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A fairly sized up-date was released last night and, corrected a lot of the problems that I had been experiencing with the original release.
A few "new" features were also added.
I'm not yet ready to offer a great review of the software, but I'd buy it in its present form while hoping for more improvements.
Showing posts with label Roots Magic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roots Magic. Show all posts
May 27, 2009
April 15, 2009
Roots Magic 4.0
Many of you know that I use Roots Magic software to create webpages, genealogy reports, and of course, to record research findings. I've been a user of that software since it was known as Family Origins, and used several releases and "bug fixes" through Version 3.
Version 4 was released for beta testing a few weeks ago and, before it had been properly debugged it was released for sale! Well, I've been using it now for about a month and find it so bad that I've tossed it. My feeling is that they released a beta version to generate income, and customers are paying them to de-bug their software!
There are some really neat features in RM4 and it's obvious that some features received more attention during developement than others. It's the others that I can't tolerate.
Just a few of the problems that I've experienced:
Extremely slow response from the program as I progress through the various screens inputting data; e.g., 25 to 30 seconds for a search window to appear.
Strange little pop-up windows with odd names in them, the name having nothing to do with the person that I'm editing.
Output reports, especially RTF reports, that instead of paginating, sometimes writes the text portion of a report into the source area.
Blank pages in the middle of a 200 page report. Remove that blank page and screw up the index.
Reports that mix fonts in the same paragraph. If I select one font for the entire report, then the report - font wise at least - is properly reproduced. If you accept the default fonts, a mixture of at least three to be used for various parts of the report (headers, etc), any text associated with any given person in the report will be oddly mixed.
I do not plan on using the software again and, I do not recommend purchase of the software until until at least version 4.1. Current version is 4.0.1.1.
Version 4 was released for beta testing a few weeks ago and, before it had been properly debugged it was released for sale! Well, I've been using it now for about a month and find it so bad that I've tossed it. My feeling is that they released a beta version to generate income, and customers are paying them to de-bug their software!
There are some really neat features in RM4 and it's obvious that some features received more attention during developement than others. It's the others that I can't tolerate.
Just a few of the problems that I've experienced:
Extremely slow response from the program as I progress through the various screens inputting data; e.g., 25 to 30 seconds for a search window to appear.
Strange little pop-up windows with odd names in them, the name having nothing to do with the person that I'm editing.
Output reports, especially RTF reports, that instead of paginating, sometimes writes the text portion of a report into the source area.
Blank pages in the middle of a 200 page report. Remove that blank page and screw up the index.
Reports that mix fonts in the same paragraph. If I select one font for the entire report, then the report - font wise at least - is properly reproduced. If you accept the default fonts, a mixture of at least three to be used for various parts of the report (headers, etc), any text associated with any given person in the report will be oddly mixed.
I do not plan on using the software again and, I do not recommend purchase of the software until until at least version 4.1. Current version is 4.0.1.1.
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