Legacy Charting – New Update Now Available – Pre-Release version 7.0.077

Comments (43)

• Okay so far, I have not tried too much. I would like an option where in a top down chart that the last generation of children goes down. This might seem odd, but my charts get SOOOO wide due to the last generation or two, that this would save a lot of width and the younger ones are generally not married.

• Please provide various date format such as DD MM YYYY, DD MMMM YYYY, MMMM YYYY, WWWW MMMM YYYY, MMM YYYY, YYYYY MMM, YYYY including numeric date format, separator and leading zeros. Also changeable to other languages ‘Month name’ and ‘Weekday name’.

• So far, I really enjoy the new “7” Charting. I would really like to see the ability to have the ancestors AND decendants on the tree! This of course would NOT be the all in one chart option, just Ancestor and Decendant chart.

• What’s the difference between Legacy Charting and Legacy Charting Companion? I can’t see much difference. Still the same problems too. I think your software developers must own shares in a paper company, as each chart even for two or three generations uses reams of paper.
  I’m looking for something simple to give to newly discovered cousins wh9o know nothing about genealogy and couldn’t interpret a non-traditional design but the multitude of sheets of paper required for anything meaningful is prohibitive.
  I’d dearly like to use either of your charting programs but until you design one that makes compact charts, I won’t be buying or updating any Legacy charting programs.

• Pat, not yet, but it’s in high demand and on our list…

• Can we do a single line of descent (but not on a single surname)? Say a drop-line chart from a Mayflower ancestor to my grandmother, which would have several surnames. These often appear in all-my-ancestors genealogies where the author shows how an immigrant’s descendants descend to him at the beginning of each surname chapter. The chart would look like the “Ancestor’s Father’s Tree.” I don’t see this option? (Maybe this has been asked before?)

• A very nice feature in Tree Draw Legacy that I would like to see: formatting control over the info printed within the box.
  For example, you could specify that the reference ID be printed to the left or to the right or below the name; and enclosed within characters of your choice ([] or {} or “” etc.).
  To have that control would be very handy.

• Paul, this will be fixed in the next update.

• I have made a nice drop chart with three generations. It fits on a single page which prints correctly. But when I export the chart to a file the new file is missing the right hand side of the page.
  Ideally I would have liked a copy function that would have allowed me to copy a small chart and paste it into another application.

• Hi there,
  I use Legacy for a rather different reason to most. I use it to keep a record of fictional characters. I’m effectively creating their family tree from scratch. As such it would be nice to see everyone in the database on one chart, and to combine family lines from different common ancestors. The other thing is that in your chart types you’ve got the option of ‘Male only’ descendants. It would be nice to see a female only descendants as well. One thing I have liked is the fact that spouses are horizontally aligned rather than vertical. Most family trees you see are like that and to see the spouse underneath, as in so many programs, was irritating and time consuming to correct. An option to fit to a page size would be very useful. As would the option to delete certain indiviuals if you don’t want them to show. You might for example want to show the tree of the first and third child in a family but not necessarily include those from the second. Maybe a right-click option could be used for this. I particularly like the ease with which you can move individuals and tree elements around. It might be useful though if there was an option to draw a line to link an indivual to another – for example to show possible adoptions, where maybe a grandparent took over the care of a child and brought it up as their own.
  One bug I have noticed is that in the ‘Customise Quick Access Toolbar’ the tick box for the individual’s list doesn’t have a description next to it.
  Is there going to be a beta testing phase for Legacy 7?

• Hi guys,
  for all you good people out there having a problem with the latest update for Legacy Charting, the easiest way to do it is to open Legacy Charting, clikc on on tips and updates, you will have an update link there ready to download 🙂

• Would like an option so that when printing, an individual appears on one page, and is not split over two.
  Also an option not to print blank pages

• To change the Page Layout to Landscape click on the round Charting button in the upper left, and select Page Layout.

• When an individual in a chart is clicked (highlighted) there is no indication of who the person is, this makes finding a person in a chart very difficult, please consider adding this facility.
  This would be a great addition especially if a Find function was also included so that by typing a name, the person was highlighted in the chart. Double clicking that person to then display the persons details in, perhaps, a pop-up box, even better!

• Hi
  Generally I thin kthat the charting application is a really good idea and has been a significant missing feature in Legacy for years. However … there has to be one … it is quite inflexible as to which individuals are included. I would like to be able to import multiple tree parts into the same chart. I would also like to be able to delete some individuals from the chart. At the moment it is only possible to limit the number of generations which deletes a whole generation from the chart.
  A right click menu on the boxes would be really useful for some of hte most used formatting and esiting functions.

• My disappointment starts with Step 1 of the Chart Creation Wizard. The window isn’t resizeable and neither are the column widths. The inability to resize a column is particularly acute for me on the “Path” column.
  I have some path names which even overflow the File Path of the selected file in the area below the table.
  Once I find the file I want, I’m having fun.

• Something I have wanted for years – but cannot find a way to do it with this new add-on is the ability to split charts at points *I* define.
  To describe this I will call each such point a “Node”.
  I wish to be able to split charts so each section will fit onto a single sheet – e.g.an A4 sheet. This needs much more flexibility than in Tree Draw Legacy where you are only able to have, say, two three or four descendant levels on a chart and it has to be the same for all branches on a page. Some branches are much more complicated and need to be split at different levels.
  I want to be able to define a particular link of *my* choosing (e.g. from a father to a son) as a “Node”, and for it to be given a Node Number – possibly defined manually.
  Further down each leg of the descendant tree I want to be able to put in other Nodes.
  When I want to produce a chart I want to be able to say, “Start at node xyz” and then for the charting program to automatically produce a chart that goes down each descendant line until it encounters another Node (or reaches the end of the line). At the top of the chart I would like a Node Symbol, labeled with the Node Number and annotated “from page/chart abc”. At each node at the bottom of a descendant line I would like a similarly labeled node, annotated with the page/chart number it leads to.
  I cannot see a way to do this with your new program. Doing it manually with Tree Draw Legacy is very cumbersome (my descendant tree goes back over 30 generations to 1537, and contains 3000+ people and nearly 1000 marriages) and this is the feature that would be the most important for me in changing to a different charting program.
  Is it possible please? If so, how?
  Thanks
  Barrie Avis

• It may be of some benifit is your print layout allowed a change to the page orientation to allow for landscape page printing.

• I am very pleased, that your top-ten includes the option of printing all persons in the database in one map as I know it from Winfamly6.

• Is the “All-in-One Chart” listed in the top requests the same as the “Everyone” chart I see listed on other genealogy applications? I.e. a family tree chart that shows everyone in the file and how they are linked?
  It would be great it we could have this chart.

• I am documenting family data in a book. It would be helpful to have a chart created in a vertical format for printing on a letter size or page format. Manipulating the boxes to format a vertical chart with your current design produces a poorly appearing chart.
  Another request: Provided the ability to delete the line between boxes… move or reposition the individual box or boxes… and then reconnect the boxes with a new line. With this capability, I could achieve the ability to create a vertical chart.

• Garth, using the Appearance tab, play around with the sizing controls. Also note that you can drag/drop boxes to any place on the chart.

• Ingrid, Legacy Charting will be only a portion of the upcoming release of Legacy version 7.0. The development team is getting close to its release. We thank all of our loyal Legacy users for their patience. Now, taking off my Legacy hat, I must say that I am so excited for you all to have the new v7 features. It truly will be worth the wait.

• As a loyal legacy user for many versions/years, I’ve been waiting for this update for some time. Was hoping for the long promised better and increased photo printing ability in reports, and other such features. I’m sorry but must agree with Cengie, PLEASE don’t get away from the main function and try to make it do what other programs already do better!
  What else can we look forward to with the new release besides charting? For me, if it is only charting, I’ll have to pass. Again, love the program and recommend it to friends – but disappointed in what little I’ve seen of the new release.

• took ages to find instructions to download the update and then download link wants me to install Legacy Charting – which I already have and that is why I want to download the update!

• I agree with Ed in that it has to have a device independent Page Setup. I do not have a large format printer at home and it it will only set up charts to print on my default printer, which is A4 size. You need to be able to set the chart size to whatever, which will enable them to be sent to an independent printing house as Ed says, or be able to print to PDF and take it to work and print out on the large plotter there.
  The second item is the need to have metric page setup and the international A size pages, which most countries adopt as standard. Some places have not seen Letter size paper before. Legacy 6 has the A4 size amongst its default page sizes. Should include A3, A2, A1, and even A0 which is 1192x841mm.

• The process is a paper “EATER”. In previewing a Decendancy Chart it would be 353.5″ long by 11″ deep. That’s 43 pages. There has to be a better way to utilize the paper.

• I would also like someway to highlight direct descendancy. Large charts are very impressive but it’s easy to get lost. Any kind of option to emphasize a line of descendancy would be very helpful.

• I would like to be able to select a clear background for a chart as opposed to a selected color. I save my charts as a .png file and import them into a digital scrapbooking program. Having a clear background would give me the ability to add my chart to multiple backgrounds/pages in my digital scrapbooking program without having to go back and create a new chart with the selected color each time.
  This is really wonderful having a program that will save a chart as a .png file!

• Another issue is that of overlap when printing multiple pages – all other packages I have tried provide a few millimetres overlap to ensure the line of is perfect – there actually appears to be around a half millimetre missing when doing charts at present so that if you have multiple columns AND rows you have to be exact with your line up otherwise you start to see a widening gap appear.

• Stephen, the option for metric units will also come soon.

• Cengiz, thanks. This is a known bug that we will get fixed soon….

• Sorry – where do I start? The lack of a metric unit of measurement once again reinforces my view that some companies are so US-centric that it is not funny. Why do we have to ONLY allow charting mesaurements to be specified in inches? Ian’s comments are also spot on – whilst I have used Legacy for many years, and will most likely continue to do so, this charting add on would NOT entice me to use Legacy. There are at least two other add-on’s available for Legacy that do charting a whole lot better. Granted, this is pre-release, but it has a long way to go to catch up. Personally – don;t try to include this in Legacy – the main product will only suffer (how many times has this happened to other good products that then tried to be everything except wash the dishes??)

• I just updated new version. There is a bug. When I choose “Descendant – standard” type of chart, it does not sort properly by birthdays… Please check and inform me. thanks

• David, to publish a chart to a .pdf, either click on the Publish>Email button or the Publish>Export to file butotn.

• Good idea Kelly. We’ve added this to our list!

• It would be useful to have a “find” option to locate individuals within the chart.
  The ability to drag boxes is nice but it would also be benefitial have the ability to move/edit the connecting lines as well.
  I second all of Ian’s suggestions/wishes.

• Can we have a standard Windows user interface PLEASE? Legacy 6 has a very poor user interface and it looks as if Legacy 7 is going to be worse! I am not a computer novice but it has taken me an hour to find where the Page Setup is hidden. Now that I have found it, I am very disappointed that it is a Print Setup dialogue and not a device independent Page Setup. I want to be able to define my chart size and then fit the chart to a large format paper size which I will send to an external printing house.
  Gary’s request for a back button is also essential although I would prefer an edit menu with an Undo function.
  While I am writing a wish-list, how about some object alignment functions to straighten out charts after they have been modified; the ability to select a group of individuals to edit by clicking on them; the option to add individuals such as step-siblings or adopted siblings to ancestor/descendant charts; a quarter fan chart which has consistent text sizes and which does not leave out random individuals or random information.
  Overall, a very basic product with a very limited set of charts and few useful functions to customise them. Looks like I am going to be exporting gedcoms to chart editors for some time yet.

• I may have already made this request and if so, please forgive. Please add the following color coded timeline charts: 1. All descendants of a selected person with the ability to select from 2 up to 8 or 9 generations (with and without spouses). 2. Timelines of just a selected generation (e.g., only the grandchildren of a selected ancestor(3rd generation) or only the great great grandchildren of the selected person(5th generation.) 3. Timelines of up to say, 30 user selected individuals with selectable ordering (birth order, order in which selected by user, Alphabetical by Last Name) 4. Timeline of a Start Person and all Direct Line descendants from the Start person to a selected End person. These charts will be extremely helpful in illustration a family history. Thanks, Ed Schultz, Renton, WA

• I don’t see it if it’s there, but the ability to save a chart as a PDF or Word would be great. This way, one could sent the chart to say a family member for them to print; or, in my case, print at work where I can’t have the charting software on the computer.

• Is it possible to add a direct-line descendant chart option?

• Please add a “back” button capability. I find that as I am exploring various options to achieve the desired effect for a particular chart, I usually must start over with a new chart instead of being able to return to a previously selected option and make a change.

• To update to the latest version of Legacy Charting Pre-Release edition:
  … click on the Download New Update Now link.
  Problem is I don’t see a ‘download new update now’ link.