A Surprise Easter Egg

madhattergenealogy@gmail.com

21 May 2018

The developers snuck a new feature into Legacy while I wasn't looking. This is something the beta testers have had for some time. They probably knew it was in the current update and are probably laughing at me right now. Yesterday someone emailed in a request for the very same feature so I sent an email to the developers asking them if they planned to release this in an update. Their response, "We already have." So what we have is an "Easter Egg." So what is the new feature? It is called the Realtime Hint Processing Monitor.

Before I show you what this is, you need to make sure that you have Hinting turned on. Go to Options > Customize > View > Option 8.13 and select your preferences. Now open the Family View. At the bottom on the screen you will see your three Quick Bookmarks. Notice that they have numbers in front of them. It is the Number 1 that you need to be focusing on.

(click image to enlarge)

Now double click that number 1 and this is what will pop up:

(click image to enlarge)

Close – Closes the monitor window
Stop Hints – Turns off the background hint timer, thus stopping the processing of pending hints
Restart Hints – Restarts the background hints
Start Over – Erases all the current hints in the Hint file and starts over from scratch, adding individuals who are shown on the screen as you navigate through your family file
Refresh (the icon below Start Over) - Re-gathers all the hints currently in the Hint file

To make it official, we have now added an entry in the Help File explaining what the Process Monitor does but the feature itself is still a bit hidden which makes it fun.

Michele Simmons Lewis, CG^®is part of the Legacy Family Tree team at MyHeritage. She handles the enhancement suggestions that come in from our users as well as writing for Legacy News. You can usually find her hanging out on the Legacy User Group Facebook page answering questions and posting tips.

Comments (7)

If you have some suggestions on how we can make these features more visible, please send them in so that we can evaluate them. If you go to the Legacy Home tab, you will see the link over on the right to be able to send in a suggestion

Yes Michele, everything is in the help file. But that doesn’t make them discover-able.
Suppose someone would benefit from the functionality of one of these “little hidden things” – say to restart the hinting process. How would they know what it was called? How would that person find it? How would they know that Legacy has the functionality?
By looking for “tricks” in a help file? That is not how people use help files – if they use them at all.
Look at the group Facebook page (I avoid Facebook entirely but my boyfriend is a fan). How often have questions been asked about the + sign meaning there are additional relationships and how to see them? Or ‘Last Modified’? or even cycling through spouses?

Actually, everything is in the help file. For your example about the right clicks, if you open the help file there is a tips and tricks link over on the right. That is where you will see this sort of thing explained. In that same area, you will see step-by-step tutorials for most of the main functions in Legacy. Every screen in Legacy has a help button and we always tell people to click those buttons because it will take you to the correct place in the help file for that screen so that you don’t have to search for it. If you do, you will find all of the little “hidden” things.

You know, in terms of user interface, these sort of half-hidden options are simply wrong. And Legacy abounds in them:
– right-click part of a label to see additional relationships.
– click a blank space to rotate through spouses
– wave a mouse around somewhere (I forget the details) to see when an entry was last modified
– double-click a bookmark number (which is not expected to be active) to get this hints screen, which is not merely informative but provides access to useful functionality.
And there are others. Hiding functionality is just plain silly.
I’m afraid in terms of UI, Legacy has no coherent model, and looks like something thrown together at random. And it’s getting worse. (I’ve used it for 2 years.) Your team needs to get advice from a usability expert.
And yet, we love it still!

It is in development and high on the priority list 🙂

Is there a version available for OS on a Mac, yet? Thank you!

Legacy Family Tree is great already, but the developers continue to make it greater.

ML
Michele Lewis

7 years ago

If you have some suggestions on how we can make these features more visible, please send them in so that we can evaluate them. If you go to the Legacy Home tab, you will see the link over on the right to be able to send in a suggestion
TW
Teresa Williams

7 years ago

Yes Michele, everything is in the help file. But that doesn’t make them discover-able.
Suppose someone would benefit from the functionality of one of these “little hidden things” – say to restart the hinting process. How would they know what it was called? How would that person find it? How would they know that Legacy has the functionality?
By looking for “tricks” in a help file? That is not how people use help files – if they use them at all.
Look at the group Facebook page (I avoid Facebook entirely but my boyfriend is a fan). How often have questions been asked about the + sign meaning there are additional relationships and how to see them? Or ‘Last Modified’? or even cycling through spouses?
M
Michele

7 years ago

Actually, everything is in the help file. For your example about the right clicks, if you open the help file there is a tips and tricks link over on the right. That is where you will see this sort of thing explained. In that same area, you will see step-by-step tutorials for most of the main functions in Legacy. Every screen in Legacy has a help button and we always tell people to click those buttons because it will take you to the correct place in the help file for that screen so that you don’t have to search for it. If you do, you will find all of the little “hidden” things.
TW
Teresa Williams

7 years ago

You know, in terms of user interface, these sort of half-hidden options are simply wrong. And Legacy abounds in them:
– right-click part of a label to see additional relationships.
– click a blank space to rotate through spouses
– wave a mouse around somewhere (I forget the details) to see when an entry was last modified
– double-click a bookmark number (which is not expected to be active) to get this hints screen, which is not merely informative but provides access to useful functionality.
And there are others. Hiding functionality is just plain silly.
I’m afraid in terms of UI, Legacy has no coherent model, and looks like something thrown together at random. And it’s getting worse. (I’ve used it for 2 years.) Your team needs to get advice from a usability expert.
And yet, we love it still!
M
Michele

7 years ago

It is in development and high on the priority list 🙂
RS
Rebecca Seehusen

7 years ago

Is there a version available for OS on a Mac, yet? Thank you!
CK
Charles Kocher

7 years ago

Legacy Family Tree is great already, but the developers continue to make it greater.

A Surprise Easter Egg

Comments (7)

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