Family Historian User Group

A tried to follow the advice in 'Move Family Historian Settings'. This advice could be improved - I spent hours trying to understand it. Here is some feedback on the problems I had.

FIRST Windows Easy Transfer did not work because my new PC has a small C: drive and keeps most date on E:.
SECOND I could not find a relevant plug in in the plug in store.
THIRD It took a while to locate the Calico Pie directory and copy it to my new computer (it was in C:UsersPublic Documents. Copying this directory did not bring my main GED file in. So I did a full back up and copied it to the new PC. But I could not open it. When I try to open the backup file at the 'Select File to Restore' screen it will not open it - it does nothing. In the right hand box it says No items match your search. In the left hand box I see the backup file exactly as created - FH Gedcom Backup - Treanor family tree - 2012-04-08 2332. In the end I found the GED file and copied and imported that.
FOURTH Then I tried to follow the instructions to transfer my Diagram Settings and got stuck at the instruction 'open your new Custom Diagram Type' because it does not explain how to do that. It took me about 40 minutes to find out how. It would be helpful to tell people how to do this via View>Custom Diagram Types.
FIFTH I have now got FH working on my new PC, and am giving this feedback in the hope of helping others. I would still like to know how to restore from a full backup - what is the point in backing up if I cannot restore from it?

Dave


ID:6406

Feel free to edit the page to improve the advice. That's the point of a wiki page - it is written by users like you and I. Remember that without the thoughtfulness of other users (in this case a number of people, but most recently Tatewise), this page wouldn't have existed.

Thank you for your feedback - as Nick says you can improve the Knowledge Base yourself.

FIRST  Windows Easy Transfer did not work because my new PC has a small C: drive and keeps most date on E:.

Windows Easy Transfer can transfer your data files from any drive to any drive, but you only get the option if the drive letters on old PC don't match the drive letters on new PC. Admittedly it is fiddly

SECOND I could not find a relevant plug in in the plug in store.

The Plugin is Backup and Restore Family Historian Settings.

THIRD It took a while to locate the Calico Pie directory and copy it to my new computer (it was in C:UsersPublic Documents.

In Move Family Historian Settings it says 'Remember that if you are moving from 2000 or XP to Vista or Windows 7 you will copy the Calico Pie folder from C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication Data into C:ProgramData'. These are the default locations. Did you check them? What Windows OS were you using?

Copying this directory did not bring my main GED file in.

Move Family Historian Settings is for moving preference settings, not the Project data, which it is assumed most users know has to be copied across.

FOURTH Then I tried to follow the instructions to transfer my Diagram Settings and got stuck at the instruction 'open your new Custom Diagram Type' because it does not explain how to do that. It took me about 40 minutes to find out how.  It would be helpful to tell people how to do this via View>Custom Diagram Types.

Fair comment.

FIFTH  I have now got FH working on my new PC, and am giving this feedback in the hope of helping others.  I would still like to know how to restore from a full backup - what is the point in backing up if I cannot restore from it?

What you have done is open the Backup .zip file in the left hand panel. If you navigate up to the parent folder, then the Backup .zip file will appear in right hand panel, and you can Restore it.

I have now managed to use restore.

But I am still having problems with my diagram settings. I created a custom diagram type and named it Vaio Settings. I imported it into FH on the new computer. I picked someone at random and opened an ancestry diagram, and went to View>Custom Diagram Type>Vaio Settings and clicked OK which changed the appearance of the diagram to match the way I had them. I followed the next instruction and clicked on Diagram>Options and checked Save as default and clicked OK.
But this only changed this particular diagram for this particular person. It did not change any of the other standard diagrams or change it for any other person. This is not what I understood by 'Only one Custom Diagram Type settings file is needed because all Default Settings apply to all five Standard Diagrams'.

What am I doing wrong? Or is it not possible to restore the default diagram settings from my old PC to my new one?

Dave

You say

I picked someone at random and opened an ancestry diagram, and went to View>Custom Diagram Type>Vaio Settings

If you literally did that, there would be two Diagrams open :- (1) Default Ancestry Diagram & (2) Custom Vaio Settings Diagram.

In which one did you tick the Save as default option, and click OK?

Try it again, but only use View > Custom Diagram Type > Vaio Settings and tick its Save as default option.

When you are viewing your chosen diagram click on the menu item 'Diagram' then, 'Settings', 'Save as default settings'.