Reunion Version 9

Reunion is probably the most popular genealogy program for the Macintosh. Now Leister Productions has released a major update: Reunion version 9.

The company's web site says that version 9 adds many new features, including:

 
• Native support for both Intel and PPC Macintosh computers.
• Pod cards for your iPod - a new way to carry data with you.
• Treetops - shows a quick list of the earliest ancestors for any person.
  
• Last Names list - show all unique last names (surnames) in your family file.
• Spell checking. As you enter data, Reunion can automatically check your spelling as you type. When you mistype or misspell a word, it's underlined in red so that you can quickly spot errors and correct them.
  
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) web styles offer elegant design, flexibility, and precise control of reports destined for the web.
• Drag and drop to add people from the Index to the family card. If you're about to add a child, parent, or spouse to somebody, and you know that the person is already entered in the family file somewhere, just open the index and drag the person from the index over to the correct spot on the family card.
  
• Drag and drop to add sources from the Source List to events, facts, notes, and names. Keep the Source List open as you're adding data and when you need to cite a source, just drag and drop it into the field.
• Unicode support allows for multilingual text using different languages.
  
• Ability to find citation detail. For example, you can find everybody linked to page 106 of a particular book.
• Import and export of multimedia links in GEDCOM files.
  
• Index and List enhancements...  
  • Data (names, dates, places, etc.) can be edited directly in lists. If     you notice a spelling error or inconsistency while perusing the Index or any other list, just make the correction directly in the list. No need to dig up the record.
  • Lists (such as the Index, Source List, Found List, etc.) can stay open     while you work in your family file.
  • A search box is used to find people and filter the Index and Found lists.
  • Drag columns to change the order of columns in a list.
  • Click column titles to sort by column.
  • Manual sorting option, using any combination of 3 fields or attributes.
  • Name and save sorts.
  • Entries in lists are color-coded by sex.
 
• Family card enhancements...  
     
  • Family card size is limited only by the size of your screen.   
    
  • Flags can be checked/unchecked directly on the family card.
  • Note fields in the family card view are scrollable.
   
  • Find people using a search box on the family card.
  • Option to display parents and children in a list, with resizeable,     draggable, and optional fields.
  • Brushed metal family card.   
    
  • Tool tips show information about people buttons, including birth/death     date and place, and ID#.
  • Resizeable section for child buttons/list.   
    
  • Option to colorize buttons by sex.
  • Sibling popup menus have been enhanced to show: direct lines, half-siblings, icons to indicate sex, and whether or not a sibling has children.
  • 3D drop shadows on child, husband/wife, and parent buttons on family card.
  • Control-click (or right-click) children (in a list, or as buttons) to change child status.
  • Child status color is now applied to shadows, making it more conspicuous.
  • New preferences to set the color of children with children, children without children, parents with parents, and parents without parents.
  • The vertical dividing line between field titles and data can be repositioned by dragging.
   
• Multimedia...
  
  • Thumbnail view of multimedia items, ala iPhoto.
  • Multimedia files can be linked to source records.
  • Support for more file formats: PDF, MS Word documents, RTF, Text
  • Support for more audio file formats: AAC, AU
  • Support for BMP images.
  • Support for video formats: MOV, MP4, and AVI.
  • Multimedia files can be grouped into albums.
  • Comments from iPhoto are imported into Reunion.
  • Rotate items in 90 degree increments.
  • New multimedia sorting options.
  • Option to designate items as "sensitive."
  • Option to treat an image file as if it were a document.
  • Drag and drop pictures from a multimedia window to another person on     another family card.
   
• Slideshows...  
      
  • Create slideshows for people, families, marked people, or all people.
  • Slideshows can be saved, previewed, etc. 
  • Choose transitions, music, time for each slide, image size, caption     content, etc.
     
  
• Toolbar on the family card...  
     
  • Customizable toolbar.
  • Option to show as small or large icons.
   
  • Option to show as "text only," "icons only" or "icons and text."
  • New, additional toolbar icons.
   
• OS X Native
  
  • Cocoa-based - Reunion 9 is only available for Mac OS X. It has been completely rewritten for Mac OS X using Cocoa, Apple's object-oriented application environment designed specifically for developing Mac OS X-only native applications with a state-of-the-art Aqua user interface.
  • More resizeable windows and live window resizing.
  • OS X standard file locations.
  • Use of more attractive windows, "sheets" and icons.
  • Tool tips show information about buttons.
  • Better support for 3rd-party utilities.
  • Option to use Apple's Color Picker to choose 24-bit colors.
  • Standard Mac OS X text navigation in text fields. 
    
 
• Charts...  
     
  • Soft shadows can be applied to boxes, bars, captions, and pictures.
  • Find Anything In Boxes - new ways to search for boxes and select found boxes.
   
  • Ability to turn on/off page break lines and grid lines .
  • Ability to compact charts and optimize for printing, by resampling hi-res pictures.
  • Many additions to the popup menu that appears when you Control-click (or right-click) a chart box (such as: Align Picture in Box, Size Picture in Box, Frame Picture in Box, Save Default Box Attributes)
   
  • Support for transparency in images.
  • When charts or chart objects are copied to the clipboard, PDF     transparency is supported.
  • Graphic charts exported as PNG or PDF have transparency.
  • Ability to add shadows to shapes.
  • Max button in the Orientation window - lets you maximize the chart window size while making changes to the orientation.
   
  • New Tags feature for including variables in text objects and frame titles.
  • Addition of border depth popup menu for timeline bars.
  • In Colors window (for chart boxes and timeline bars), you can drag/drop generations to change order.
  • In Colors window (for chart boxes and timeline bars), ability to exclude text from changes.
  • New shortcut to redraw a chart using the previous settings in the Orientation window; Option-Command-R.
  • Text objects appear on-screen at all zoom settings.
  • Deleting frames is easier: click to select the frame and press the Delete key.
  • Chart dimensions are shown in metrics when appropriate.
   
• Ability to mark people whose information cites any particular source.
• Reminders - an enhanced startup option to let you know, in advance, of   upcoming birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
  
• New search box for searching source records.
• Mighty mouse is supported (with horizontal and vertical scrolling)
  
• Speed Names limit increased to 2000.
• Source List window can be resized vertically and horizontally, letting you   see more of each source.
  
• Source list shows more characters per source, making it easier to identify   and distinguish sources.
• Source citations list in the Edit Person window is resizable. You can see   more sources, at a glance.
  
• New Field Usage window, for showing which fields are used and how   frequently they're used.
• New Folder Preferences for specifying default locations for particular   types of files as you create, save, open, import, and export files.
  
• Words in note fields can be Control-clicked to show a contextual popup   menu of features (like looking up the word in the dictionary, Google, or   Spotlight; or creating a clickable link of a web address).
• Ages enhancements - added a column for places and support for perspective   events appearing in the list.
  
• Bookmarks menu enhancements - menu items include birth-death dates,   includes color to indicate people with children, includes icon to indicate   sex.
• Quickbar enhancements - icons indicate sex, tool tips show more   information about a person or family in the quickbar, Control-click to show   menu of spouses and children for a person/family, children with children are   indicated by color.
  
• Overview window enhancements - icons appear in the popup menus to indicate   the sex of a person's children, tool tips show more information about a   person, control clicking a person shows spouses and children.
• Statistics enhancements - added unique last names, percentages, and a Find   button to list people matching a highlighted statistic.
  
• Startup preferences include the ability to go to the last card you were   viewing.
• File -> Open Recent submenu.
  
• Change Case window includes the option to affect first and middle names.
• When adding events to a person, you can make the selected event a default   event (for all new people)
  
• You can drag and drop people into the Find Relationship window, which can   stay open all the time.
• OS X Click-thru is disabled in most situations (to avoid accidentally   clicking buttons in Reunion when you're using other applications).
  
• Manual...  
     
  • Search box in the tool bar, for easy searching.   
    
  • Shift-Command-click shortcut opens linked page in a new window behind     the current window
  • Command-click shortcut opens linked page in a new window   
    
  • Holding down the mouse on the Back/Forward buttons shows you a list of     the recent manual pages you've visited.
   
• Logs - new Sort Logs button.
  
• Edit Family/Children window - you can include columns for birth and death   place in the list, making it easier to do batch entry of children.
  
• Merge People window is modeless, handy for comparing records listed in   the Merge People window.
  
• Support for International Standard ISO 8601 date format: yyyy-mm-dd
  
• Reports can be saved in .rtfd format (rtf with images).
  
• GEDCOM import/export support for the Unique Identifier Number (UID)
  
• GEDCOM import/export support for Unicode and UTF-8 character sets.
  
• GEDCOM Import option to not strip out extra commas from place names.
  
• LDS event statuses can be included in lists and can be searched.
  
• Add Source popup menu shows more sources and more characters per source,   making it easier to identify and distinguish sources.
  
• Moving fields: Events can be moved into other events.
  
• When you open a family file, the previous ten family cards you viewed are   remembered from your previous session.
  
• Relative lists can be limited to marked people only.
  
• Reunion keeps track of and tells you the last time relationships were   identified.
  
• HTML, RTF, MS Word documents may be imported into note fields (however,   formatting is stripped).
  
• Tags in web output. - to make the contents of the footer, creation date,   and intro fields more interesting and dynamic. You can even include Google   search tools.
  
• Person sheets and family group sheets can be sorted using any custom sort   criteria.
  
• Register Report enhancements...  
     
  • Spouses in bold.   
    
  • Option to include last name for children.   
    
  • Option to include birth and death dates for children.   
    
  • Option to have parenthetical ancestry in italic text.
   
• More advanced warnings and error checking when linking people. For   example: when linking cousins as spouses, a message will draw your attention   to that relationship.
  
• Date Feasibility testing added to Find Anything window, family card view,   and list windows.
  
• Numerous new shortcuts.

Reunion version 9 sells for $99.00 (U.S.) and is available from many Macintosh retailers.

You can learn more at http://www.leisterpro.com.

 

Comments

[sarah]

I LOVE this program! I had it many years ago but when I changed to a windows PC, I had to use a version called Generations. Unfortunately, that was discontinued and my new XP computer is not compatible with it. So I was left to search through what IS available, and its not much. Family Tree Maker in my opinion is an awkward and hard to use program. It did not import my notes field (which is where all the good stuff is, lol) and I tried almost every other program out there. I ended up with Roots Magic - but sorely wish Leister would put out Reunion again in a windows version. I MISS IT!!!!!

[David French]

Reunion is the BEST genealogy program I have ever used. Windoze has nothing that is even a close second.

[Betty Gregory]

I have had Reunion for many years and wouldn't think of using any other program. I started with Family Tree Maker and then they did not do more than one version for the MAC, so I had to change .I will not give up my MAC. I'm so glad I found Reunion.

[Bart Hansen]

What Sarah said. Once on XP, I went from Generations to PAF and was disappointed. Generations was a little less good that my wife's Reunion 8, though.

[Bev Anderson]

I got my iBook and Reunion 7 on the same day in 2002. I had just barely gotten my first PC a few months before, didn't like FTM because it's cumbersome and difficult to use. I LOVE Reunion!!! It mirrors what I have had in my physical genealogy notebook files for about 40 years... all the notes, bibliographic citations, book quotes, census data, documentation, etc., followed the Family Group Sheets, and now I have all that on the Notes pages and they go online with the rest of the info (the Notes section is 'where all the good stuff is,' as Sarah wrote - I'm obsessed with documentation, so the Notes sections are an absolutely vital, necessity, IMHO). Every scrap of info I have on any individual is in the Notes sections (usually in chronological order), and made much easier by being able to include URLs of web pages (particular useful for both transcribed and microfilm images in Norwegian and Danish genealogy research, but also for other data that is now being put online on this side of the pond in some states, particularly states where so many colonial ancestors resided), and I can include photos or images of documents for individuals, so if anyone wants to see images, it's only a matter of clicking on a camera icon. Everything is there at a glance about the person by scrolling down to the Notes section of the web page for the Person Sheet (technically the full Family Group Sheet). In Reunion I can make an entire web site with two clicks on the menu, and I don't have to upload the data to someone else's web site (as with FTM), but can do an .ftp transfer of the web site to my ISPs web server so I can continually update the web site when I discover new data and add it to the Notes section for any individual(s).

In short, Reunion is the greatest! :-) I'm going to hav e to look into getting Reunion 9 when I upgrade my iBook's hard drive. Thanks for the heads up about the Reunion update! :-)

[MWilser]

I can hardly wait to get my hands on Reunion 9. I've been using it since version 6. It simply _works_. And it's one of few software companies that stands by its product and provides useful tech support. Not that it is often necessary!

Reunion 8 was getting a little long in the tooth and it's a delight to know an upgrade is here. Despite LeisterPro's warnings about making sure to backup files before converting from one version to the next (which warning is proper and good), I have never lost a scrap of information from any Reunion upgrade. I am glad they take the time to release a fully realized product with each upgrade they do. Highly recommended.

[Cheryl McGregor]

Downloaded it as soon as I heard it was out. I've run FTM on my windows machines since the DOS days. I've run Reunion 8 on my iMac for several years now. I was thrilled that they added the search features. That made the upgrade price worthwhile. I'm going play with the Pod cards. I run pocket genealogist on my jornada but when it dies, I might just not replace it.

[RE McLaughlin]

This is a beautifully-crafted programme that works seamlessly and never even hiccups, let alone crashes (of course what else do you expect from a Mac)!! It's so intuitive, I've yet to read the manual after many years of use, and each upgrade (this one included) only makes it better.

[Carol]

I have been using Generations - Grande Suite 6.0 Easy Tree (copyright 1999 by Sierra) for years on our Windows PC. That program is no longer available for an update. I would like to publish detailed family reports of several generations. My Generations program does pull reports into Word documents, but not exactly in the form I'd like. I'm wondering if there is a good, more updated, software program that would easily convert all of my data now in Generations Easy Tree that would give just as easy "input options" as I have now but more choices in the "output" format.

I've been reading how happy people are with the Reunion software, but that sounds like a Macintosh only software.

Thanks for any advice. Carol

[G. Bordeaux]

I am still getting used to the Reunion 9. It seems to have much more facility. But I cannot find a way to edit the old sources. If I make a spelling mistake in the new source, I cannot edit it either.

Any suggestions?