2016-02-17 TreeView

Quick First Look

TreeView

TreeView is genealogy application published by S&N Genealogy Supplies, a company in the United Kingdom. They just introduced TreeView Premium Edition.
If you had not heard of it before, their recent announcement might make you think that TreeView is a completely new product. It is not. TreeView has been around for years.

TreeView Basic and TreeView Premium Edition

S&N Genealogy Supplies just announced the availability of TreeView Basic and TreeView Premium Edition. TreeView Basic is just TreeView, TreeView Premium Edition is a bundle that includes TreeView with a printed Quick Start Manual, 4 months of diamond access to www.TheGenealogist.co.uk, and several publications, to wit Cassell’s Gazetteer of Great Britain & Ireland 1893, The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, and Landowner Records.

The introduction of the TreeView for the desktop completes the multi-platform offering.

S&N Genealogy started TreeView out as an online genealogy hosting service back in 2009. It is available on the TreeView website and on www.theGenealogist.co.uk. This online product is now called TreeView Online to distinguish it from other TreeView products. Early in 2014, they introduced the TreeView app, for both Apple iOS and Google Android. The introduction of the TreeView for the desktop completes the multi-platform offering.

download & installation

You can buy a license from S&N Genealogy, or head over to their TreeView site to download a 3-day free trial copy. TreeView is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. Windows users can choose between a 32-bit and 64-bit setup. I downloaded and installed the 64-bit variant.

version 1.3.7

S&N genealogy supplies did not rush to announce the availability of TreeView. While their recent announcement might lead you to expect to download version 1.0, they actually waited until version 1.3.7 to announce it.

The installer allows you to change the installation path, but you should not have to do so, because it defaults to the correct directory. The installers create a Program Group (Start Menu folder) called TreeView, but allows you to rename it. It default to creating a desktop shortcut, but allows you to uncheck that option. It even allows you to uncheck the program's association with the file extension *.tvdb - that's TVDB for TreeView DataBase.

TreeView isn't a native Windows application, but a Java application.

The installers shows the names of the files it is installing while installing them, and I immediately noticed multiple files with extension *.jar; TreeView isn't a native Windows application, but a Java application.

starting up

Every time you start TreeView, it shows a Welcome dialog that offers three options:

activate the premium edition with your license key
use the 30-day free trial
purchase a license now, within the 30-day trial

Choosing the last option opens a web page, which TreeView Download Edition (apparently another name for TreeView Basic Edition) for £ 14,95 instead of £ 254,95, and the Premium edition (with all the extras) for £ 29,95 instead of £ 39,95.

options

After clicking away the Welcome Dialog box, I explored the menus and options, and was saddened to notice a few misfeatures. TreeView can check for updates and news on start-up, which is good, but these options have been enabled without asking your permission, and that is wrong. I'm OK with it happening, so I left these options checked. TreeView also defaults to opening the previously active project, an option that can be problematic when loading that project takes a long time or makes the program crash, so I disabled that option.

What's really upsetting is the available of an option that allows you to set placeholders for unknown forenames and surnames. That is plain wrong (see FNU LNU MNU UNK for an entire article about placeholders that includes clear naming guidelines).

GEDCOM import

The GEDCOM import dialog box is fairly simple. It fails to provided a default project name, you have to type one yourself.
The GEDCOM import dialog box has some unusual options. There is Sync with TreeView / TheGenealogist Tree online checkbox. While that box is checked, there are three radio buttons that lets you choose between a private tree, invitation-only tree and public tree.
These are project synchronisation options that do not belong in a GEDCOM import dialog box, but in a project options dialog box. It would also be nice if the Preference Dialog box let you set project defaults, so you do not have to set them for every individual project.

user interface

Many buttons and menus are enabled once you've started a project. There are 8 tree views; Pedigree, Family, Hourglass, Ancestors, Descendants, Relationship, Full, Fan and Circle.
TreeView defaults to the pedigree view. There are two sliders at the bottom of the view; one slider lets you choose the zoom level, another slider lets you choose how many generations to display. The default settings for these have not been thought through, it opened on a TreeView with the second generation disappearing behind the window border. The view does not automatically resize with the window either; whenever you reseize the window, you'll have to change the zoom level manually to make the tree fit the window again.
A quick check of the other views confirmed the suspicion that none of them respond to resizing the program window.

GEDCOM export

The GEDCOM export dialog box is fairly straightforward too. There are some options for privatising living people, including private facts, private notes and media links, and all have good defaults. The export format option should be relabeled character encoding, and have its default changed. TreeView default to ANSI encoding, which is not just a bad choice, but an illegal choice too. TreeView supports ASCII and UTF-8, but does not support ANSEL. TreeView is a Java program, which implies it is a Unicode program, and should default to UTF-8. I changed the setting from ANSI to UTF-8 before choosing the OK button. TreeView fails to provide a default file, you explicitly have to choose one yourself.

0 HEAD
1 SOUR TreeView
2 VERS 1.3.7
2 NAME TreeView
2 CORP British Data Archive
3 ADDR West Wing
4 CONT Manor Farm
4 CONT Chilmark
4 CONT Wiltshire
4 CONT UK
4 CONT SP3 5AF
3 PHON 01722 716121
3 WWW www.theGenealogist.co.uk
1 DEST TreeView
1 DATE 17 feb 2016
1 SUBM @1@
1 FILE ENFAN1.ged
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 CHAR UTF-8
0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME  /one/
2 SURN one
1 SEX U
0 @1@ SUBM
1 NAME The Gedcom Fan Creator 0.4.0.0
1 ADDR GedFan
2 CONT , , 
2 CONT 
2 ADR1 GedFan
2 CITY 
2 STAE 
2 POST 
2 CTRY 
1 PHON 
1 FAX 
1 EMAIL 
1 WWW https://www.tamurajones.net/GedFan.xhtml
0 TRLR

TreeView 1.3.7 GEDCOM

Despite trying to save TreeView from an invalid GEDCOM file by choosing UTF-8, the GEDCOM file it exports is still invalid. TreeView lies that it using GEDCOM 5.5, while it actually uses GEDCOM 5.5.1. This is evident from the header alone, which uses the WWW tag, one of the tags introduced in GEDCOM 5.5.1, and reinforced by the use use of the EMAIL tag for the submitter.
Note that the company address is an old-style address that relies on CONT, while the submitter address is a new style address. The output of empty address lines is a mistake; empty address fields should not be output. The repetition of the ADDR value on the ADR1 line is another mistake.

ANSEL?

The lack of ANSEL support on GEDCOM export made me wonder whether TreeView supports ANSEL on GEDCOM import. A quick test confirmed my suspicion that the answer is no - TreeView does not support ANSEL. Even worse, TreeView is not honest about it. TreeView creates a log upon import, but says nothing about not recognising or not supporting ANSEL. TreeView pretends that import went just fine, when it actually mangled the test string: a note that should been imported as Test äëüïö, âêûô ANSEL was imported as Test èaèeèuèièo, ãaãeãuão ANSEL. Apparently, the developers of TreeView think it is OK to import legal ANSEL GEDCOM files as if they are illegal ANSI GEDCOM files.

It is not particularly important for a new and Unicode-based application to support ANSEL on export; in fact, nowadays supporting nothing but UTF-8 is preferable. However, it should definitely support import of ANSEL GEDCOM files to allow input from legacy programs. Not even recognising an ANSEL GEDCOM file, and bluntly importing it as if it were an ANSI GEDCOM file is far from OK.

capacity

Because TreeView does not even produce a valid GEDCOM header, TreeView's fan value is zero, but I was still curious how well it handle a medium size file. When I tried to import ENFAN16.GED, I was briefly surprised to get a dialog box asking me to log in with my TreeView (website) account. This happens every time you forget to uncheck that annoying Sync with TreeView / TheGenealogist Tree online checkbox.
Import of ENFAN16.GED took slightly more than a half a minute, which is reasonable performance, but when it TreeView was done importing, the Windows Task Manager showed it be using 468.968 KB already - close to half a gigabyte, and that is way too much for a GEDCOM file that's only 12.450.893 bytes. TreeView's memory usage is 468.968 × 1024 / 12.450.893 = 38,57 times the size of the GEDCOM file, while GEDCOM is space-inefficient format already.

That TreeView needs almost half a gigabyte for a small file like ENFAN16.GED, with only 65.535 INDI records in it, suggests that it may not be able to handle much more than that, especially not if you are using the 32-bit edition. Import of ENFAN18.GED (56.105.137 bytes) took just a few minutes, but when TreeView was done, it was using 978.232 KB - close to a gigabyte.
By the way, that single number shown by Windows Task Manager is a simplification, and the Resource Monitor shows TreeView to be using slightly more than one gigabyte.

consistency checks

I like that even the first release of TreeView includes consistency checks. I wish more vendors understood how important that feature is. I am not undividedly enthusiastic about the fact that TreeView insists on running the consistency checks as the last phase of the import. I agree with the sentiment behind this decision, but don't like imports that do more than import, and don't like to see more time added to the import function either.

I toyed with TreeView for hours, and it did not crash once. That simple fact alone puts TreeView several notches above the typical one-dot-zero product.

sluggish

I toyed with TreeView for a few hours, and it did not crash once. That simple fact alone puts TreeView several notches above the typical one-dot-zero product.
Like many Java programs, the products is sluggish and memory-hungry, something you are not likely to notice with small a database, but will notice when you have a large database. TreeView may even fail to repaint its window for minutes (!) when you merely try to switch from one view to another, only to switch to a Progress dialog box showing Loading that stays there so long that you decided to kill the program. TreeView is so sluggish when you try it with a large database that it seems to me that the developers never tested TreeView with anything but small and tiny files. The developers really need to focus on performance. Even with medium size genealogies, the sluggishness is a noticeable issue, something S&N Genealogy would have known if they had they asked genealogists to Beta test the product with their own database.

TreeView Fan View

I want to like this product. It has a relationship view instead of relationship calculator; it does not merely tell, but shows you the relationship between two individuals. It includes my favourite chart, the fan chart, as one of it views, and that really is a view, not just a chart - you can edit every individual on there. The performance of that view is excellent too, even when I slide that number of generations to display all the way to right, to the maximum of 10 generations. I suspect that it could easily handle 12 or 14 generations, but the slider won't allow me to test that.
So, here is the odd thing about TreeView performance; with a medium-sized file like ENFAN16.GED, performance of the Fan view is fine, and performance of the Circle view is fine too; you don't see the program drawing the view, it seems to be there instantaneously there. However, switching from Fan View to Circle view is not instantaneous at all, it takes about four seconds on my 3 GHz quad-core with hyperthreading. With some other views, the switching time is even longer, leading me to suspect that TreeView is calculating the view without showing an hourglass cursor or progress dialog box to tell us so - and in program that gives an overall impression of being fairly polished, the likeliest explanation for the absence of both of these is that the developers did not realise they needed to add that, because they never tried the program with anything but small and tiny files. A few seconds delay every time you switch views is more than enough to be annoying, so I would not want to try on this on the average laptop.

I tried importing my own database, hoping to try out the consistency checks, but after about 20 or 25 minutes of trying to import the GEDCOM, TreeView failed to load it. TreeView did not crash; it noticed its own failure to import and displayed a rather optimistic Try again messagebox instead. I recall a certain definition of insanity, and decided to not try again, at least not with this version.

TreeView is ready for a Public Beta, but not ready for Prime Time.

conclusion

TreeView offers a nice set of initial features, multiple views, it is part of a multi-platform product and even first release includes consistency checks. TreeView is marred by views not adapting to the window size, the incomplete and faulty GEDCOM import, the somewhat defective GEDCOM output, overall sluggishness and high memory usage. Then again, TreeView is stable; it never crashed, and never showed a Java run-time error either. So, all in all, I have no problem concluding that this makes a darn good Public Beta release.
However, S&N Genealogy Supplies did not release version 1.3.7 as a Public Beta, but as a commercial product. TreeView is ready for a Public Beta, but not ready for Prime Time. Its user-interface, responsiveness, memory usage, and GEDCOM support all need more work.

updates

2016-12-07: TreeView 2

S&N Genealogy Supplies has introduced TreeView 2 already. There are some new reports, but the improvements are mostly in user-interface and usability features such as linked chart, drag & drop mapping, and improved search.