Category Archives: Announcements

TNG 12: Feature Preview

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TNG 12 is almost here! This major upgrade includes dozens of enhancements, fixes and new features. Here’s a summary of the most significant changes:

  • DNA: Jeff Robison’s DNA mod has been incorporated, providing several significant enhancements to the previous method of tracking DNA tests.
  • Mod Manager: Rick Bisbee, Ken Roy and others have added significant improvements to this utility that allows users to easily install or remove code modifications and add-ons.
  • Translations: TNG has now been translated into Chinese, as well as 20 other languages. Google Translate tools have also been added to the online help pages and the installation guide to allow users to view those resources in their own language.
  • New Designs: Three new templates have been added, and improvements have been made to several others. The template settings have also been moved to a more robust location, within the database.
  • Media Enhancements: Many improvements have been made in the way TNG handles photos and other media. These include importing media linked to citations, creating thumbnails from some PDFs, being able to show thumbnails in a single horizontal row if desired, and showing captions on top of image previews.
  • Libraries Upgraded: Third party libraries for jQuery, jQueryUI and PHP Mailer have been upgraded to the latest versions. The C3 and D3 charting libraries have also been added.
  • New Visualizations: A First Names page (like the existing Surnames page) provides a different way to look at your data, and the new C3/D3 charting libraries allow for pie chart representations on those pages and on the Statistics page.
  • Security: The reCaptcha mod has been incorporated, giving TNG site owners a way to fight spam from bots. A few other security updates will prevent unauthorized access in previously vulnerable areas.
  • User Access: Registered site users can now be assigned to multiple trees. Admins and editors will still see only one tree at a time, but they can easily switch from one tree to another without logging in multiple times.
  • New Tools: A “Refresh Living” utility will re-mark people as living or deceased, depending on dates entered or time elapsed from birth, while a “Make Private” tool will mark people as private if they have been deceased less than the configured number of years.
  • Compatibility: Pro-active changes will make sure TNG remains compatible with the latest versions of PHP and MySQL.

You will be able to get the upgrade at a discount (starting at $15.99) by going back to your previous downloads page after the release is officially announced. If you’ve lost the URL or access info, send me a message at darrin@lythgoes.net and I’ll send it to you again. If you purchased TNG 11 or the v11 upgrade at any time in the six months prior to the upgrade release date, you’ll be eligible to get the upgrade for free. Information on that will be sent out to those affected.

If you purchased TNG through a third party (like the Guild of One-Name Studies), please contact them for information on upgrading your site.

Also take note that Simply Hosting does not install upgrades. A helpful 15-minute video will be available to walk you through the process, but there will also be an option to pay an extra $15 to have the upgrade installed for you. If you’re doing the upgrade yourself, take a minute to review the post here from the v10 release on helpful tips for a successful upgrade.

TNG 11: Feature Preview

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tng-title11TNG 11 is here! This major upgrade includes nearly a hundred fixes, enhancements and new features. Here’s a summary of the most significant changes:

  • DNA: Aid your research by keeping track of DNA tests taken by the people in your tree. Enter the specifics once and link them to those affected.
  • Fan Charts: A fan-oriented chart of ancestors can now be displayed for each person in your tree.
  • Data Validation: Several preconfigured validation reports will help you spot potential errors in your data.
  • New Design: Another new template has been added.
  • Family Chart: This view shows a person’s spouse, children and parents all together on one page in graphical fashion.
  • Mobile-Friendly: More improvements here will make your site even more usable on mobile devices.
  • Administration: Enhancements to the Admin menu show quick totals for all data categories, plus an “Important Tasks” area to remind administrators of items that need attention.
  • Heat Maps: Color codes on the Places, Surnames and Search Results pages now show the global distribution of surnames and places.
  • Search: A Google search page now allows you to search across your entire site using Google’s indexes.
  • Timeline: The Simile Timeline layout has been redesigned to be more readable, with separate bands for family and general events.
  • Compatibility: Pro-active changes will make sure TNG remains compatible with the latest versions of PHP.

You can get the upgrade at a discount ($14.99) by going back to your previous downloads page. If you’ve lost the URL or access info, send me a message at darrin@lythgoes.net and I’ll send it to you again. If you only purchased TNG or the v10 upgrade recently (in the past 6 months), you’ll be eligible to get the upgrade for free.

Also take note that Simply Hosting does not install upgrades. A helpful 15-minute video will be available to walk you through the process, but there will also be an option to pay an extra $15 to have the upgrade installed for you. If you’re doing the upgrade yourself, take a minute to review the post here from the v10 release on helpful tips for a successful upgrade.

TNG10 Available Tomorrow!

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Tomorrow will be the first launch of TNG10! It will be initially only available to those purchasing in person at our booth at RootsTech. We’ll be in booth 318 near the middle of the hall. Stop by to see for yourself, or come to the product demo Saturday morning in the exhibit hall.

Today’s featured preview is my personal favorite. TNG now comes with three new templates!

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Along with the three new templates comes a new way of selecting your templates. Just click on “Show Previews” and you can see a thumbnail preview of how your site will look in all fourteen included templates quickly and easily!

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We hope you’ve enjoyed reading the feature previews and if you’ll be at RootsTech, please stop by and say hello!

TNG10 Features: Customization Options

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The “Show/Hide Events” mod originally written by Jeff Robison has been incorporated, meaning that you can configure your Custom Event Types so that some of them start “collapsed” (all lines hidden except the top one).
Visitors may still expand those lines at will.

There are two ways to set this. It can be done on each custom event individually:

CustomEventAdmin

Of you can do it in bulk by clicking the ones you want to display collapsed and choosing the button at the top to collapse:

CollapseEventBulk

Here’s what it looks like before and after. There’s only a small amount of data here, but if you had a large amount of text to display, this would make a real difference:

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TNG10 Feature Preview: See you Thursday!

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Thursday marks the first day the RootsTech exhibit hall is open, and also the first day you can get your hands on TNG10. We will be in booth 318 near the middle of the hall, come by and see it in action for yourself!

Labeling individuals and families to create branches is now easier than ever. In the edit branch area, you start by choosing an individual as the “starting individual” and then define any number of ancestor or descendant generations. You can append a new label, replace labels, or remove labels if you no longer want to use the branch designation.

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Can’t remember what you did before? You can choose to show the people included in the branch when editing a branch:

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There is now a public “Branches” page (found under the “Info” menu), which shows a little detail for each branch you have created.

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TNG10 New Feature of the day

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Don’t you hate it when you get a million search results, and you have to keep clicking “next results” a million times to get to results you KNOW are in the middle? Not any more! TNG pagination of search results now has the ability to “jump to” a certain page of search results. Just one of the little things that makes life much easier!

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TNG10 Feature Previews

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Looking forward to seeing all our users at RootsTech! Stop by our booth and be among the first to upgrade to TNG10.

Today we are highlighting another simple change that makes the TNG experience so much easier. TNG10 now allows admins to export just a specific branch, and has the option to exclude or include living or private people. Your Site. Your Choice.

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TNG 10 Features Preview: One week to go!

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Only one week to go until TNG10 is available in a special presale for RootsTech attendees! If you can’t be at RootsTech, you will have to wait another week.

Today’s featured spotlight is another simple one that makes things easier. No more doing the math to figure out how old an ancestor lived! If a person’s birth and death years are known, the person’s age will now be displayed under their name on the individual page, next to their birth/death years. Age will also be displayed for spouse, parents, and children when birth and death years are known. Attention to little details like this is what makes TNG stand out from other web site options.

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