Family Historian User Group

This request will be answered if I can be assured that there is no problem in running multiple copies of FH when entering data.
I use two screens for work and CAD software allows multiple active windows that can be dragged across two or three screens. The same facility would be useful in FH but you cannot drag a screen out of the program enclosure window (except for Properties). I do therefore run two copies of FH side by side sometimes but have always resisted entering or changing data in situation.
The screens that I want open together are the Records list, the focus list and the named list
Because the data is in a single .GED file could I perhaps use multiple copies successfully together?

Peter Williams

First problem you would have is Autosave running in background. Each instance would overwrite the other.

Have you tried expanding the workspace across two monitors.

Just spread your FH windows across thew multiple monitors and then Just tile them. Window>Tile
Also don't forget you can float the property box to another screen if you have multiple monitors, it's what I used to do before I got an ultrawide monitor.

To answer David's point about Autosave, it is NOT a major problem.
Autosave is only activated if there have been any changes, so if nothing is changed nothing is Autosaved.
Whenever there is an Autosave or a File > Save in one instance of FH, the other instance of FH will detect the GEDCOM change and request you to update that instance of FH.
So all should be OK if you only change one instance of FH at a time and follow that with a File > Save.
That mechanism is exactly the same as when Ancestral Sources updates the GEDCOM file and FH detects that.

Just to complete the picture, what is more problematic is running an instance of FH simultaneously on two different PC synchronised via cloud storage such as OneDrive or Dropbox. It may work, or it may not, but in any case, it is in violation of the licence terms.

Thank you Dave, Jane and Mike.

My preferred solution will be to run two copies because I am slowly going through FT Analyzer's Errors /Fixes and I need to have FindMyPast ;TheGenealogist plus occasionally Ancestry running alongside plus the Family Search map of Parishes to add notes in FH for when I'm gone. I only use the Cloud for archival purposes as I have children both sides of the Atlantic.

Slightly off topic but something I learnt recently that is useful when you have multiple windows across multiple screens: if you hold down the Windows and shift keys, the cursor keys will move the current window from one screen to another.