Family Tree Maker 2008 BETA

I am very excited! I found the link to download the BETA. I just put it on and have the following observations based on my 35 minute look at the product.

• I really like the new layout. There is much more information available on the screen. To me, it is not overly cluttered. I am running on a 17" wide-screen laptop. It looks modern and quite nice in Windows Vista.
• Navigating is made much easier by buttons and tabs across the top of the window. There are also simple shortcuts for main views (Ctrl+1=Plan, Ctrl+2=People, etc.).
• The task functionality is more visible than in prior versions. You can create tasks by person, family and overall. The Plan view shows all your tasks by group. You can do basic filtering. The tasks themselves are still very basic, but that is probably ok (keep in mind this is still fairly new to me).
• "Places" provides a Microsoft Virtual Earth view of the cities and towns that are in your database. This is pretty handy and easy to use.
• When looking at an individual there is a timeline view that can also show family information as well as historical facts near the events of the person's life. Did a quick check for some of the earlier relatives and it has a few facts from the 1600's. I would imagine this is easily extensible.

There are a few things that are not as smooth as I'd like.

• There is no All-In-One chart. This was a key feature in earlier versions of the application and a differentiator from other genealogy applications. It provides a view of your entire file, without page breaks, that you can use to see relationships as well as get a feel for the whole family. I hope it is just not available in the BETA release I am using.
• The mapping functionality only seems to allow you to view one person at a time. It would be interesting to have multiple people selected and have it zoom to the right level to show where they live relative to each other. Also would be helpful to show families in the same area.
• I'll have to play with this a bit more, but it seemed to "import" my data as though it were an external format even though it was a Family Tree Maker file (v16). I understand this is necessary at times, but some data seems to have not been imported. This could very easily be my fault - I'm using a play version of my data. I'll copy a good file and try again.

There is lots more to see and do, this is just my initial impression. I'll write more as I get to know this version a bit better. Here is the link of you want to try it yourself.

Family Tree Maker 2008 BETA

Family Tree Maker 2008

A new version of Family Tree Maker (FTM) will be available in late August (according to Amazon.com). There are virtually no details available yet, just a teasing splash screen on the Family Tree Maker site.

New versions of software always brings wild speculation, especially early when there are few details. I've seen a comment that suggests massive restructuring, but there is not detail or source information<g>.

So what would make this release interesting? Here are some of my thoughts - and keep in mind I am still a newbie in this space.

1. Vista. It would be really cool if FTM 2008 was enhanced to take full advantage of Vista's UI enhancements. The possibilities for a more visual approach are quite staggering. The reality is that it will of course have to run on Windows XP so the odds of a true Vista application are pretty slim. I've been waiting (though not very patiently) for Yahoo to release their designed from the ground up Instant Messenger for Vista. It looks amazing.

2. Isolate. This is a feature that I've been considering that provides the ability to view a family line with filters applied. So, if I'm looking at a tree view of a file, I could select an individual and filter to just see the ancestors or just the maternal/paternal live of the individual. This would allow you to still have a broad (many lines/families) file, but still be able to easily focus on a particular are of research.

3. Live Zoom. This is loosely tied to the isolate feature above. The idea is that as you zoom in you are provided context options to Isolate and\or show additional details. It's more like Microsoft's Virtual Earth in that as you zoom in closer, more detail is available vs. just making the box bigger. Example, in FTM 16, All-In-One view give you a good view of your family. It has a zoom, but it is too basic - it literally just makes the box bigger. There are so many options for making this a truly intelligent feature (display facts, links, photos as a few of the simpler options) that would make the experience interactive. There is still a need for the more basic version of the All-In-One view - printing or exporting to PDF but it should be in addition to the Live (interactive) zoom.

4. Timeline. This is an idea that is not completely baked yet, but has been mulling around in my noggin a bit. This would allow you to display the tree or more likely key facts in a timeline manner. This may be suited to a narrative type of software. I envision using as a research aid as well as for telling the story later. As an example, if I'm looking at a line and start building details relating to their emigration, I see being able to drag facts onto a timeline (think building a timeline for a family or a specific research topic). Having the ability to then add items flagged as research, action plan or speculation (any tag/label you want) to help document your next steps would be a very powerful tool. I'd argue that having it integrated (vs. a standalone application) would make a better experience. As new facts are validated and added they would be immediately available for reconciliation with your research tags.

5. Relationship Visualizations. Making it easier to see how people are related would be a very useful enhancement. The ability to simply click on a person and be presented with an option to show how they are related to a specified person - visually would be excellent. This is tied to the isolate and zoom to an extent. So I have two people "far" apart in the tree - this option isolates to the common ancestors and allows zooming in and out.

A key theme for me is visualization. I am a highly visual person. I can certainly deal with text and lists but if you can see it the possibilities open up...can't wait to see what they have created.