2012-01-21 Family Tree Maker 2012 Fan Value
Family Tree Maker Fan Value
New Family Tree Maker
Because the ostensible GEDCOM files it writes aren't valid GEDCOM files, the fan value of Family Tree Maker 2012 is zero.
Family Tree Maker 2012
Despite using the same name, Family Tree Maker 2012 is not even part of the same product family as Family Tree Maker 16. The Family Tree Maker 2012 GEDCOM dialect is different from the Family Tree Maker 16 GEDCOM dialect.
Although GEDCOM 5.5.1 dates from the previously millennium, Ancestry.com's Family Tree Maker 2012 still does not support it.
When I tried to import FAN1.GED into Family Tree Maker 2012, it complained Line 22 : error 4 : Invalid tag: WWW. Line ignored.
.
The WWW tag isn't a GEDCOM error, the inability to recognise and import it is a Family Tree Maker limitation.
Despite the erroneouos errror message, Family Tree Maker does import the data.
The real problem is that Family Tree Maker 2012 does not export valid GEDCOM files.
Although Family Tree Maker 2012 and Family Tree Maker 16 are different product,
Family Tree Maker 2012 seems to have inherited a basic mistake from Family Tree Maker 16 anyway.
Like Family Tree Maker Classic, the GEDCOM output from New Family Tree Maker has a HEAD.SOUR.VERS value that is too long.
I first remarked upon this in An Early Look At FTM 2008 Beta, but Ancestry still hasn't fixed it. This is a simple and easily fixed defect, but it already makes every ostensible GEDCOM files that Family Tree Maker 2011 generates invalid.
Family Tree Maker 2011
Family Tree Maker 2011's GEDCOM export is still less capable than the Family Tree Maker 16 GEDCOM export.
Family Tree Maker 16 lets you pick a character encoding, and among the choices is the legal ANSEL encoding, Family Tree Maker 2011 does not let you pick a character encoding, it supports only the illegal Windows ANSI character set.
Family Tree Maker 2011 is the fourth major version of New Family Tree Maker, yet it still does not do things that Family Tree Maker 16 does.
Family Tree Maker 16 supports ANSEL-encoded GEDCOM files, Family Tree Maker 2011 still does not.
Moreover, although Family Tree Maker 2011 is based on Unicode technology, making it trivial to add support for UTF-8, Family Tree Maker 2011 still does not export UTF-8 GEDCOM either.
Family Tree Maker 2011 does not export valid GEDCOM files.
Therefore, Family Tree Maker 2011's fan value is zero.
Family Tree Maker 2012
0 HEAD
1 SOUR FTM
...
1 CHAR UTF-8
...
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
...
Family Tree Maker 2012, the fifth version of New Family Tree Maker, has finally addressed this fundamental shortcoming of New Family Tree Maker.
When you decide to export a GEDCOM file in Family Tree Maker 2012, Family Tree Maker 2012 lets you pick an encoding before picking a file name.
The Export to GEDCOM
pop-up dialog box on top of the Export
dialog box is awkward, but this test is only about the fan value, not the user interface.
The Export
dialog box has not changed.
It still lists GEDCOM 5.5
as a choice, when it should be offering GEDCOM 5.5.1
.
When you pick GEDCOM 5.5
, the destination defaults to FTM16
and the character set defaults to the illegal ANSI
.
When you pick Other
as the destination and UTF-8
as the encoding, the result is still not valid.
The GEDCOM header states that the file is UTF-8 encoded.
The fan value files deliberately use nothing but ASCII characters to avoid challenging the UTF-8 support in any way,
yet Ancestry.com managed to mess it up nonetheless.
The GEDCOM header that Family Tree Maker 2012 produces claims that the file is an UTF-8 GEDCOM 5.5 file.
That is not possible.
GEDCOM 5.5 does not allow the UTF-8 encoding.
Only GEDCOM 5.5.1 allows UTF-8 encoding.
To use UTF-8, the header should declare GEDCOM version 5.5.1.
This particular Family Tree Maker defect can be avoided be exporting to ASCII.
That is not a recommended choice in general, but it will do for this test.
0 HEAD
1 SOUR FTM
2 VERS Family Tree Maker (21.0.0.388)
2 NAME Family Tree Maker for Windows
...
1 DEST GED55
...
1 CHAR ASCII
...
However, even choosing to export to ASCII does not produce a valid GEDCOM file yet.
That Family Tree Maker makes up the non-existent GED55 as a destination is wrong.
That the version number is longer than allowed because it still includes the product name makes the GEDCOM header invalid.
conclusion
The first four versions of New Family Tree Maker (FTM 2008 through 2011) do not support any character encoding but the illegal Windows ANSI.
Family Tree Maker 2012 finally adds support for UTF-8, but in an illegal way.
Exporting to ASCII instead of UTF-8 avoids that particular FTM 2012 defect, but still does not produce a valid GEDCOM file.
Both Family Tree Maker 16 and Family Tree Maker 2012, the latest versions of Family Tree Maker Classic and New Family Tree Maker respectively,
always write a HEAD.SOUR.VERS value that is too long.
That makes the GEDCOM header invalid.
This long-standing and easy to fix defect has been pointed out several times already, yet still has not been fixed.
Because the ostensible GEDCOM files it writes aren't valid GEDCOM files, the fan value of Family Tree Maker 2012 is zero.
links
- Genealogy Software Performance Testing
- GedFan
- The Fan Value
- GEDCOM Validation
- Family Tree Maker 2011 GEDCOM Torture Test Results
- Family Tree Maker on Vista 64-bit
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.