* Charting Companion add-on.

[Gowermick]

Latest FH newsletter refers to the Charting Companion software. I've heard of a similarly named product before, and wonder if this is a new product, or the original modified/adapted for FH? I do see that it can be accessed directly or via a plugin, so some FH integraion has been built in.

Anyone got any experience in using it with FH?
I would be interested to hear what other people thought of it. I must admit they do offer some interesting if quirky chart options, so I'm already half-tempted

[tatewise]

Is the product you heard of before Progeny Genealogy ~ Charting Companion?

If so, then it is the same, but integrated into Family Historian via a Plugin similar to AS.

[Gowermick]

Mike,
Not that one, that's the one referred to in the newsletter. The one I was thinking of was for FTM, and I have since found out it was written by Avanquest. (Unless Avanquest have morphed into progeny )

[tatewise]

Their charts do look novel, and a few satisfy some New Wish List Requests :-
Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) report (14232) satisfied by Trellis chart.
X DNA Diagram (14700) Wish List item Ref 556 X Chromosome DNA Ancestor Diagram satisfied by DNA charts.

[Gowermick]

Mike,
Some of the charts certainly look novel. I'll leave it a few days, to see if anyone posts any comments about using it themselves, and then I'll bite the bullet and get it anyway.
Thanks

[tatewise]

If the charts are of interest then price of £19.99 looks good against their normal price of $34.95 US which is over £28 sterling.

[Gowermick]

Well, I bit the bullet and downloaded Charting Companion(CC).

1st install aborted halfway through.
2nd Install successful

Ran FH, then CC via plugin link, and it took 3 or 4 minutes to upload my tree direct from FH (15666 indivuals); hope this doesn't happen every time I run it!

I then previewed the family record Sheet for my root individual, but being pretty much empty, displayed fine.

However, I hit a snag whenever I tried to view the Family Record Sheet for someone with a bit more meat to their family i.e. children, and program crashed, with just a couple of cryptic error numbers.
Currently there is help request in with customer support - not a very promising start


I'll try some of the other charts later, and report back.

[RSellens]

Their charts do look novel, and a few satisfy some New Wish List Requests :-
Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) report (14232) satisfied by Trellis chart.
X DNA Diagram (14700) Wish List item Ref 556 X Chromosome DNA Ancestor Diagram satisfied by DNA charts.

Hi Mike,
The Trellis Chart doesn't satisfy the MRCA report item, as it looks to me that its showing how people on the report are related, so you have to have started the report from above the MCRA on the individuals.
The X Chromosome diagram dos partially cover what I asked for on that one, but I was really looking for the a tree rather than the FAN diagram

Richard

[tatewise]

@Mike, that does not sound too good.
How does CC perform on the Family Historian Sample Project?
It may not be the Children, but some other data structure, that is upsetting CC.
Does CC handle Media photos with Link to Face frames?

Might be a good idea to keep Calico Pie abreast of any developments.

@Richard, you may be correct, but I do not have CC and was just going on their website Trellis Chart illustrations.
I realise you would prefer a DNA tree rather than a fan and had hoped that was, or will be, an option since it seems quite new.

[Gowermick]

Mike,
Progeny were very quick to respond, and after updating CC to the latest version, the problem has disappeared. The problem only manifested itself in the Family Group Sheet, and other charts that I tried were ok. All seem ok now.

I will play with the FH Sample project tomorrow and report back. The only media I'm using at present is the BrickWall image for end of line. I'll find a chart to test this on tomorrow.

EDIT: Anyone getting CC, I suggest you check for updates when you first run it. As the download in the newsletter link, is definitely not the latest.

[tatewise]

That is better!
The Family Historian Sample Project has plenty of Media photos with Link to Face frames.

[David Potter]

Hi Forum

I also took the plunge and purchased the Charting Tool via the FH store. However, I too am experiencing issues with the Family Group view and wondered what program fix level solves this.

The issue is basically a lot of key data is missing. My mother and father, my spouse and our children. Seems I maybe alone in the world.

See screen shots...

@Gowermick - can you please advise what level your program (that I believe fixed this issue) is at. One of my screen shots displayed what I have.

Many thanks.

[Jane]

The latest version is 6.5.1

You can download it from
https://progenygenealogy.com/charting-c ... nload.aspx

[David Potter]

Thank you Jane - downloading as I write. Just a word of warning to others thinking of trying the product:

I downloaded this version only yesterday and when clicking check for updates, the program advised it was at the latest level. Clearly not.

[David Potter]

Program updated okay and now displays version 6.5.3 - However the problem of a mostly Blank Family Group view is still there

Not a good start at all for something as basic as this to be handled.
I have emailed support.

[David Potter]

I just opened the FH Sample Project and all is okay. So looks like a data issue within my GEDCOM? Which is worrying. I'll try the Export GEDCOM plugin to see if that changes things.

[David Potter]

The Export Plugin using Standard Gedcom 5.5 setup works okay and all the missing fields in CC are now populated. So it is something inherent when reading the FH GEDCOM direct from the Project Folder.

[Gowermick]

Jane,
Sorry to contradict you, but the latest version, which I now have, is 6.5.3 (32)!
When I e-mailed Progeny with the problem, I had 6.4.29, and they advised me to upgrade to version 6.4.47 via a supplied link. I didn't go that route, I went straight to CC, asked it to check for updates, and downloaded it from there, and ended up with above version.

David,
The problem I had, was with the Family Record Sheet (not the Standard Family Record Sheet), which crashed with errors #-910 and #84801, both disappeared after updating.

There is one outstanding Issue I have with CC, and that is the time it takes to update itself, and I asked them when and how it keeps in sync with FH.

Their reply is as follows:

Charting Companion creates an intermediate work file, which it compares with the date of the FH (GEDCOM) file. If the latter is more recent, CC re-builds the work file. If you make a change in FH, you would have to insure that FH "rolls out" the change to disc in order to update the time stamp, and thus signal CC to reload. You can probably accomplish that by saving the FH file.

It is possible to quickly read a GEDCOM file, but these techniques don't scale once the database becomes large. CC's GEDCOM import was designed to handle 5M individuals. I could re-write the GEDCOM import to speed things up. I'll have to add this to our bug+enhancement list (M332).

I particularly noted the last paragraph, because with 15,000 individuals, CC takes 3 or 4 minutes to reload. If one thinks how quickly FH reads the same Gedcom at startup, this is one improvement I'd welcome.

[Ian_Murray]

Charting Companion Version history:

https://progenygenealogy.com/customer-s ... story.aspx

[tatewise]

It is odd that some of the versions mentioned here (6.4.47 and 6.5.3) are not mentioned in the Version History.

And FH is only mentioned once: 19 Apr 2015 5.4.24 Family Historian;

[David Potter]

I installed 6.5.8 today.

[tatewise]

WOW! It would be fun if FH updated that often!

[David Potter]

Had to laugh at that - hilarious

[victor]

Latest version is now 6.5.7 dated 26 March

I downloaded that yesterday and checked today which said I had the latest version

[tatewise]

But David says he got 6.5.8 on Monday 27th March