On 24 October 2011 05:51, <aghatchett3rd@aim.com> wrote: > >  Not to my knowledge- unfortunately. Looks like an automatic sort by DOB would be a no-brainer... > but then we *are* talking about FTM. The last thing I would want is an automatic sort by DOB. I have families where I know the birth order but not all the dates of birth. With an automatic sort, all those without DOBs would be moved to the bottom of the list. As an aside, Andy, can you explain why you use FTM? I ask because you seem to have a pretty poor opinion of the program. Caroline Gurney www.carosfamily.com

Caroline, FTM isn't my main program; I use FTM mainly for the relationship calculator. My main program is TMG, but with the continued lack of an update I've started evaluatung other programs as a possible replacement. I chose to look at FTM first because of its ability to directly import TMG files and because of the TreeSync feature. >From what I've seen so far FTM has some great features but... their implementation of those features sometimes leave a lot to be desired. The speed issue, inability to handle large files with lots of media, and the seemingly instability ( lots of crashes and having to re-install)are worrying. Btw- when I mention DOB order I meant as the default with an option to override - sort of teh reverse of what it is now. -----Original Message----- From: Caroline Gurney <caroline.gurney@gmail.com> To: ftm-tech <ftm-tech@rootsweb.com> Sent: Mon, Oct 24, 2011 12:12 pm Subject: Re: [FTM-TECH] FTM 2012 New entries not in date order On 24 October 2011 05:51, <aghatchett3rd@aim.com> wrote: > > Not to my knowledge- unfortunately. Looks like an automatic sort by DOB would be a no-brainer... > but then we *are* talking about FTM. The last thing I would want is an automatic sort by DOB. I have families where I know the birth order but not all the dates of birth. With an automatic sort, all those without DOBs would be moved to the bottom of the list. As an aside, Andy, can you explain why you use FTM? I ask because you seem to have a pretty poor opinion of the program. Caroline Gurney www.carosfamily.com ********************************** List information page http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Software/FTM-TECH.html Online Support for Family Tree Maker Version 16 and earlier http://pastftm.custhelp.com/ Version 2008 - 2011 http://ftm.custhelp.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to FTM-TECH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I chose to look at FTM first because of its ability to directly import TMG files and because of the TreeSync feature. >From what I've seen so far FTM has some great features but... their >implementation of those features sometimes leave a lot to be desired. The speed issue, inability to handle large files with lots of media, and the seemingly instability ( lots of crashes and having to re-install)are worrying. The question of FTM 2012 and 'large files' is one which was near and dear to my heart. Release version 388 accommodates my file handily. I have a bit over 130,9XX unique names, plus about 5,XXX akas. My file doesn't have much media, I will admit - 677 to be precise, and none are very large - even so in comparison to FTM 16 which is my current, primary genie program, the file size reduction afforded by moving media out of the database file is very handy! I have about 52,XXX families, 191,XXX records and about 10,XXX sources. LARGE is a word used by many, with differing interpretations. I have not tried with release 388 yet, but have used databases of 250K, 450K and 845K people with FTM 16. I found that if one monitors memory usage by FTM 2012, you'll have a good clue as to how to improve its performance. If you use Task Manager, you can see just how much RAM the program is using. Opening the program without loading a file generates a moderately low memory usage, and has delivered the best performance for me. On the other hand, closing a data file (and keeping FTM 2012 open) often results in a significantly higher memory usage at that point and possible failure to complete with a large file. Once memory usage goes above some threshold, the probability of 'failure' skyrockets IMHO. If 2012 hits above 1.2M of RAM used (up to about 1.5M) then failure might be shortly at hand. An interesting sidelight is that the old limitation of only opening 2 different datasets (from FTM 16 anyway) is not there in 2012. At one point, I had 5 different datasets loaded at one time - an Intel Sandy Bridge i7 2600 processor and 16 GB of physical RAM are in my primary computer running Windows 7 Professional SP1. I have yet to try that with build 388, but expect its performance will be similar. John Okerson Memphis, TN