Back in the middle of 2007, I wrote about my first try of a new genealogy
application, Geves by Gevesoft. The website billed Geves as a new concept in
Family History Software
, and the Ultimate Genealogy Software
. Bold claims like
that beg for a review.
Although the version number was already 1.1, what I tested was really the beta
before the release of version 1.0. Gevesoft announced the release of 1.0
about
two months later.
I merely tried to import and export a simple GEDCOM file, but experienced serious problems already. When they released 1.0, I tried again, and noticed no improvement. Early this year, Shelly of Twigs of Yore reviewed Geves, and noticed that none of the defects I had noticed seemed to have been fixed yet. I had another quick look at version 1.3.28, and agreed with her.
The Geves home page no longer claims that Geves is the ultimate genealogy
software. It now claims that Geves is The Genealogy Software - Interactive,
Easy, Flexible
. The Geves product page still claims that Geves is a new
concept, and still fails to explain why that is so; there is nothing new or
ground-breaking on that page and that seems to be nothing new or groundbreaking in
the application either.
Gevesoft just made the beta for Geves 2.0 available for download. Once again, the actual version number is already past 2.0; I downloaded and tried version 2.0.10. According to their release notes page, version 2.0.10 is entirely Unicode-based now. So, it should be able to handle any character, but has the GEDCOM support improved?
The online help does not seem to document Geves' GEDCOM support at all. I started by importing a few small GEDCOM files to figure out what character sets and encodings it supports.
A general problem I immediately noticed is that Geves shares a few design
errors with several other applications; when it does not recognise a
non-standard GEDCOM tag, it will not ignore the tag, as the GEDCOM specification
allows, and tell you about by adding a note to the import log. It adds the tags
and any value that tag has to your database as a note.
Geves showed off three serious design mistakes and limitations within
seconds of starting the first import attempt; it still does not create a GEDCOM import log, it interrupts the import to displays pop-ups that pause
the import until the user clicks OK and it modifies your database by adding notes for tags it does not recognise.
| in | encoding |
|---|---|
| N | ASCII |
| N | ANSEL |
| N | UTF-8 |
| N | UTF-16 |
The results of these quick import test where rather disappointing. Geves does
still not support ASCII GEDCOM files. Geves still does not support ANSEL GEDCOM
files. Gevesoft claims that Geves 2.0 is Unicode-based but it still does not
import UTF-8 GEDCOM files. It does not matter whether the UTF-8 GEDCOM files
stars with a Byte Order Mark or not, Geves still doesn't support UTF-8 at all.
After that impressive list of failures, it will come as no surprise that Geves
does not support UTF-16 either.
Not only does Geves 2.0, fail these basic tests, what's even worse is that it pretends to succeeds. It does not admit that it does not know how to handle ASCII, ANSEL or UTF-8. It mangles the data during import and then
pretends the import succeeded!
The only file that Geves 2.0 imported without mangling it, uses the Windows ANSI encoding, but ANSI GEDCOM files aren't true GEDCOM files. ANSI GEDCOM files are illegal. Geves 2.0's GEDCOM support is at the same ridiculously low level as that of Family Historian; 0 % GEDCOM support. Geves does not support GEDCOM at all.
0 HEAD
1 SOUR
2 VERS 2.0.10
2 NAME Geves
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 CHAR ASCII
1 _SDEF Sep:: #
2 CONT TabSep: #
2 CONT ExAll:TRUE
2 CONT
| out | encoding |
|---|---|
| N | ASCII |
| N | ANSEL |
| N | UTF-8 |
| N | UTF-16 |
Not only is Geves still unable to import legal GEDCOM files, its own GEDCOM output is still horrible. It claims to write ASCII GEDCOM files (which would be needlessly limiting but legal), but actually writes ANSI GEDCOM files that it mislabels ASCII GEDCOM files. Using one encoding while claiming to be using another is the embarrassing blunder that made Brother's Keeper infamous with developers of other genealogy software.
When you look at the GEDCOM header, you immediately notice that Geves uses non-standard GEDCOM tags in the header. That is somewhat odd, and I do not recommend it as a general practice, but it is legal. I looked around a bit for some documentation on these extensions, but that seems to be non-existent.
Version 1.0 omitted the GEDCOM version number. The GEDCOM header written by version 2.0 does include a version number, and claims the GEDCOM file is GEDCOM version 5.5. I wonder whether it is true, but it does not matter; the character encoding blunder already makes the output unusable. I do know that it would be wrong if it were true. A Unicode-based genealogy application should be using version 5.5.1 and output UTF-8 GEDCOM files.
There are more little issues with the header. There is the SOUR tag, but
without a source. What's more, there is no DEST tag at all.
This header is far from complete. There is no CORP tag, no COPR tag, no FILE
tag, no SUBM tag, it does not even list the date and time of creation. It seems
that Gevesoft simply does not care to create a correct GEDCOM header.
Another thing that I consider unacceptable is that Geves adds a number of repositories to every database you create, whether you use these or not, whether you like that or not, and that all these show up in every GEDCOM file you export. Create an database, leave it empty, export it to GEDCOM and you get a list of predefined repositories that you never put in there. That is so disrespectful.
Some 2½ years passed between the release of the 1.0 and 2.0 betas. After looking at both, I am left wondering what Gevesoft has been doing in all that time. They certainly haven't improved Geves much. The GEDCOM import still doesn't work and the GEDCOM output is still rubbish. This unfinished product is still as dismal as it was back then. The lack of significant improvement after such a long time leaves little hope for the future.
| property | value |
|---|---|
| product | Geves |
| version | 2.0.10 |
| company | Gevesoft Ltd |
| website | Gevesoft |
| price | £25 for the Standard Edition, £45 for the Deluxe Edition |
| requirements | Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista |
| note | |
| Verdict | Unfinished. |
| Rating | Dismal. |
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.