If they allowed a simplier update all, you could still control what did/did not move by marking the fact/event private, correct?
The pain in the ass element of Tree Share is that for a single person, in my case there can be 30+ clicks of the Mouse and OK button just for that one person.
SHOULD BE
Click on the person > views all the changes automatically > then click on Accept.
Job done on that person.
If a specific change is not to be included then a check box tick to omit, would be an option.
That said the Access Violation Errors really need to be sorted.
I have done a lot of changes and am not looking forward to spending hours Tree Sharing.
Biggles,
I completely agree with your complaint that there are far too many clicks involved.
Please see my post here. I think that what I propose is emminently doable, would not introduce any real risk of error and would reduce the number of clicks by at least 90% - the exact number would depend on the mix of additions and updates that you make.
Alan
Maybe! However, since this is a pet peeve of no less than 50 different users, and probably more than that, and said request dates back to RM7…one has to ask why it has not been implemented as of yet.
Maybe the developers are just lazy and want their users to suffer OR maybe there is far more to this issue that we, the users, have knowledge of. I suspect the latter. This reduction in clicks is not likely a one-sided change. I suspect that it is something which is going to require the vendors to change or allow certain actions in the APIs that RM uses to communicate with their sites.
If this is the case, then no amount of repetitive requests are going to bring this into existence as RM is not going to be able to give it to you. On Ancestry’s part, they really don’t have to be overly inclined to make changes on their end. It is most likely in their best interests to get you on their platform for your work and if you are working and Treesharing from RM, then you are not spending all of your time on their site. Ancestry would want you on their site so that you are more likely to see they ads for other products.
If Ancestry doesn’t want to participate, then no, is is NOT “emminently doable”! Maybe instead of the repetitious requests in the RM channels, people might want to start yammering at Ancestry…maybe even threaten them with not using their website if they don’t do what you want them to do. Of course, I dod suspect that whatever person that reads the contacts will just sit back and laugh, delete the message, and go one with their day.
I know that my request to download Ancestry web links and create RM web tags depends on them being available in the API; so does cutting out ‘phantom updates’ on the Ancestry side when a change to something there not included in the API makes the person look changed even when there is nothing to add or update. Renee says that adding a new couple and their marriage to Ancestry without creating a corrupt marriage depends on an API change too (and the underlying fault there is most certainly on Ancestry’s side).
However, I can assure you that nothing else I have recommended depends on changes in the API in any way; I am simply suggesting that RM alters its own code for handling the data that Ancestry has supplied it. If RM decides not to do this, then that is its choice.
Up until now, there have been lots of complaints and calls like yours for Treeshare to be streamlined. I think I have made the first clear and comprehensive suggestion on how to do it.
Alan
I can just as equally assure you that yes, many things that you propose can, and probably do, indeed rely on API options. You want minimal clicks to update information yet to the best of my knowledge the only entities that have access to the Ancestry API are Rootsmagic and Family Tree Maker, so neither you or I can state unequivocally that such a process can or can not be done. My point is that if it were ‘that easy’ then RM would probably have made it happen some time back based on user complaints. The fact that they haven’t is quite indicative of there being more involved than meets our eyes.
You misunderstand what the API does and does not do. It imposes constraints on what RM can download from, update to, amend in, delete from Ancestry etc. When you use Treeshare to update an existing tree RM uses the interface to download outline data for each person in it (including a changed/not changed) marker. It then retrieves the same data from the RM tree together with things like groups data used for filtering. All the comparision between the Ancestry and RM data and all the management of the user’s choices about what to do (including all the pesky clicks that you and I are complaining about) take place in RM’s own software. When you have chosen what to do for each person you press ‘Accept changes’. RM then triggers the API again, either to make changes in Ancestry or to download the detailed data (including sources, images etc) about the person concerned so that they can be added to RM.
RM has complete control over the bit in the middle, so the large majority of the things that I am recommending do not depend on what is or is not in the API.
Alan