Family Tree Maker(TM) Warts
User Home Pages
Problems with the free online repository of home pages contributed and maintained by individual users.
http://www.familytreemaker.com/ftm_uhp_home.html
Topics:
Create & Maintain  Usability    
 
 

Create & Maintain

 
  1. One cannot replace a FTM User Home Pagewithout changing its URL, making it impossible to code a reference to these pages that will survive page updates.
  2. The link to the User Home Page Maintenance area is labeled "Create a new home page or edit an existing home page", but the page it brings you to has no instructions that pertain to editing and replacing an existing page. The instruction reads "To create your own home page, fill out the form below."
reference
This explains why so many "hits" by search engines (including FFR, IFF) result in "not found" errors.
 

Usability

 
  1. Outline Descendant Trees uploaded to the FTM User Home Pages are provided with an "Index of Individuals" which lists the first individual on each page. Since the report is not organized alphabetically, or in any ordered fashion, this "index" is of little practical value.  In any case, the index is just plain wrong if the person at the top of a page is a spouse. The index lists the descendant, but that individual appears at the bottom of the previous page! 
On which page may we find Rosy E. Day?little practical value
William Jasper (Billy) Day is on page 2, but the index says page 3.at the bottom
  1. The ridiculously long prefixes that FTM affixes to the User Home Page Titles makes them much more difficult to use. The portion of the title supplied by the user is relegated to the end, where it is often truncated. For example, in the FFR, often one sees nothing but the prefixes, with the actual titles provided by the users completely obscured.
  2. fixedNavigation: To get to a User Home Page one must enter the first three characters of the surname, then pick it out of a list. What if the surname has fewer than three characters? One might expect that a special character would be substituted, like underscore, or asterisk. Nope. Two X's are appended. (There are no instructions that mention this fact.) The example is of Julie B. Hu's home page.

 
 

FFR. Which of the FTM User Home Pages are my own????completely obscured
 
 

07MAY 1999
Image captured after entering ''HU''. Now what?example


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© 1999 Roderic A. Davis, 2nd
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  MAY1999
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