I guess my problem was it made it harder to search for a given item in my directory unless you knew the naming assigned. Of course you can get that by checking the media properties in RM. I also like the idea of having one media directory for RM7 and RM8, so long as you are only testing RM8. That way any change made to the media file will reflect in both programs.
Thanks again
Rick
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Even if the mobile app could use OneDrive instead of Dropbox, it still couldn’t use your current RM8 database. The database that the mobile app can use is not in the same format as your RM8 database.
When you File → Export Date → Dropbox in RM8, it actually does two different things.
- It creates a copy of your RM8 database in an RM7 format that the mobile app can use
- It stores that copy in Dropbox
Even if the RM mobile someday supported OneDrive or Google Drive or iDrive as step #2, the step #1 would still be necessary. The mobile app cannot read your current RM8 database.
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So, what we need is your step 1 as a separate step and more choices for step 2. As a Mac user, I would be quite happy for it to store the RM7 format file somewhere on the Mac and I can use Finder (a sort of Mac equivalent of Windows Explorer) to get the file to the correct location on an iPad. (This capability used to be in iTunes but was moved to Finder a release or two ago.) This wouldn’t require any change to the current app.
I thought that RM8 was not backwardly compatible with RM7 because of the different format 8 creates from a 7 database. But @thejerrybryan is saying an 8 database can be converted back to 7 format in DropBox for the app use. So can that be used back in the RM7 program?
I’d thought about this too. I have in fact done the conversion to .rmgc to read on my Android phone, however I have not opened the file in RM7 to see if everything is how it should be. Maybe not everything is backwards compatible but there is sufficient for the read only app, which is not as sophisticated as the full program. I don’t really have the time or the inclination to do any sort of detailed review.
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I think whether the RM7 format database created by RM8 for the mobile app can be used by the main RM7 app is a bit of an open question. When I have just looked at the tables, I would have said no. But other RM users have actually tried it and have said that it works. I’m probably going to try it myself sometime soon.
I hope that RM developers chime in on this question at some point.
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Interesting Jerry. I have been using iCloud successfully to share RM data between Macs for years without any special processing (outside of making sure I close RM). That said I haven’t had the same success with OneDrive. That may be due to platform differences, as I was unable to successfully work with an RM DB on my Mac OneDrive and have it share reliably with the windows machine. From your account it would work windows to windows. Good to know, I should try that between a Windows VM and my physical windows machine just to test.
I think RM needs a fourth File => Export option simply to export your RM8 database to mobile app format and to place the database that is in mobile app format in any folder of your choice. You as the user then might well have a way to get the file to your mobile device that meets your needs better than Dropbox.
You can accomplish the same thing even if RM8 doesn’t add a new Export option. I don’t have a good way to test it, but I suspect that you could simply create a Dropbox folder on your computer even if you don’t have a Dropbox account and then run the File => Export => Dropbox process to create a database for the mobile app. Then, you could copy that database for the mobile app anywhere else you wish, such as iCloud or OneDrive. If you do have a Dropbox account set up, I know for certain this will work. Create the database for the mobile app in the Dropbox folder and then copy it to another folder of your choice such as to iCloud.
I’ve tried opening the .rmgc file saved for the mobile app with the full RM7 and it has errors for certain functions that make it pretty much unusable. Now that was a while ago when the feature was introduced to RM8 but I am unaware of any further development since - certainly not announced.
Jerry,
Thanks for the feedback. I have now run into a different issue, one unfortunately of my own making. With all the confusion around R-7,R-8, which databases and media files to use for what, I somehow unintentionally reset my TreeShare for R-7. This, of course, tuned all my Ancestry hints back on. However, if there can be a good side to this, it has forced me to revisit each hint and check to see if I handled it previously, then re-accept it. I probably needed to do this as a matter of housekeeping anyway, but it takes a huge amount of time. I’d recommend to everyone to be careful about resetting TreeShare for either R7 or R8. By the way, if anyone knows of a shortcut to re-accept the hints, I’m all ears.
Thanks
Rick
I’m well aware of the problem of my hints being reset. I find TreeShare’s “manual sync” so onerous to use that I simply don’t use it. So periodically I delete my tree from ancestry and use TreeShare to reload from RM. That resets all my hints. I find resetting my hints less onerous than the “manual syncing” that otherwise would be necessary.
I understand and mostly support the design decision for TreeShare to use “manual sync” rather than a fully automatic sync. But for a user such as me who only ever is going to sync in one direction, I think it would make sense to support a fully automatic sync. I would think the same would be true if your one direction were from ancestry to RM, where maybe you are only using RM to print reports or to backup your ancestry tree.
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Jerry,
OK , I agree that the “manual sync” is very onerous. But, I had not considered deleting my Ancestry tree and reloading my Roots tree to Ancestry. This would transfer all my “current” data to Ancestry, but all the hints would be reset and would have to be gone through again. It is fairly easy to check a hint against my data, but man it takes forever. I’ve started using groups to help me keep all this straight. For example, if I consider all the data for my roots person to be complete, then I flag that person in a group with a certain color. That way I know that person has been checked and is considered complete. Works pretty well until you reload the Roots tree to Ancestry and all the hints light back up. I guess the problem then becomes knowing what is a new hint vs an old hint that had already been worked??
Appreciate the feed back.
Rick
There really are only two choices. Either deal with the “manual sync” or else reset your hints. There is no secret option #3.
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Yep, that’s what I thought. However, the group/color code at least tracks which persons have been reviewed and makes it easier to identify new hints. At least I think it does 
I don’t do any of this TreeShare stuff so my comment may not be relevant, however you say that you color code a person that has been reviewed. What happens if Ancestry get rights to a new database and consequently there are new hints for a person that you have reviewed ? Is your “system” making you ignore these new hints?
I wondered the same thing about using color coding to flag people whose hints have all been processed. New hints are added all the time.
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Good points. I’ve just started to have this issue because of all the mix master regarding DB’s since R8. The color coding would just make it easier to see which persons need review. However, I guess that is no different and looking for hint lights. I was thinking that if I had reviewed and color coded a person, the hint would go out. Then if a new hint lights up for that person, I would still have to review and determine what the hint was about, but I would know to be looking for something new. If a new hint does not light up then my review would still stand. If I change DB’s then all the hints would be reset and I would have check everything again anyway.
Maybe the best approach would be to just review all persons based on hints until the next time to change the DB again.
This is starting to be a lot of work… 
Thanks for the thoughts
Rick
If you can keep RM and ancestry “manually synced” rather than reloading ancestry from RM, then the hints will “go out” after you have approved or rejected each one. And the the hints will “come back on” if there are new hints. But “go out” means turning from yellow to white, and “come back on” means turning from white back to yellow. The hints don’t just go away completely after you have approved or rejected each one. Rather, they turn yellow and white.
The hints can similarly turn from yellow to white from from white to yellow for the other hint sites besides ancestry. But the way the hints are handled for each site is very unique to the site. The way ancestry does it is very different from the way FamilySearch does it is very different from the way MyHeritage does it, etc.
The hint status is not kept locally in RM. Rather, it is kept on the server for each of the sites. Therefore there is no way to “search for people with hints” or search for people with the Smith surname with hints" or anything like that.
Jerry,
One more question and then I’m done for the day (promise ) 
)
I understand what you are saying , but I’m not familiar with how to do that. (“manually synced”). Is it a setting? Or is it a concept?
Pease define “manually synced”
Thanks
Rick
“Manually synced” is a concept, and it’s a phrase I use. Maybe I should find a different phrase to describe it.
What it means is that TreeShare has no automatic sync at all after the initial upload or download. Instead, TreeShare shows you the differences between RM and ancestry, and then on a case by case basis you choose which data items to copy in one direction or the other between RM and ancestry. If you choose every single difference to copy, you will have done a sync but it will have been very manual - not an automatic sync at all.
The differences identified by TreeShare can be very detailed - not just places and dates and people and names, but also media files and sources and notes.