The following announcement was written by Synium Software GmbH:
Mainz, Germany - Today, Synium Software announces the new version 5.2 of MacFamilyTree. Gain the full perspective! Visualize and freely navigate even the most complex family trees. Exactly one month of Public Beta Testing already earned MacFamilyTree 5.2 widespread acclaim for its new 3D view "Virtual Tree".
The most recent addition to MacFamilyTree's already abundant set of tools is the ultimate way to visualize and browse even huge and complex genealogy databases. Our "Virtual" Tree can be intuitively controlled and renders a three-dimensional mesh of persons and their relations, right onto your Mac's screen.
Hobbyists as well as genealogy experts will fancy this 3D representation of their research, making it easy to spot distant relatives and missing links in any family tree. Common characteristics are highlighted, using different colors and shapes. Navigating the Virtual Tree is simple: just point, click and drag with your mouse, or use a dedicated "Navigator" to literally fly through your own ancestry.
MacFamilyTree's already powerful GEDCOM support now includes "Selective Export" and better import and merge. Also, we have sped up our GEDCOM engine altogether, making MacFamilyTree's GEDCOM handling one of the fastest on the planet. Version 5.2 of MacFamilyTree also significantly enhances GUI and workflow for editing families, viewing and printing charts and publishing Family Trees and Media on the Web.
New and enhanced features:
New - "Virtual Tree"
- navigatable 3D view of the entire database
- completely displays all "trees"
- visualizes complexity and scope of one's genealogical research
- single- or double-click and drag with the mouse to move between individuals and generations
- display essential information right at your mouse pointer
- easy-to-use "Navigator" as a handy control to virtually fly through family history
- quickly jump to a specific person using the "Persons List", well known from our "Family Assistant"
- for analytical purposes, entries (persons) can optionally be color-marked according to their date of birth, age, generation or sex
- pristine 3D views with Open GL and "Full Scene Anti Aliasing" (on recent Macs)
New - "Selective GEDCOM Export", improved GEDCOM handling
- selectively import single or multiple individuals from GEDCOM files
- enhanced usability for GEDCOM import
- better GEDCOM "Merge"
- much immproved GEDCOM import speed
New - "Family Navigation" in Person Edit Mode
- clearly display all known parents, partners and children for a given person
- families and persons can be directly accessed - no need for navigating back and forth between lists and windows
- parents and partners can be created easily and directly from this new pane
New - Charts get "Events Selector" in "View Options"
- quickly configure events displayed in your charts
- include or exclude events for each chart type invididually
- MacFamilyTree remembers these settings for the next time you create a chart
New "Chart-to-PNG" and "Chart-to-PDF" buttons
- directly create pristine copies of your charts
- no need to use each chart's Edit Mode, if you just want to quickly save or print the current view
Other Changes
- "Age" column for Person Events to immediately check a person's age at a given event
- better support for "Additional Names"
- "Genogram" view now displays items chronologically: events by date and children by date of birth
- improved Kinship Report to fully support complex family relations
- improved Media content creation on Web export
- redesigned MacFamilyTree.com for better usability
- the usual minor enhancements, tweaks and fixes
Supported Languages:
MacFamilyTree 5.2 is currently localized in US English, Danish, Finnish, French, German and Italian; Spanish and Swedish will be made available soon. Many other languages are due to be included in subsequent free updates.System Requirements:
MacFamilyTree 5 requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 or higher, a PPC Macintosh with 512 MByte RAM (1024 recommended), ATI Radeon 7500 or NVidia GeForce 4 MX graphics chipset or better and a minimum of 16 MByte video memory. All Macintosh computers with Intel processors and Intel's GMA 950 graphics chipset or better are supported. MacFamilyTree 5 is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.Pricing and Availability:
MacFamilyTree 5 can be purchased for $49.00 USD, upgrades are $25.00 USD. Demo is also available for download. Update from all previous versions of MacFamilyTree requires valid registration key from previous versions. For customers who purchased MacFamilyTree 4 on, or after August 14th, 2007 the upgrade to MacFamilyTree 5 is free. Registration codes will automatically work with MacFamilyTree 5.
Further details about MacFamilyTree 5.2 can be found at http://www.synium.de/products/macfamilytree.
The biggest disappointment in this program for me was the mapping function. First, the map used is very fuzzy at the highest level of resolution. There are no crisp coastlines -- just blends from land colors to ocean colors -- like a low res picture of the planet instead of precise drawings. Plus I haven't found yet how to display boundaries of states or countries. But most disappointing was the fact that you have to MANUALLY set up event map coordinates to have anything displayed on the map. That is, the program does not attempt to set up locations for you to auto plot event sites. In a large data base, this could take a LONG time. In theory they have a web connection to a data base for getting lat-long values, but in the few cities and counties I tried, the search came up empty. Makes me wonder just how big their map database really is. I had to use Google Maps to find the nominal coordinates for several towns and enter them myself. Another problem is that the filtering of events plotted by time window is not available (or at least not found by me in my limited use of the demo version). This would help give the map display a time flow aspect that shows migration patterns. I'll stick with Family Tree Atlas.
The Virtual Tree (3D format) is interesting, but hard to follow, even with nice pop-up name labels as you pass the cursor over a person icon. Tracking multiple marriages for a specific person is very tricky given the way the spouses are placed.
Bottom line -- I found nothing here that makes me want to drop Reunion for the Mac.
Posted by: Mike Phelps | June 23, 2008 at 12:26 PM
The MobileMe feature is marvelous as is the MobileFamilyTree for those of us with iPhones. The price is half as for the Reunion we have been using for several years. I don't see the mapping function as a problem because of the wonderful mapping features on new FamilySearch.
What concerns me is the loss of data and multiplication of data on Reunion. I am not techno-illiterate. My husband and I both have been working with technology for years. We both witnessed the data loss and multiplication of data in Reunion simply by quitting the program on one day and reopening it on another day or later that same day. We did nothing that would make an entire family's information disappear nor for over half of the individuals to suddenly be multiplied to exhibit 7 of each individual. That causes repeated repair tactics that takes hours.
We don't have any idea if this Mac FamilyTree will do the same thing but, we can run them both and see which one seems to serve us better. We do not like the Spouse being referred to as Partner but, oh, well!
Respectfully yours,
Marilyn Howard
Posted by: Marilyn Howard | August 11, 2008 at 04:16 PM
The MobileMe feature is marvelous as is the MobileFamilyTree for those of us with iPhones. The price is half as for the Reunion we have been using for several years. I don't see the mapping function as a problem because of the wonderful mapping features on new FamilySearch.
What concerns me is the loss of data and multiplication of data on Reunion. I am not techno-illiterate. My husband and I both have been working with technology for years. We both witnessed the data loss and multiplication of data in Reunion simply by quitting the program on one day and reopening it on another day or later that same day. We did nothing that would make an entire family's information disappear nor for over half of the individuals to suddenly be multiplied to exhibit 7 of each individual. That causes repeated repair tactics that takes hours.
We don't have any idea if this Mac FamilyTree will do the same thing but, we can run them both and see which one seems to serve us better. We do not like the Spouse being referred to as Partner but, oh, well!
Respectfully yours,
Marilyn Howard
Posted by: Marilyn Howard | August 11, 2008 at 04:19 PM
The MobileMe feature is marvelous as is the MobileFamilyTree for those of us with iPhones. The price is half as for the Reunion we have been using for several years. I don't see the mapping function as a problem because of the wonderful mapping features on new FamilySearch.
What concerns me is the loss of data and multiplication of data on Reunion. I am not techno-illiterate. My husband and I both have been working with technology for years. We both witnessed the data loss and multiplication of data in Reunion simply by quitting the program on one day and reopening it on another day or later that same day. We did nothing that would make an entire family's information disappear nor for over half of the individuals to suddenly be multiplied to exhibit 7 of each individual. That causes repeated repair tactics that takes hours.
We don't have any idea if this Mac FamilyTree will do the same thing but, we can run them both and see which one seems to serve us better. We do not like the Spouse being referred to as Partner but, oh, well!
Respectfully yours,
Marilyn Howard
Posted by: Marilyn Howard | August 11, 2008 at 04:20 PM
Does Mac Family Tree have a place to enter LDS events?
Best regards,
Barbara Lieber (Ft. Lauderdale)
I loved PAF - trying to find a good replacement for mac.
Posted by: Barbara Lieber | July 05, 2009 at 09:07 PM
MacFamilyTree does NOT support LDS events. That feature has been promised for the future but is not yet available.
- Dick Eastman
Posted by: Dick Eastman | July 05, 2009 at 11:12 PM