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This article will discuss installing a project so that its operation is completely independent of any other project on the TMG system. It is expected that anyone reading this understands the TMG data management design instituted under version 6. That is, user data had been divided into three categories of System Program Data (SPD), User Program Data (UPD), and User Data (UD). The UD folder contains the base project in folder "projects" and its supportive data folders such as configuration files, repeat files, report files, timelines and others as identified in its preferences-advanced section of the project. Filters and accents reside in the project's "Projects" folder and the project's custom layout and custom toolbar resides in the UPD folder. The data isolation technique to be discussed employs file data_paths.txt to cause total project data isolation. If you are not aware of these TMG data management principals or the impact of using the data_paths.txt file, you need to bone up on this. This is not a suggestion, it is an "order"! Once you have read them, do it again, about five times, until you think you really understand, its that important. Suggest this so that you have an understanding for possible problem solving later on. It will be good for you to understand what the system looked like under which this technique was installed. First, the default install of TMG was not used. Version 7 of TMG was installed under folder "TMG7" using a data_paths.txt file in folder "The Master Genealogist v7" to do so. Yes, I constructed that folder before the install
C:\TMG7\The Master Genealogist v7\data_paths.txt
To get to this point, you already use preference paths and have isolated your project's "Projects" folder to its own unique folder positioned beneath the default "Projects" folder. Or, you have positioned a shortcut link in the default "projects" folder pointing to the project's "Projects" folder located elsewhere on your computer (this installation uses shortcuts). If this is not the case, and you have not project isolated your "Projects" folders, you are taking a rather large leap, that is, learning curve, to project-operational-isolation. I personally do not think you are ready for this. Not that you can't implement this technique, but you will have difficulty in solving operational issues that may arise down the road. What you have accomplished, up to this point, you have isolated the project's "Projects" folder, and by doing so, have isolated your filters and accents. You have also isolated your preference path folders containing the projects supportive data, such as report/backup/restore configurations. Now you wish to isolate the project's layout and toolbar residing in the UPD folder. If this is not the case, this article may not be for you. Before I start, let me make a disclaimer. What I am about to explain may not be the best way to do it, or the only way to do it, or the right way to do it, but it is the only way I have found to do it. As we go on, will explain how my installation is set up. You can explore it and analyze it, then determine if this approach is right for you. If not, sorry I could not be of help. The major considerations in the approach explained here are first, to obtain total project operational isolation and second, simplicity both in operation and in use. The former was a must, the latter, a desire. This installation uses custom project level toolbars rather than a program level toolbar. What this means is a project level toolbar contains shortcuts that apply to a specific project. A program level toolbar contain shortcuts that apply to all projects, at least to most projects. Initially did this to speed up data entry. Found it to be much easier to select "obituary" from my left side positioned toolbar with the tag window immediate presented, rather than select "Add", then "add a tag", then select the tag. So, each projects toolbar contains shortcuts to its most used tags for quick selection. Lately, have added my most used system utilities such as a particular backup configuration, find by picklist, find by number, special report configuration, add a person and others depending upon the project.
Another item you need to understand to be able to do this is a file called "data_paths.txt". If you are a bit short of understanding in how it is used by the TMG program, go into TMG HELP, search for it and read the articles. You will see that you can establish an SPD, UPD and UD folder for the system and one SPD, UPD, and UD folder for each user on the system. Without the individual folders definition, all users share the same SPD, UPD, UD folders. Where to start? How about back in the beginning. It is not my desire to have the TMG program reside in the default "program" folder. Why, I just don't like it residing there if I am gong to manage it, and in this case I am. Especially I don't like that LOOONG path. To isolate the installation, on my C drive, established a folder with a file name of "TMG7". You can put it anywhere that user data is allowed. Accomplished this by establishing the program default folder inder folder "TMG7" before installing the TMG program. In any case, if you isolate the install or use the default install, we will be using the default TMG folder by the name of "The Master Genealogist v?" where ? is the version number of the TMG system, say version 8 or 7 or 6. This makes this technique version dependent and each time the TMG version changes, you will need to change the default program folder's name. It is in this default "The Master Genealogist v?" folder you place the "data_paths.txt file". The file used looked like this: C:\TMG7\the master genealogist v7\data_paths.txt
After installation you will see this.
The user also has the option to add the data_paths.txt file to the default "The Master Genealogist v7" folder after the program is installed and before it is opened. If I wait to do it to after the program has been opened, I loose track of where the defaults are, and there seem to be just to may "The Master Genealogist v7" folder hanging around. In this case, on this system, the installation of the TMG system has the default program folder located under the folder named "TMG7". The problem we are trying to overcome is when we access a project, say, "civilwar", we want the project to be presented with its unique layout and toolbar. This means we need a special "data_path.txt" file which points to a unique UPD folder which contains the project's unique layout and toolbar. Most importantly, we want this layout and toolbar to be visible when the project is first presented. Presently, you already know that the layout and toolbar initially presented is probably the wrong one. You are then required to manually select the appropriate layout, the crux of our problem. What we need then is when we start the TMG program, the data_paths.txt file in "The Master Genealogist V?" default program folder that the program initally reads needs to contains the SPD definition and the UPD definition that points to our project and only our project. ProjectA needs it definition, projectB needs it definition, and projectC needs it definition. This is to say, we need to change the contents of the data_paths.txt file in the default program folder to contain the SPD, and UPD definition of our isolated project before we access the project. This is accomplished by establishing a "data.paths.txt" file, one for each project we wish to isolate. A sample of one such definition is:
Create such a file for each project you need to isolate. The "TMGcivilwar" would be changed to your project's folder name. Created these files in the "TMG7" folder.
Where are we at with this? (1) The user has already identified unique preference path folders for the project.
I use an external drive where backups are placed and use the default timelines folder but data_paths.txt requires these two folders to exist, they will be empty, but they must exist or they will be created. (2) The user has isolated the "Projects" folder for the project.
(3) The user has created a unique "data_paths.txt" file for the project. My file is placed in the installation folder (TMG7) - c:\TMG7\TMGcivilwar_data_paths.txt. What the user needs to do now is when TMG is started, the program use the project's ‘data_paths.txt" file, not the one that is residing in the default "The Master Genealogist v?" folder. The user needs for the "data_paths.txt" file residing in folder "The Master Genealogist v?" to be replaced with the project's "TMGcivilwar_data_paths.txt" before TMG is executed. (4) This will be accomplished by establishing a DOS BAT file which copies the contents of the project's "TMGcivilwar_data_paths.txt" file and place its contents into the data_paths.txt file residing into the default program folder before the TMG program is started. To do this, a DOS file is created with a BAT extension which looks like.
You will need to change "TMGcivilwar" to your project name. You would construct a similar bat file for each project that needs to be isolated.
(5) Lastly, an icon must be established on the desk top, one for each project that is being isolated, and one for all other projects. To do this, right clicked on the TMG icon and selected "make shortcut". Using the copied icon: (a) renamed it to identify the project. In this case will use "civilwar" (b) right click on the icon and select properties. You will see two lines, among others, "target" and "start in". "Target" you will change the path/file name to the project's BAT file (TMGcivilwar_copy_data_paths.bat). "Start in" you will change to identify the folder in which the project's BAT file resides (C:\TMG7). The first time you select the icon to have TMG present the project to you, the project's SPD folder and UPD folders will be created and populated. Your UD folder already exists.
(6) Your custom tool bar and layout will not be accessible as they reside in the default UPD folder and you just created a new one. You will need to copy the toolbar and layout from the default UPD folder or do a restore, layout and toolbar only. You will probably desire the project to be presented without any further mouse selection. Go into the projects preferences and change or make sure the default project path points to the "Projects" folder as this will deter the user of the project from accidentally opening another project and have that project use this projects data. Lastly, make sure the welcome window is turned off. There will be no need to project select and "last" will always open the project, so these will be unnecessary actions. (7) Go into the default "projects" folder and remove any shortcuts to the isolated projects. If sub-folders had been employed, the user needs to remove these sub-folders but not until the new isolated project has been established and backed up. Now when the user selects the desk top icon, the project will be automatically presented, with its toolbar and layout, and the execution will be isolated from all other projects. You need to do the above for each project which needs isolation. (8) Lastly are the remaining projects, if there are any. They must also be isolated. Not from themselves but from your real isolated projects. If their execution is not isolated, they will be presented with the toolbar and layout of the isolated project. To prevent this from happening, the user will isolate these other projects from the isolated projects. Will not touch these projects but will create a "allprojects" icon. Will set up a bat file and a data_paths.text file containing the definition as used when creating the installation See the c:\TMG7 $$default... entries. Set up an icon to execute this bat file. Now, every execution of TMG will automatically establish the necessary SPD and UPD folders, if they do not exist. (9) IMPORTANT: Remove the default TMG icon, that is, the one that came with the system!!!! On the example system, on the desktop there are seven (7) TMG icons, one for "all projects" and one each for the six (6) isolated projects. Once you have opened each of your isolated projects and the groups project (only need to open once), the user should check to ensure there is a SPD and UPD folder for each isolated project and one for your all other projects. Projects individually isolated:
Projects which are group isolated:
Hope this makes some sense to you and may help you in your quest to obtain a more user attuned TMG system. I have found that using project toolbars is an outstanding convenience, especially in data entry. C:\TMG7
There are three issues here, the DOS session, the data_paths.txt file itself and the BAT copy statement. Executing the BAT file causes a 2M DOS session to be started which in turn starts your 31M TMG session. The DOS session just sits there and the 2M is not released until you close TMG. On the other hand, after the TMG session becomes active, the user can close the DOS session from the system tray and release the 2M of memory. There is said to be a potential impact when the TMG system is upgraded, version or otherwise, that the contents of the SPD and possibly the UPD folders might change. If this happens, as the TMG system stands today, the user will be required to delete all SPF and UPD folders to have them recreated; there is no update capability here. This will force the user to reload their project layouts and toolbars from a backup. The third area of concern is the BAT copy statement. It identifies the default project folder whose file name contains a version number and this version number is subject to change. These copy statement will need to be changed when the version number changes; not that often but it will happen. Hopefully, this year, v8 will be appearing. Have been running under this environment for two months and all is positive. Have not run into any operational glitches and the project realted benefits are outstanding! A side benefit, presently when you isolate a project's "Projects" folder, the restore facility identifies the default project folder as the folder where the base project data will be placed. The user is required to change this to point to the isolated "Projects" folder. For the individually isolated projects, the restore facility now targets the correct folder. The problem continues to exist for the group isolated projects. This circumvention will probably run into difficulty should multiple user need to access the same project at the same time. -end- |