This article appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of Everton's Genealogical Helper.

View History.  Have you worked in the Person View of a person, gone to the same view for another person, and then clicked on the Last View icon on the Toolbar (looks like an upside down U with an arrow) or hot-key (Control-L) to go back to the first person to do some more work.  Now what if you want to go back to someone that is two, three or more persons back.  You could use the Picklist to find them or use the Tree View to quickly move to them, but another way to go directly back to a View that you previously worked on is to use the View History feature.

First, the feature needs to be turned on in your System Configuration Screen (Tools=>Options from the top menu).  On the General tab, select the View History option.  Leave the Remember ID Only option unselected for now (you may want to try it later and see what it does for you).  Set the Length of Memory option to 10 for now.  you may adjust it higher or lower later to fit your needs.  Click on the OK button to save the changes.

Now do some changes to other views and persons - say a person, their child, even switching to a different view, then a grandchild, and maybe even a great-grandchild.  To get back to the first person (the great-grandparent) you would have selected the Tree View, found the person and double-clicked on that person or have used the Picklist.  Instead, click on the top menu View selection.  The drop-down menu will show the usual options as well as a list (a history) of the last ten views and persons that you have displayed.  Click on the great-grandparent (or the desired view/person) to display that view/person.  This really shortens the work involved to move from person to person and back to someone that you previously worked on. 

This history will normally be retained from session to session.  Thus you can have continuity from one work session to another.

Custom Report Writer Log.  Many users select the reports that they generate from the Reports drop-down menu.  This is a quick way to access a report.  But, there are many times when the user generates the report only to find that it isn’t quite what they want, the report finishes and the user is back to the main program.  So the user selects the report again with some modification only to see that there is another change that is wanted.  So it is back to the main program again to re-select the report again and again.

Seems like a hard way to do things and it is because each time you select a report from the Report menu, TMG starts another program [the Custom Report Writer (CRW)], displays the selected Report Definition Screen, generates the report when the Generate button is selected and then exits the CRW program back to the main program.

A much quicker way of working is to select the bottom option of the Reports menu (Custom Report Writer...) which starts the CRW, and displays the CRW Log.  This shows all the reports that have been created. Now highlight the desired report, and click on the Select button to display the Report Definition Screen.  Make the desired changes and generate the report.  When the report is completed, you will be returned to the CRW Log at that same report name. If you want to run the report again, just click on the Select button again and continue as before. The difference now is that you remain in the CRW and don’t exit to the main program until you are finished running reports. If you want to produce another report, just highlight it and click on the Select button.  When you are finished running reports, just click on the Exit button to return to the main program.

While you are in the CRW Log, take a look around at what is available for you there.  In addition to selecting and running reports, you may:  create new reports (try out the Wizard - you’ll be surprised at what it can do for you), Delete reports that you no longer want, Copy a report so that you can have the same report with just minor changes (be sure to change the copy’s Report Configuration Name to be able to distinguish between the two), and Toggle the Menu marker so the selected report displays (with an M) or doesn’t display (no M) on the main program Reports menu.

One other thing you can do in the CRW Log is to export and import report definitions.  This can help you when you are having problems with a report.  If you  export the  report and send it to someone (say Tech Support), they can look at it and advise you as to what is wrong (if you do have a problem, be sure to check with Tech Support first as they can often advise you what to do without seeing the report).  Or even better, maybe someone has created some great report that you have seen and would like to use yourself.  If they export the report and give it to you, you may then import it and produce the report just like they would.

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Further information about The Master Genealogist can be obtained from Wholly Genes, Inc., 5144 Flowertuft Ct, Columbia, MD 21075, 
on the TMG website <http://www.whollygenes.com> or tollfree at 1-877-TMG-FAMILY. TMG Tech Support is available at 1-410-715-2260 
or by e-mail at <tmg@whollygenes.com>.

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