Behold Version History


Version 1.99 beta, 25 June 2024 (Prerelease of Version 2.0. Items partially implemented in this beta are marked "not completed")

  • New:
  • Add a box on the toolbar to allow search text to be entered directly. The dropdown will have a history of the last 20 searches.
  • Add menu and toolbar items to find the next and previous data problem.
  • Put the Short/Long References option back in that was taken out in Version 1.0.3. It is needed again for people who have lots of sources and want to see their facts more closely together. The shortened reference will show the full text when the mouse is hovering over it.
  • Check for surname being all-caps and give a warning and convert to inital-cap. Add option to turn off the conversion and leave the surname as all-caps.
  • Add a menu item and button to allow living people to be included or excluded.
  • Add a filter to specify the number of ancestor generations (0 to 15 or all) to include for each starting person. Include a menu item and button for it.
  • Add a filter to specify the number of descendant generations (0 to 15 or all) to include down from each starting person and ancestor. Include a menu item and button for it.
  • Determine if each person without a death date is deceased based on whether they were born over 100 years ago or a descendant was born over 85 years ago.
  • Add option to Export to verbatum GEDCOM, i.e. with custom tags and structures known only to the program that created that GEDCOM. This feature is just partially implemented
  • Add option to Export to standard GEDCOM, i.e. GEDCOM 5.5.1 following the GEDCOM 5.5.5 recommendations so that all the data will be accepted by almost every GEDCOM reading program. This feature is just partially implemented
  • Display all familial Relationships of every person to the main person in each family, even multiple relationships (e.g. cousins on two sides) along with the MRCA (most recent common ancestor) for that connection with an indication if it is not biological. This feature is just partially implemented
  • Add an Ancestral Names section that summarizes surnames to research This feature is just partially implemented
  • Add an Ancestral Places section that summarizes places to research. This feature is just partially implemented
  • Improved:
  • Reverse options that print XREF ID and Generation number to not print, so that the default will be "true" for all options.
  • Produce just one log file for all GEDCOM files that are read, instead of one for each GEDCOM file read.
  • Display number of Facts (Level 1 tags) separate from Details on the Organize Tags page.
  • Only allow tags that are facts to be displayed or hidden. That works better than allowing data tags since the latter hides information within facts which is seldom wanted, especially for the tags that can be both facts and data (e.g. SOUR, NOTE or OBJE).
  • Add buttons on Organize Tags page to deselect all tags ("None") or reset to all tags ("All"), to make it easy to just display just one or only a few selected fact types.
  • Order columns in Tags page to be: Facts, Data, Links, Records so that it is immediately obvious which ones are the facts that can be shown or hidden.
  • Display partners or spouses without marriage dates after the birth of the person's youngest sibling.
  • Saving from the Organize pages will now turn the save action off so that exiting or loading a new file will not cause the "Do you want to save" prompt to appear until another organize change is made.
  • Make titles bold and one font size larger.
  • Display all birth surnames with bold text.
  • Enclose all surnames (maiden and previous marriages) in parenthesis followed by the current surname. Previously, only the maiden name was in parenthesis.
  • Check for illegal GEDCOM names (blank or wrong number of slashes) and correct them.
  • Add the current age (if living) and birth place to each person in the Index of Names.
  • Add a missing birth year value (default = "??") when that value is not known for year ranges. Add a missing death date when the person is known to have died but no death date is given.
  • Add the birth and death years and current age (if living) and place of birth after the person's name at the start of that person's info.
  • Change the number after each entry in the Treeview to be the number of non-hidden nodes directly one level below, rather than the total nodes below any number of levels below.
  • Display the Everything Report and Treeview after changing Report options to be as close as possible to the same location as it was prior to the change.
  • Reorganize the Contents section of the Reports page to be in the correct order and ensure that the selections do prevent the display of the sections and remove them from the Table of Contents and Treeview.
  • Add replacement character for undefined ANSEL characters and Normalized strings converted from ANSEL to Unicode Normal Form C, as recommended by Tamura Jones.
  • Modernize the look of Behold from old Windows format to Windows 10 styling, including the Open, Save and Message dialog boxes.
  • Change "Person of [person name]" and "Family of [people names]" to "Person: [person name]" and "Family: [people names]".
  • Better detection of the user's default text file viewer for opening GEDCOM and log files. I also incorporated this into GEDCOM File Finder for whenever its next release might be.
  • Extract of MyHeritage Family Tree Builder program name and version number correctly in Find Files despite their improper header.
  • Change the Type dropdown in Find Files to only include ged, bho, and all data files, and change the "In What" selection to select either data files and/or log files.
  • Get Find Files to search for text in data files with illegal unicode characters in them, such at MyHeritage GEDCOMs.
  • Add to the log file the info about how the CONC tag is handled that was only shown in the File Information section of the program window.
  • Include all note and object records in the notes and objects details section even if it only has one reference. Previously if it had one reference, the note or object was included only with the one record that referenced it. Doing this correctly reflects how notes and objects are defined in the data.
  • Better detection of incorrect line structure in the GEDCOM.
  • Grouped error and warning messages into 8 types: Character set, File type, GEDCOM line, GEDCOM linkage, GEDCOM ordering, GEDCOM structure, GEDCOM values, Invalid tag, and Non-standard GEDCOM.
  • Updated the text for many of the error and warning messages to make them clearer.
  • Change the display of fact references in the Place, Source and other Detail reports so they are displayed by date and time on the first line and name, event, and other information on the second line, sorted by date, place and year born.
  • Add the parents names and ages onto birth events in the Place Details.
  • Group the extra information options that are in the Organize Reports page by the part of the report each option pertains to.
  • Recode internal data structures to allow Behold to be more easily converted to use a database in the future. This involved changing the read-only B-Tree structures to dictionaries and lists and changing all pointers to be indices (i.e. integers).
  • Combine sources with the same source title, and combine citations with the same citation title.
  • Remove the GEDCOM checks in Behold that the HUSB is female or the WIFE is male to allow same-sex marriages without a warning. But if both the HUSB is female and the WIFE is male (which I found is in some GEDCOMs), then I'll give a message and I'll switch them. Marriages or partnerships with the same sex are still indicated in the report because that is an important fact.
  • Remove the idle background processing that Behold was using to update menu items based on cursor position. This is now done only when the cursor is moved. Now Behold should not consume computer resources when it is idle.
  • Display tag names on the Organize Tags page in bold to indicate they are non-standard GEDCOM tags unknown to Behold.
  • Do not display on the Organize Tags page any tags that are subordinate to a user-defined tag (those with a leading underscore "_") as a compound tag (e.g. _WITN.SOUR). Instead, the subordinate tag will now be added on its own (e.g PAGE). If the subordinate tag is the same as a GEDCOM tag, it should have the same meaning. If not, the program that exported this GEDCOM should use a different subordinate tag. Behold or any other program should not be expected to look for or fix this.
  • Place events where the event type contains "death" after the death event, and where the event type contains "grave" or "obit" after the burial event.
  • Rework the GEDCOM import so that it works more efficiently with the new internal data structures.
  • Add a summary of the number of user-defined tags at the end of the log file.
  • Add an option to not display GEDCOM warnings in the log file (suggested by Tamura).
  • Check input for essentially full compliance against GEDCOM 5.5.1.
  • Display CHAN (Last Updated) information for individuals and families separately instead of only displaying just latest date of the individual and the families of the individual.
  • Close the Find Dialog after the find is done to allow the F3 (Find Next) and F4 (Find Prev) shortcut keys to work, since they don't work with the dialog open.
  • Switch the order of the Find Next and Find Prev buttons on the toolbar so that Find Next is first.
  • Ensure the Find Dialog and also the "text not found" window always first appear over the Behold window, and not where they were left the last time Behold was run.
  • Allow the Find Next and Find Prev keys to use the first phrase in the find history list when first starting Behold, which will be the last find done in the previous session of Behold.
  • Display the parents of half-siblings and stepsiblings and whether they are older or younger siblings.
  • Better handling of the GEDCOM "Y" value used to confirm some events, as well as the display of the illegal "N" value and other values on fact lines that shouldn't have a value.
  • Hide groups of places, sources, etc., in their Details sections when all facts referenced in the group are hidden. Number hidden groups separately with an "h" in their numbering. Also hide them in the Treeview.
  • List any undefined records in the input log.
  • Remove memory leaks.
  • Convert GEDCOM version 1 and 2 to version 5.5.1 along with a summary of the tags converted.
  • Better display of linking structures in reverse tags and source references.
  • Display of EVEN or FACT tags that have a subordinate TYPE tag as: "typevalue: evenfactvalue".
  • Display of ASSO structures that have a subordinate RELA tag as: "relavalue".
  • Handle erroneous CONC lines in Family Tree Builder GEDCOMs.
  • Delete duplicate PAGE records that can occur in Family Tree Builder GEDCOMs.
  • Remove the limit of 100 references so that all references will be printed.
  • Change Instant Organize to display families top down instead of bottom up.
  • Fixed:
  • Eliminate extra left column on the Organize Tags and Organize Reports pages
  • Prevent error that can occur when processing stepsiblings of unmarried stepparents.
  • Get the All Tags, Related Through Marriage, and Everyone Else buttons to initially start in the correct state when loading a Behold file. [This took 16 hours to solve. It ending up being because the button type on the toolbar was set as "checked" when it should have been "button".]
  • Get the "Married names for women" option to update immediately.
  • Correct the value of the swap file size in the Gauge in the status bar, and the value of the memory used by the program at bottom of report and in the log file which was incorrect for 64 bit processors.
  • Get the cancel button on the Organize pages to not clear the tag counts on the Tags page. This bug was inadvertently added in version 1.0.1.
  • Read UTF8 files that include illegal unicode characters.
  • Ensure citations within sources are always sorted by the Citation title.
  • Ensure that the leading number in a field will be placed at the end of the field in a smart address sort, so that for example, street names will have higher priority than street number. Also ignore highest level place designations if they are missing (i.e. nothing between commas).
  • Prevent extra person links from appearing in the Place Details.
  • Repair the "Merge from" and "Merge into" for Report Options which wasn't fully working.
  • Allow hidden (but displayed) file links to be opened by clicking on them.
  • Get mouse wheel to vertically scroll in the treeview. This bug was added in version 1.2.3 when LMD Tools changed something in their ElXTree UseCustomScrollBars property.
  • Select a treeview item and then scroll the Everything Report without activating (i.e. clicking on) the Everything Report and then click on the same Treeview item was not scrolling the Everything Report back to the Treeview item.
  • Check for internet connection only if user has selected "Check Automatically" under Help -> Check Online for New Version.
  • Links in HTML, RTF and Word exports were not working. This bug was introduced in Version 1.2.7. It was similar to the bug introduced in 1.2.4 and fixed in 1.2.6.
  • Display older half-siblings as their age at the birth of the younger, rather than "born xx years before birth".
  • Convert single at signs (@) in a GEDCOM value internally to double at signs (@@) as GEDCOM requires, and display all double at signs (@@) in values as a single at sign.
  • Correct the display of the age of stepsiblings.
  • Correctly handle the CONT tag in GEDCOM version 2 files which are placed at the same level as the tag they are continuing, not at the next level as in later versions of GEDCOM.
  • Get the "At death predeceased by" report option to work. Previously the "At death survived by" option was turning both the predeceased display and the survived display on and off.
  • Deleted:
  • Remove the extra event information (e.g. notes, sources) from the Place Details as they are not very useful there and make it harder to scan the Place Detail for what is important.
  • Remove the "Descendants Only" menu and Organize Numbering page option, as they are being replaced by the generations filter.
  • Remove the "Up to Ancestors" and "Surname Order" options that were seldom used and won't work well with the new generations filters.
  • Remove the Organize Numbering page which now has little utility after the removal of ordering options.
  • Remove the "Good Ideas" menu item and the popup for a new user.

Version 1.2.7, 02 Sep 2021.

  • Improved:
  • Retain the same position in the report, or at least as close to the same as possible, when switching between the viewing all tags and viewing selected tags options.
  • Fixed:
  • Fix scrolling problem that would sometimes cause a crash when using the View option to only see selected tags.

Version 1.2.6, 07 Apr 2021.

  • Improved:
  • Place the TYPE value first when displaying a REFN tag.
  • Fixed:
  • Links in HTML, RTF and Word exports were not working. This bug was introduced in Version 1.2.4.
  • Prevent the period added at to Level 1 values from being included as part of a hyperlink.
  • Prevent when hovering over hyperlinks some adjacent hyperlinks from also highlighting when they should not.
  • Prevent abend when trying to Instant Organize on a Table of Contents entry.

Version 1.2.5, 28 Mar 2021.

  • Fixed:
  • Hide hidden tags when the "View Selected Tags" oiption is selected. This was not working in version 1.2.3 and 1.2.4.
  • Initialize the step-parent pointer properly to eliminate possible crash when calculating step-siblings for parents who were not married.

Version 1.2.4, 03 Jan 2020. (64-bit)

  • Fixed:
  • Behold now is compiled to work as both as a 32-bit and a 64-bit program.
  • Installation will detect if your computer is 32 or 64-bit and will install the correct executable.

Version 1.2.3, 03 Feb 2019.

  • Fixed:
  • Save and restore a few report items that weren't being saved into Behold files. These were those whose internal ID codes looked like a hexadecimal number, e.g. $FC.
  • Repair a few other problems with the Merge from and Merge into Behold file process.
  • Eliminate program halt at 80% when Ancestral Loops are found. This bug was inadvertently added in version 1.2.1.

Version 1.2.2, 10 Jan 2017. (GEDCOM 1 Support)

  • New:
  • Add ability to read GEDCOM 1 files

Version 1.2.1, 23 Mar 2016. (Improvements and fixes, mostly to the Everything Report)

  • Improved:
  • Add a GEDCOM warning message for a HUSB who is female or a WIFE who is male.
  • Indicate same-sex spouses and same-sex partners allowing the text to be customized.
  • Add a consistency check about same-sex marriages prior to 2001 when they started becoming legal.
  • Start instant organize of a person without a family with themself, rather then with their parents.
  • Recognize dates with a hyphen as illegal, but convert to a real FROM/TO date, e.g. 1940-1970 becomes FROM 1940 TO 1970.
  • Check children birth date when there is no marriage dates to ensure spouses are in the correct order in the GEDCOM
  • Always display the top-level Descendant family even if both have been displayed before, and in that case, show both as cross references.
  • Focus is given back to the main window after the Find Dialog is closed.
  • Include the GEDCOM name with the INDI ID in log messages to make it easier to diagnose and solve the problem.
  • Display dates in log messages in GEDCOM format rather than as an expanded date.
  • Change illegal values for sex to U rather than leaving them as the first letter of their illegal value.
  • Display the sex values M, F and U as Male, Female and Unknown and allow customization of these values.
  • Don't add the surname of the partner to women who do not have a marriage event.
  • Display custom event text with the first letter capitalized and without a period following it.
  • Display a colon after a DATA tag.
  • Only give information about a person's stepparents who married the person's parent, and not about unmarried partners.
  • List the sources in order in each repository.
  • Sort references to objects by the object number, which also sorts by the description.
  • Do not display parent's remarriage if it is after the person's death.
  • Exclude the younger siblings of a person who were born after the person died.
  • Include LDS Sealing events without a message of occurring after death.
  • Don't show the years married if it is after the person died.
  • Place a person's family notes, objects and sources with their individual notes, objects and sources after all the other events.
  • Miscellaneous adjustments to consistency checks
  • Fixed:
  • Re-enable Edit ID and Edit CONC to work on the Organize GEDCOMs page (broken in version 1.2).
  • Get the Enter key to be recognized as the default action on the Find Dialog. The code that made the cursor change to busy had to be removed. I thought this got fixed in Version 1.2 when I moved to Delphi XE8, but it didn't.'
  • Display dates, ages and places at relatives' events that were mistakenly not being displayed.
  • Do not display ages or date differences between two "before" or two "after" dates, e.g. the difference between AFT 1870 and AFT 1890 can be anything.
  • Don't display parent remarriage and stepsiblings after the person's death.
  • Indent alternate birth, marriage and death events one less to line up with top-level events.
  • Don't display the "occurs too long after death" message for alternative deaths.
  • Display step-siblings after the parent's marriage to the step-parent instead of incorrectly after the birth of the person.
  • Activate the Apply and Cancel buttons on the Family Organize Page whenever an ""AddFamilyOf" is used to add a family.
  • Don't repeat spouse name on instant organize and on the add-family mouse menus when a family that includes a secondary spouse is selected.
  • Ensure the AddFamilyOf and InstantOrganize popup menus buttons show both people when there are two listed on the menu or title.
  • Prevent the abend caused where illegal keys shorter than 5 characters are entered on the About page.
  • Repair the infinite looping caused when an incorrect key or no key has been entered on the About page and the user tries to exit the page.
  • Ensure a message is displayed when an incorrect key has been entered on the About page. There were some cases where this was not done.
  • Summarize number of other source references once, rather than multiple times.
  • Indent the objects, sources and notes under each person in the Place Details.
  • Remove extra space after the source number of source references.
  • Display the cross reference for a person having additional partners when a previous partner is not provided. Currently the person was not being shown again, but should have been.
  • Handle source references without a source link or description (illegal in GEDCOM, but found in the wild) by creating an unspecified source for it
  • Ensure all report sections listing the descendants of a parent's other spouse include the correct parent.
  • Limit any before-marriage events just up to the marriage so that the "Occurs after marriage" message is not be shown.
  • Give no default to the find text string rather than "fff".
  • Get context sensitive help working again to show help about the active window or section of the window when the F1 key is pressed. Not sure when this stopped working.

Version 1.2.0.1, 25 Nov 2015

  • Fixed:
  • Display level 1 source and note references that have extra information correctly. They were incorrectly displayed as "Source @nnnnnnnnn@" followed by the extra information and were not showing the name of the source as a hyperlink. This was not a problem for level 2 references or for level 1 references without extra information.

Version 1.2, 15 Nov 2015. (Improvements to Everything Report)

  • New:
  • Update development system from Delphi 2009 to Delphi XE8, including upgrades of TRichView and ElPack 3rd party packages.
  • Export to DocX (a Microsoft Word File)
  • Improved:
  • Rework the way Life Events from version 1.1 work. Version 1.1 went a bit overboard and included too many facts and too much information, making it not easier but harder to find relevant information.
  • Compress the display of life events from several lines to one line and standardize their display, only including event, place and date along with ages.
  • Place ages of life event people in parenthesis and moved the date after the place and the age of the individual at the end of the line to more clearly identify the person the age was referring to.
  • Rework the capitalization and the punctuation of the fact lines.
  • Extend search so that it can now find text even where parts of it are formatted differently. This capability was added to Version 12 of RichView.
  • Default the filename for exports to the name of the file currently loaded with the appropriate file suffix.
  • Display the status of the Find in the status bar less often so that files are searched much faster.
  • Remove colons from the end of all GEDCOM tags in the tag definitions, which will make translation to other languages a bit easier
  • Eliminate an extra line and indent in the Place Details and Source Details to make them easier to read.
  • Escape from the About box now just closes it rather than asking if you want to exit from Behold.
  • Provide an important and unique "Not with wife" warning message, when the family event occurs with someone other than the person's current spouse.
  • Interpret additional non-standard GEDCOM dates like October 27, 2015 correctly, with appropriate warning messages.
  • Include an error message for ADDR tags that are at level 1 under an INDI or FAM record, but still include them.
  • Display date ranges using just one unit, i.e. either years, months or days, instead of allowing different units for the first and second date.
  • Number siblings with a number leaving an empty spot for the person, so that the sibling numbers will match the numbering of children.
  • Provide immediate redisplay of the current view Everything Report when tag name changes or report option changes are applied.
  • Deleted:
  • Remove the menu option and toolbar button for life events and the green text used for them.
  • Remove the exception tracking that displayed detailed information about internal errors in a window. Upgrades to the EurekaLog package I was using for this added significant time and memory overhead. Behold now is relatively stable, and remaining internal errors will now be captured naturally and displayed in a message box by Delphi's built-in exception handler.

Version 1.1, 27 Jun 2015. (Add Life Events, Smart Ages, and Survived By information)

  • New:
  • Remove the listing of family events for each pair of individuals and put that information instead into each individual to effectively build individual timelines with all the person's events.
  • Expand the list of children, parents and other spouses to be shown as individual events within each person's timeline.
  • Create a new fundamental concept: "Life Events" - events of family members that are important in the life of the individual. This is to be shown under each individual and will include their parent's events, spouse's events and children's events.
  • Display the person's age next to each event date where the age is determinable.
  • Include the ages and length of time married if known and the spouse or partner's name for any events involving a spouse or partner.
  • Display "smart ages", which will identify time before birth or after death or before marriage or after divorce or time widowed.
  • Show the current age of living people.
  • Include a "Would have been" statement instead of the current age if the person exceeds a threshold age (default=80).
  • Include "Survived by" information, listing close relatives alive at the date of a person's death, to be similar to an obituary listing of survivors.
  • Implement Tamura Jones'' best practices for GEDCOM magic values and GEDCOM Version detection into the Find Files results.
  • Import GEDCOM 2.0 files correctly.
  • Create GEDCOM File Finder as an independent freeware program, based on the Find Files feature in Behold.
  • Label an individual's birth and death tags that are included after the first as "alternate" birth/death events and number them for reference. Do the same for marriage and divorce events occurring more than once in a FAM record.
  • Add the values of the events (e.g. the occupation or education info) to the event references in the Place Detail, Source Details and other detail sections.
  • Add the names of different relationships to the Organize Report page under "Relationships for Life Events", so that the relationships can be named what the user wants.
  • Number the relationships when there is more than one person with a specific relationship.
  • Add basic date consistency checking, comparing life event dates with the person's birth, marriage and death dates and including messages in the Everything Report next to the suspicious date.
  • Add a warning and reorder children when their birth dates are not in order in the GEDCOM
  • Add a warning and reorder spouses when their marriage dates are not in order or are inconsistent with the spouse death date in the GEDCOM
  • Add a Text Size icon on the bottom toolbar
  • Improved:
  • Change the default for the "CHAN" tag from "Change:" to "Last Modified:"
  • Change the text to display option from "Known to have happened" to "Confirmed"
  • Include the "probate" tag as one of the tags that are ordered and placed after the death tag for an individual.
  • Reopen Behold on the last screen used when opening in a maximized form.
  • Include the point version number in check when checking for new versions. During beta, point versions weren't important and came often, but with the full release, point versions may be bug fixes and other small changes.
  • When events have no dates or if dates are the same, retain the order that is in the GEDCOM file.
  • Include Program, Dest, Char and BOM information for Behold log files in the Find File display.
  • Add information about each file read and the total processing time and memory used into the Behold log file.
  • Display the Behold Organize file log along with the GEDCOM file logs when opening the log file of a Behold Organize file.
  • Sort the Find Files display the way Windows Explorer does using its logical sort without case differences.
  • Merge the log file information into the line with the Behold or GEDCOM file in the Find Files window.
  • Allow selection within Data files and/or Log Files for searching the "Containing Text".
  • Detect the start of the GEDCOM HEAD line when embedded within a line.
  • Handle non-GEDCOM lines in any file and process all lines that look like GEDCOM, in case they may have data.
  • Updated 3 and added 3 LDS extended ANSEL character codes, just to make it a bit more correct.
  • Change the Find Files feature to use the same code as the GEDCOM File Finder program.
  • Show the message problem in the Summary of messages, rather than just showing how Behold handles it.
  • Include the file version info into the setup-program so that in Windows Explorer, the Behold version will display when mouse is over the setup program.
  • Rewrite the way the messages are displayed for more clarity, and classify them as Errors and Warnings.
  • Organize date errors so that those which are GEDCOM problems are displayed in the log file but invalid dates are placed as messages in the Everything Report right next to the data.
  • Show the progress of the search in the status bar when finding text.
  • Intelligently handle textual dates that are illegal in GEDCOM, but used by some programs, e.g. "Not Married" used by PAF.
  • Show the repository on every source. This was in version 1.02 but somehow stopped working in version 1.03 and after. It seems like a number of links in detail information like this went missing starting in 1.03. This is now fixed and the Behold output is much richer as a result.
  • Reintroduce the use of the GEDCOM prefix and file number as part of the numbering. This was removed in version 0.98.9d alpha to simplify numbering. But it's very useful when loading multiple files to identify which file the information is from. Did the following instead:
  • Show the GEDCOM ID before each record ID in the Everything Report when more than one GEDCOM file is loaded, to identify which file the ID is from. (Eventually, when virtual merging functionality is added, information from different files will be color coded)
  • Set default to display "Sex", rather than hide it.
  • Finalize ordering of level 1 events and level 2 items within each event.
  • Changed the default abbreviation for additional marriages from s# to m# which makes more sense.
  • Display source reference information on the referenced event in the source, rather than on the source record.
  • Display source reference information after the source reference on conclusion data (people, events, etc.)
  • Show all event information in the Place Details
  • Fixed:
  • Handle Hex 00 in GEDCOM files.
  • Remove the extra space displayed prior to a TYPE descriptor that redefines its superior tag.
  • Don't link SOUR tags that have no link reference and no link text to anything (was being linked to @S1@).
  • Eliminate duplication in the Source Details of inline sources (an old GEDCOM technique).
  • Split links with both forward and backward information if the backward information has changed.
  • Eliminate abend when searching for a text in files with the "whole word" option set in a Unicode file with a BOM where the text is not found. (The BOM was removed for the search but the length of the BOM was not subtracted from the length of the file, so it tried to read after the end of the file buffer.)
  • Repair the Find function for some multi-word searches that didn't find the result or didn't highlight the result found.
  • Do not display the first person in the file, when they have no family spouse or family, as a starting ancestor. (This bug was introduced in version 1.0.1).
  • Ensure the "Apply" button forces a re-read of the data after changing the CONC value on the GEDCOM's page.
  • Repair the Web Update window so that it does not get cut off if the user has Large Fonts installed on their computer.
  • Do not convert characters to UTF-8 when the Byte Order Mark (BOM) and character set in the GEDCOM are both UTF-8. The extra conversion incorrectly renders some characters.
  • Prevent crashes of the Find Files function for certain types of unicode files.
  • Include some files that were ignored in the Find File display. See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25028467/encoding-getstring-is-not-returning-the-string
  • Include the summary of GEDCOM Messages back in at the bottom of the log file. Inadvertently, this was taken out in the released version.
  • Correct the placement of the sort arrow in the Find Files window, as it was placed on the wrong column in a couple of cases.
  • Properly detect the TRLR tag if there is additional text appended to it, and provide a message.
  • Eliminate abend when an empty file is loaded after some other file has already been loaded.
  • Handle UTF-8 files with bad characters in them, and issue proper error message at lines with the bad characters.
  • Display long lines in long line error messages with the appropriate character conversion so that accents and length are correct.
  • Assign a family ID based on the user-defined text for unknown family name when the surname is left blank.
  • Display additional name information without showing the original name again.
  • Eliminate individuals that were added at the beginning of the Everyone Else section. This bug was added in Version 1.0.1.
  • Deleted:
  • Remove "file://" from the URIs automatically detected. It is a bit more complicated that I thought due to embedded spaces and local file paths, so rather than doing it wrong sometimes, for now I won't link it all at. To be looked at again in the future.
  • Help:
  • Help: Update of documentation including new features and updates of all screen shots to reflect Windows 8.1.
  • Web:
  • Web: Change all references on my Buy Now pages from Plimus to BlueSnap, since the company has changed its branding and the old urls soon will not work.

Version 1.0.5.1, 26 May 2013.

  • Improved:
  • Display a better message when there is more than one consecutive space in a date.
  • Don't try to correct improperly specified double dates but just indicate them invalid, as they more likely were intended to be a range of dates.
  • Handle the DATE NOT MARRIED line (often generated by PAF) by recommending the change of the line to be a TYPE tag, e.g. TYPE NOT MARRIED.
  • Fixed:
  • Ensure that the changing of the ordering of sources setting in the Organize Report page will refresh the Everything Report to include the new setting.
  • Include the specific case of the "born before parent" message that was missing from the Ancestral Loops section.
  • Display the date from the Header Information correctly in the Log File.

Version 1.0.5, 23 May 2013. (Ancestral Loops)

  • New:
  • Add an "Ancestral Loops" section to the Everything Report just before the File Information, to display all the loops and all the people in them parent to child with birth and death dates and messages that will help identify and fix the problem. There must be at least one loop for the section to display.
  • Improved:
  • Enlarge the Find Files file reading buffer that reads the HEAD record from 512 bytes to 2048 bytes so that less information from longer HEAD sections gets missed.
  • Provide a message when there are extra spaces in the GEDCOM between date parts.
  • Add option to not display an individual's sources sorted by source title, but to instead display them in the order they were in the GEDCOM file - requested by user Nick Jackson.
  • Improve the messages displayed when the character set specified in the header does not match the Byte Order Mark (BOM) at the start of the file.
  • Fixed:
  • Replace the Ancestral Loop checking code with a DFS (Depth First Search) algorithm to properly identify all the people who are their own ancestor. Previously, loops were identified, but some people in loops were missing when their ancestor was in a different loop.
  • Ensure that the file information and summary of messages is displayed even when a file does not have a HEAD record.
  • Display the text following a 2nd embedded hyphen in log file messages and in the log file summary.
  • Don't give errors for dates containing mixed case.
  • Don't display incorrect messages given for tags added to GEDCOM that are encountered prior to encountering the GEDCOM version number.
  • Don't display a message for an illegal tag that is under a custom tag. Anything (unfortunately) is allowed under a custom tag.
  • Don't display incorrect messages when compound dates occur, e.g. BET xxx AND yyy, or FROM xxx TO yyy.
  • Deleted:
  • Remove ancestral loop messages from the log files. They are not a GEDCOM problem, but are a data problem and thus should be in the Everything Report.

Version 1.0.4.3, 01 Apr 2013

  • Improved:
  • Remove handling of accented characters in the tree sorting. This doubled the time Behold was taking and that is not acceptable. Perfectly correct international sorting may have to wait until Behold's internal database is developed.

Version 1.0.4.2, 23 Jan 2012 (Private release)

  • Fixed:
  • Prevent a crash from an INT (interpreted) date which has an empty original value.

Version 1.0.4.1, 23 Jan 2012 (Private release)

  • Fixed:
  • Ensure accented characters are sorted properly on versions of Windows for languages other than English.

Version 1.0.4, 23 Jan 2012

  • Improved:
  • Deactivate the "Update" button while the web update is taking place.
  • Add "https://", "ftp://", "file://" and "mailto:" to the list of urls automatically detected.
  • Fixed:
  • Prevent a birth date tag with a missing date from causing the input file not to load.
  • Ensure ordering of events is saved properly after first ordering them. This occassionally caused some text searches to highlight incorrect words.

Version 1.0.3, 21 Jan 2012 (Improved Display and Ordering of Events)

  • New:
  • Detect urls starting with "http://" or "www" in the data and display them as hyperlinks.
  • Restructure internal data allowing better sorting and that will help prepare for Behold's own native file format in Version 1.5.
  • Improved:
  • Replace the Help and Home page toolbar icons with the ones from the Behold website that includes the tiny Behold sun.
  • Don't apply the TYPE, ROLE or RELA tags to level 0 records (as sometimes exported by Reunion).
  • Do not include blanks when when automatically generating the GEDCOM or Family IDs from the GEDCOM filename or family surname.
  • Display events by date within individuals and families, placing dated births first followed by undated births, dated events next followed by undated events, with death events and after death events (e.g. burial, cremation) at the end.
  • Display notes, sources and objects after all the events and facts.
  • Display a period following the display of an optional value for an event or fact.
  • Interrupt the search when pressing "cancel" or exiting the Find dialog while the search is going on. Previously, the search would continue after the dialog box was closed and only pressing the Stop button would cancel the search.
  • Change all source (and other) references from "[Num Title]" with number hyperlinked to "Tagtext: Title Num" with the title hyperlinked. The original idea was that these were to look like a reference number for a footnote, but they have evolved into a more important part of the display and are now made consistent in appearence with other events and facts.
  • Move notes, sources and objects that are within an event/fact to the end of it and indent each on a new line.
  • Change the default to hide Sort Date tags, rather than display them.
  • Sort the sources by the order in the Source Details which is smart sort ordered by the source and source detail title - which is the same as the source numbering title. Do the same for any custom structures.
  • Do not display the Type, Relationship or Role when it is exactly the same as the event it is meant to classify.
  • Fixed:
  • Handle the CONC tag correctly within the RootsMagic _EVDEF record.
  • Detect alternative date prefixes (e.g. "About" for "ABT"), which should have been working but wasn't.
  • Change the date of file in the title from using the date format on the machine (which always displays the words of the date in your local language) to use the Behold's date format which will use the weekday and months as you specify on the Organize Report page.
  • Display the ID number which was not being displayed for people who have no information other than their name.
  • Prevent the title line of the Everything Report from splitting to two lines when the name contains a comma.
  • Ensure punctuation at the end of the sentence is not changed to displayed or hidden because when the following text has changed.
  • Deleted:
  • Remove the Short/Long References option from the menu and toolbar. With the new layout of sources each on a new line, it is simpler and clearer to always leave the entire source title visible.

Version 1.0.2, 29 Dec 2011

  • Improved:
  • Change from enclosing a spouse's maiden name and all married names except the last in square brackets "[" and "]" to just enclosing the maiden name in parenthesis "(" and ")" which not only is the proper way to do it (according to Mills in Evidence Explained, pages 82-83), but also looks better.
  • Get the Organize window buttons and Find Files button to restore those windows to normal state if they have been minimized. I've got caught myself by this, wondering why the window isn't appearing.
  • Fixed:
  • Stop issuing a message when a month has 30 days if it is not February.
  • Do not show the weekday or the words **Check your date** in any date messages.

Version 1.0.1, 27 Dec 2011 (Date Checking)

  • New:
  • Convert inline sources internally into source records, allowing them to be added to the Source Details section with proper cross references.
  • Add a message for any tags that are required to have links (e.g. FAMS, CHIL) but only have a value assigned.
  • Check all input dates for GEDCOM compliance and store them internally as valid GEDCOM 5.5.1 DATEs, changing illegal dates to legal date phrases that are surrounded by parenthesis.
  • Issue messages in the log file for illegal dates.
  • Check for non-existent dates. These are not invalid GEDCOM but are data errors.
  • Attempt to convert date phrases to their valid GEDCOM equivalent if they can be unambiguously be determined.
  • Include support for the GEDCOM 5.5EL (Extended Location) extension. The information in the _LOC records will be merged into the Place details, and EL files will be identified in the Find Files window.
  • Add date parts (such as ABT, FROM, month names, etc.) into the Report Options so they can be displayed as desired or in a different language.
  • Add **Check your date** in the Everything Report next to dates that are non-existent and need to be fixed.
  • Display the day of the week (Mon, Tue, ...) for each date.
  • Improved:
  • Remove the 200 generation limit and allow the TreeView to show any number of generations.
  • Change the installation of the sample GEDCOM files to be under the Public folder rather than under the user's folder because other users on the same machine would not have access to them and recommended by the Windows Logo Toolkit.
  • Sort dates so that items without dates are last.
  • Add a Report Option to specify "Known to have happened" to better display DEAT Y, MARR Y, BIRT Y, and CHR Y assersions.
  • Allow better display of the RootsMagic "_EVDEF" record.
  • Include a message for the subtags of the RootsMagic _EVDEF and _TMPLT tags because they have special use that are not compatible with GEDCOM that few programs will understand.
  • Display the _PLAC custom record used by RootsMagic as information about the place in the Place Details.
  • Improve the display of the _TMPLT tag used by RootsMagic.
  • Changed the default for Legacy's _EVENT_DEFN tag to checked so that those records will be displayed in their own section. Otherwise, most people won't ever realize that Behold can display them.
  • Improve the display of the _PLAC_DEFN record used by Legacy.
  • Add a number of Legacy-specific tags to the tags page.
  • Improve date sorting, correcting month order, and handling date prefixes and date ranges.
  • Fixed:
  • Ensure that dates and places are shown on all event references. This bug was introduced in Version 0.99.24 beta, 08 Nov 2011 and prevented the date and place on most of the event reference details from being displayed.
  • Display an unconnected primary person in their own section and not in the Unconnected Individuals section.
  • Get Drag and Drop of a GEDCOM or Behold file icon from Explorer onto Behold working again. Bug was introduced in 0.99.24 beta, 08 Nov 2011.
  • Display family information if it exists for Unconnected Individuals.
  • Ensure that inline NOTEs and OBJEs and their ID's at level 2 or more do not start their own line but are attached to the previous line.
  • Ensure that changes to Report Options that require a re-read of the data actually do the re-read of the data. Seems to only be the "Log File: Max 100 messages" option. Also re-read the data when a GEDCOM has been added to or removed from the Organize GEDCOMs page. Ensure the Tag counts are reset after re-reading the data.

Version 1.0, 24 Nov 2011. First Full Release.

  • Improved:
  • Remove fix to eliminate multiple event reference listing of secondary links that was added last version. The fix severely degraded input speed for files having secondary links, which was worse than the rare problems it would fix. I will find the correct solution in the future after a non-fabricated real GEDCOM shows up with the problem.
  • Add tag definitions for a few invalid tags (FIELD, TID and VALUE) that RootsMagic 4.0 includes in some of its GEDCOMs.
  • Fixed:
  • Prevent an out of bounds error that sometimes occurred when clicking on a TreeView entry.
  • Correct limiting to 100 messages to be limiting to 100 OF EACH TYPE of message
  • Make a few internal changes to the program and install script to make Behold more compatible with the Windows 7 Software Logo Program.
  • Display the correct percentage completed after the Stop button is pressed.
  • Append the period needed in certain cases when a tag with no tag text is included.
  • Make some other last minute corrections.
  • Help:
  • Eliminate the keyword index from the User Guide. It is not useful considering that Windows help already has a full text search.
  • Web:
  • Update website to reflect full release.
  • Increase price and send out News Release.

Version 0.99.24 beta, 08 Nov 2011.

  • New:
  • Allow the selection of the default translation file.
  • Improved:
  • Allow customization of the line prefixes for marriage (m.), remarriage (r.), spouse (s.), spouse number (s#.) and spouse remarriage (sm.) on the Organize Reports page.
  • Change the "Open", "View" and "Log File" buttons so that they open the file, view the GEDCOM and open the log file in the Find Files window when highlighting a log file the same way as when selecting GEDCOM or Behold files.
  • Removed the "ID =" (being unnecessary) prior to the ID in the Undefined Records section.
  • Added a right menu item in the Everything Report to find the current item in the TreeView.
  • Highlight the current TreeView entry when the TreeView is not active with "inactive" colors.
  • Rename the Behold file to be the Behold Organize file.
  • Ensure that the Menu and Toolbar mouseover hints all exist and are suitable.
  • Fixed:
  • Eliminate a few extra periods that should not appear when hidden tags are hidden.
  • Eliminate multiple listing of secondary links (e.g. Note links within Source links) when within primary link when the primary link occurs multiple times.
  • Get the "All Tags/Selected Tags" icon to show the current selection properly when Behold starts up.
  • Display a "There is no data to display" message in the Everything Report and enable the File->New, File->Save As and File->Close commands when a Behold file with no GEDCOMs is input (e.g. a translation file)
  • Prevent people from being added to the Everyone Else group and prevent empty structures from being added from a GEDCOM that is deselected. (This bug was added in the first Beta version, but nobody noticed).
  • Update the Forward/Back history properly when processing a new report.
  • Display the numbering prefix for Custom Records and the links to the custom record as the GEDCOM tag without the leading underscore.
  • Prevent the double-counting of tags when adding a GEDCOM.
  • Fix other minor errors and inconsistencies found during the documentation.
  • Help:
  • Implement Context-Sensitive Help.
  • Add the Reference sections and How Tos and modify anything else needed in the User Guide along the way.
  • Web:
  • Request help from users in translating the tag text and report options into other languages. Make translation files available on the Download page on the Behold website.

Version 0.99.23 beta, 08 Aug 2011.

  • New:
  • Add buttons on the Find Files window to Open the file, View the GEDCOM, and View the Log File.
  • Allow the entering of a "Name Contains" value in the Find Files window to allow easier filtering for desired files.
  • Fixed:
  • Get the Open GEDCOM function working again (removed by accident in 0.99.22 beta).
  • Prevent possible abend when cursor is moved in a particular way.
  • A few Tag fixes and fixes to GEDCOM checking.

Version 0.99.22 beta, 02 Aug 2011.

  • Improved:
  • Do not allow updating of default settings. It is confusing. Only allow custom settings in Behold files.
  • Don't allow multi selection on the Organize Tags or Reports pages.
  • Update the Behold sun image on the install with the current Behold banner color.
  • Get the arrow up, arrow down and enter keys to complete editing in the Organize pages and move to the previous/next line and select the item for editing. This is a great convenience for renaming all tags or text quickly.
  • Bold any IDs and Text on the Organize pages if they are different than the default value.
  • Add a "Default" button showing the item's default Text value on the Tags and Report pages that allows them to be reset to the default.
  • Remove the "View" and "View All" buttons on the Organize GEDCOMs page since they aren't really needed so as to make room for the "Default" button on that page.
  • Add an "Edit CONC" button, and remove the "Show File" and "Show All buttons" (which are not really needed) to make room for it.
  • Fixed:
  • Get the "Merge from..." button on the Organize Report page to show the correct name of the report items that will be changed in the Confirm window.
  • Default the HTML document title of the HTML export to "The Family of (families)" and make it customizable on the Organize Report page
  • Display alternative names of one person separately in the name index as they should have been. (Bug added in version 0.99.13)
  • Update the internal tag checking table so that all Tag/GEDCOM version inconsistencies will be reported correctly.
  • Ensure unicode text is correctly copied from the Everything Report to the Organize pages and to other documents.
  • Change the font in the Organize pages from MS Sans Serif to Tahoma to accept the pasting of Unicode text.
  • Get Ctrl-C (copy), Ctrl-X (cut), Ctrl-A (select all) and Ctrl-Z (undo) to work when editing a string in the Organize pages.
  • Prevent abend that happens when pasting text into certain places in the title area of the Everything Report.
  • Don't erase the tag counts when cancelling a change on the Organize pages. (Bug added version 0.99.18)
  • Don't focus and unfocus lines (causing an annoying double flash) when using the mouse to select another line in the Organize pages.
  • Ensure when in the Organize inplace editor and clicking outside the editor, that it will save any changes and the clicked-on control will gain focus and execute.
  • Get the editing of the "CONC" value on the GEDCOMs page to work correctly and check itself correctly.
  • Get the RM and EE sections to display when the IDs for those sections are changed.

Version 0.99.21 beta, 01 May 2011.

  • Improved:
  • Eliminate abend whenever Instant Organize is done (bug added in 0.99.20).
  • Create the sample files in a Behold directory under the user's Documents folder, rather than in the program files diretory, which Vista and Windows 7 don't like.
  • Set default Open/Close directory to "(user)\Documents\Behold\Sample Files"
  • Display many of the dates and places that were inadvertently not being displayed in the Source Details section.
  • Prevent abend when clicking on a person in the Organize Families window whose family has not been set up yet.
  • Fixed:
  • Remove the unnecessary "ready to install" page from Behold's install.
  • Digitally sign the uninstall script.
  • Change the default to be to display for every person, their parents and children rather than to leave this as hidden (greyed) data.
  • Help:
  • Update the Welcome, QuickStart and Tutorial sections of the User Guide.
  • Web:
  • Create a web version of the User Guide.

Version 0.99.20 beta, 14 Apr 2011.

  • Fixed:
  • Get the keyboard shortcuts working again. They got broken in 0.99.19
  • Show file type "unknown" for .ged files without a HEAD record, and as "Behold log" for log
  • Prevent abend when trying to update Behold when it is currently being updated in another window.
  • Ensure that report options are not saved into the Registry. They are only saved into Behold files.

Version 0.99.19 beta, 04 Apr 2011.

  • Improved:
  • Improved the text in the status bar of the Find Files window to better indicate the search progress.
  • Added a "view exported file now" confirmation box after exporting to allow easy opening.
  • Insert a page break between sections when printing, print previewing, and exporting to Rich Text Format (RTF).
  • Ensure Behold looks good in High Contrast Black (special request by a visually impaired genealogist).
  • Simplify the anchors in the exported HTML and RTF using sequentially numbered checkpoints rather than internal Behold checkpoint names.
  • Fixed:
  • Avoid an abend when exporting to HMTL or RTF that I couldn't reproduce by adding an extra check to prevent it.
  • Use correct sort arrow directions in in the Find Files results.
  • Allow Find Files to search through large files, improve the speed of the search, and fix many small things not working in the display of the Find Files results.
  • Get navigation shortcuts (e.g. Ctrl+Home/End for going to the top/bottom) within TreeView forms (e.g. the FindFiles window or Tags Page) to work on their own form rather than being promoted to the main form.
  • Properly display tab characters and new line characters that are embedded in GEDCOM comments produced by some programs.
  • Allow only spaces as the delimiter between the GEDCOM tag and the value, instead of allowing both tabs and spaces. Tabs should be part of the value.
  • Handle level 0 records that are missing their tag without preventing the completion of the processing of that file.
  • Give a proper message using the info the operating system returns when unable to open a file, rather than just stating the file was invalid.
  • Eliminate the abend and just indicate in the File Information that the log file could not be written to when the log file is already open for writing by another process.
  • Correct the windowing behavior of the Find window and the FindFiles window with regards to when they appear when switching between Behold and other programs.
  • Give an error message rather than an abend when trying to open a file that is locked.
  • Ensure the undo of a deletion of a GEDCOM file when cancelling on the Organize pages is done correctly.
  • Display the history links correctly in the Forward/Backward history after using a hyperlink going to a husband/wife pair of people.
  • Ensure that tree depth numbers > 99 do not fold over onto two lines.
  • Check to ensure that there is no problem caused if the month in the program version date is in a localized language (e.g. Mai instead of May)
  • Ensure Print, Print Preview, HTML Export and RTF Export show or hide the tags and short or long references so they will match the current settings and look just like the Everything Report.
  • Get citation hyperlinks to work in exported HTML and RTF files.

Version 0.99.18 beta, 06 Feb 2011.

  • Improved:
  • Add a more complete set of FTW TEXT tag definitions to use for validation.
  • Change the icon for "Up To Ancestors" from a "U" to an upside-down "A" which will be more easily identifiable.
  • Use SmartSort for sorting file names in FindFiles.
  • Add information about the Program, GEDCOM, Dest, Char and BOM for each GEDCOM listed in the Find Files results.
  • Add the new version of Family Tree Maker to the internal list of programs that handles the CONC tag incorrectly.
  • Fixed:
  • Handle surnames containing an exclamation mark without an error box popping up.
  • Correct the ordering of spouses and children to correctly be the order in the FAM record rather than the order of the INDIs. This got broken in 0.99.8 beta when preprocessing "on the fly" was added.
  • Get the Instant Organize to recognize the person/people under the cursor. This got broken sometime during the beta. Also remove the "&" when displaying the IO hint when it is taken from the history.
  • Put back InstantOrganize so that it turns off RM and EE and sorts up to ancestors again, since this is the expected way it should be displayed.
  • Reimplement the "AutoOrganize" button but as a "Reload" button which is needed to get things back after an InstantOrganize or any other changes to the Organize settings.
  • Allow a "Descendants Only" ordering, which should have been in Behold from the start, but somehow wasn't.
  • Get the four family ordering toolbar items to work as a group and ensure that the active icon is disabled.
  • Enable the log file toolbar icon even if the input file is invalid.
  • Correctly show information for ID's that are referred to but do not have a record structure (e.g. a reference to @I22@, but there is no @I22@ record in the GEDCOM.
  • Prevent bug causing "Could not open file" error, that happened in GEDCOMs with multiple links at the end of a record, and Behold was incorrectly backing out of them.
  • Make SmartSort treat numbers following a period as text, so that "5.11" will sort before "5.5".
  • Get the animated icon on the FindFiles form to work under Vista and Windows 7.
  • Use the correct symbol for the sort direction in the Find Files window.
  • Prevent message box from appearing when interrupting the Find Files process.
  • Fix the cause of several other message boxes of various types from appearing (user reported errors).
  • Try to ensure that the separator between the Tree View and the Everything Report is always grabable and moveable.
  • Eliminate some residual in the redraw when switching from Top/Bottom view to Left/Right.
  • Change the GEDCOM, Log File and Add Family icons so they don't look like ugly grey blobs when they are deactivated.
  • Correct the progress bar display for some input files where a progress greater than 100% is temporarily displayed.

Version 0.99.17 beta, 27 Dec 2010.

  • New:
  • Read and display Family Tree for Windows GEDCOM dialect (FTW TEXT).
  • Add date and place information into Event references.
  • Improved:
  • Display the line only once in the log file if it has multiple errors.
  • Remove additional indentation on the extra part of continuation lines that overflow to the next line.
  • Limit log file by default to 100 messages instead of 3 of each type of message.
  • Display invalid GEDCOM tags in the Organize->Tags page with a bold font.
  • Include additional GEDCOM tag checks in the log file, including invalid tags, removed tags, SCHEMAS section and lowercase tags.
  • Handle EVEN and FACT tags using their TYPE tag for the definition. This used to be in Behold long ago. Don't know where it got removed but it's now back.
  • Use the TYPE, ROLE and RELA tags, where applicable, as the major grouping for the tags they describe, using the tag value as the subgroup. e.g. This will give: "Nationality: Irish", instead of "Event: Irish. Type: Nationality" and it reads much better.
  • Move the CONC note from the log file to the File section of the Everything Report, since it is important information for improving incorrect looking text in the report.
  • Move references to individuals (e.g. Witnesses) to the end of their description to allow them to be grouped together.
  • Fixed:
  • Prevent the abend when trying to update to a new version but you can't connect to the Behold website and give an informative message instead.
  • Indent correctly when displaying a linked note inline.
  • Display recursive links correctly. (Maybe not perfectly, but close enough!)
  • Display notes on family info correctly.
  • Update Everything Report correctly after applying a change to the CONC option on the GEDCOMs page.
  • Get the Cancel button on the Organize pages to work again. This was broken in the first beta due to the conversion to Unicode. Surprising that I hadn't noticed it earlier and nobody reported it.

Version 0.99.16 beta, 06 Sep 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Display only a single GEDCOM source line in the log file for blank lines and bad lines, rather than including them in a group of lines.
  • Finish the implementation of the duplicate link checking.
  • Add info about how Behold handles the GEDCOM problems in the File Information section.
  • Save Organize settings to the Registry every time the settings are applied, rather than just when Behold is closed.
  • Change the default to NOT go to check online for new versions, and make it just an option to automatically check. Now Behold will never go online without you allowing it or starting the action.
  • Fixed:
  • Ensure the .ged and .bho file associations will open files whose filename or path have a space in them.
  • Ensure selection/deselection of report sections works correctly.
  • Reconnect the Help File that was accidentally disconnected last beta.
  • Correctly read Report Option settings from the Registry.
  • Removed:
  • Remove full support of SCHEMAs that are deprecated from GEDCOM and were only used previously by other programs in simplistic ways. They will be adequately replaced by a few default tags.

Version 0.99.15 beta, 29 Aug 2010.

  • New:
  • Include Birth/Death years next to the name in the Name Index.
  • Add counts of number of entries next to each tree node in the TreeView.
  • Improved:
  • Remove the "Unknown Custom Tag" message, and instead of that, highlight the tag's text on the Tags page.
  • Move generation number from after the individual's name to the start of the divider line. By default this is not shown, but it has an Extra Info option to show it.
  • Indicate only Data problems in the header section of the Everything Report. Don't indicate if there are GEDCOM problems. Those will be relegated to the log file.
  • Clean up the Extra Info from the Organize Reports Page, including options to select the new report features, move some options to the text options and eliminate obsolete options.
  • Fixed:
  • Get the editing of Tag Text on the Tags Organize Page to work correctly.
  • Get short filenames on Windows XP to work again. This stopped working when Behold was converted to Unicode at the beginning of the beta.
  • Correct the order of identical names in the Name Index to be in the order they are in the Everything Report.
  • Prevent program crash that happens when the first person (who is the one being used to organize on) is a spouse in multiple families and the other spouse is not specified in one or more of the additional families.
  • Display the family data and descendants of a person that were not being displayed in the case of a person being a "spouse" in more than one family, and the other spouse is not specified in one or more of the additional families.
  • Catch the duplicate links that Behold was missing during error checking. This will also prevent an infinite loop that could occur due to those missed errors.

Version 0.99.14 beta, 13 Aug 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Organize using the first person (and spouses) in each file when multiple files are loaded.
  • Rename "Ancestral" ordering to "Down from Ancestors" and rename "Ahnentafel" ordering to "Up to Ancestors" since they are clearer (I hope).
  • Add "within family" orderings to the Organize menu and the toolbar using the "A", "S" and "U" icons to represent "Down from Ancestors", "By Surname" and "Up to Ancestors" ordering.
  • Don't change "within family" ordering to "Up To Ancestors" or turn off "Related Through Marriage" and "Everyone Else" when doing an Instant Organize.
  • List all selected people in the heading, combining spouses when they are next to each other.
  • Give a prompt to find the file when a GEDCOM file that is loaded from a Behold file is not found.
  • Ask upon exiting if the Behold file should be saved after adding GEDCOMs using the File menu.
  • Added the PAF tags: _PRIMARY, _ITALIC and _PAREN to the default tag list.
  • Fixed:
  • Reimplement the display of Related Through Marriage which was inadvertently disabled last beta when I bypassed it during debugging and forgot to take that bypass out.
  • Prevent abend when opening a Behold file that points to a file that is not a GEDCOM file.
  • Removed:
  • Take out the AutoOrganize function, menu item and toolbar item. Now the first person in the file is used, and they will be added to the Instant Organize history if you want to do them again.
  • Take out the ReOrganize function, menu item and toolbar item. You can do this simply by reloading your Behold file.
  • Take out the Refresh function, menu item, toolbar item and shortcut. Behold is fast enough now that you don't save much by batching commands.

Version 0.99.13 beta, 04 Aug 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Check for place names that are a single tab character and display a missing place name message for it.
  • AutoOrganize around the primary individual correctly when all ancestries in the file follow single parents.
  • Sort people in the Unconnected Individual section by their name.
  • Include all main people (up to 6) in the heading and group couples together.
  • Sort the Name Index, Place Details and other items (e.g. Sources) so that upper, lowercase, and accented characters are one after another.
  • Implement improvements to the Name index that reduce Behold's memory use by 10%.
  • Include the "unspecified last name" text for a woman's married name when her husband's surname is unknown.
  • Rename the NOREF designation for Undefined Records to UNDEF.
  • Display the Undefined Record tag directly, rather than using the tag text.
  • Make changes to the implementation of the alphabetical ordering of descendants, that now guarantees that all "see above" references will always be earlier in the file.
  • Limit each section of the Table of Contents to 100 lines followed by a line summarizing the rest of the section. That many lines make it rather useless as a summary of the contents, so there is no reason to include them.
  • Work to reduce some bits of non-responsiveness during the loading of large files.
  • Fixed:
  • Include people linked only to a FAM record in "Unconnected Individuals", rather than with the general "Everyone Else".
  • Sort Related Through Marriages people and Everyone Else alphabetically by their name. This somehow got broken in 0.99.7 beta.
  • Adjust the spacing between lines in the TreeView when text size is changed.
  • Make headings once again 2 point sizes larger than the other text.
  • Clicking on TreeView item, and then moving location in Everything Report, and then clicking on the same TreeView item should again move back to that location in the Everything Report.
  • Sort placenames correctly that end with a missing level (i.e. end with a comma).
  • Add the link type to the undefined sources. Previously they had only been added to undefined citatation.

Version 0.99.12 beta, 22 Jul 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Show multiple lines in Log file messages when CONC tags are used.
  • Rewrite the text of the "too many marriages" message to indicate it is a GEDCOM structural problem and not a data problem.
  • Rewrite several other log file error messages to make them clearer.
  • Add messages for one-way links between FAM and INDI records.
  • Fixed:
  • Buffer large (> 32 MB) UTF8 GEDCOM files correctly to not skip small sections between the buffers.
  • Read the rest of large (> 32 MB) Unicode GEDCOM files that were being cut off at the 32 MB boundary.
  • Unbreak the handling of CONC tags on level 0 records, which was broken in the last beta.

Version 0.99.11 beta, 13 Jul 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Include all the old log file checks that were removed and check that the log files display appropriately for various files.
  • Change the Home and End keys to go to the start and end of the line, not of the file.
  • Add "Top of file" (Ctrl-Home) and "Bottom of file" (Ctrl-End) as menu items.
  • Include all address_structure tags as valid entries in the HEAD record.
  • Reinitialize the tag definitions, not just before Behold file loads, but before GEDCOM file loads as well.
  • Add GEDCOM header information into the log file.
  • Add information about how the CONC tag is handled into the log file.
  • Improved speed by 15%, reduced memory use by 15%, and now Behold can read in very large GEDCOM files (e.g. 300 MB) without an OutOfMemory error.
  • List only the first 3 of each GEDCOM message, since there can be a lot of them.
  • Change the category of unknown tag messages from GEDCOM to Data Problem.
  • Limit the autoorganize to display just the first 3 most significant families. Displaying more does not help but only causes confusion, especially in the case of GEDCOMs including many independent families.
  • Display the title lines listing who the report is about with one person per line for easier reading.
  • Replace the hash algorithm with one that gives fewer collisions for Unicode text. This will speed up searches, printing and exporting.
  • Optimize the Find function and ensure it will not freeze the program when searching through large files.
  • Change the default text size from "smaller" to "medium" and made them 1 point size larger. (We older genealogists tend to have poorer eyesight).
  • Fixed:
  • Write the "unspecified place" value into the Everything Report when the PLAC tag is missing to prevent a ReversePlace error when scrolling through that part of the report.
  • Lock the buttons correctly when resizing the Find Files window.
  • Ensure the default tags get reinitialized every time new files are opened.
  • Repair the tag counts.
  • Get rid of the 4 unused tags (e.g. +Contents) added to the tags list when a Behold file is loaded.
  • Display the spouse's name in the TreeView. This problem started in 0.99.7 beta, 06 Feb 2010.
  • Correct the error in the GpStringHash routine's hash algorithm that caused an invalid address to be saved whenever the Hash table needed to be made larger and an exception box would appear when accessing the person. I informed Gabr (the developer of GpStringHash) and he has implemented my fix.
  • Display both people in right-click options when the mouse is over a pair of people.
  • Display abbreviated first/last names correctly (e.g. in right-click options) when the person's first name is not given.
  • Correctly process lines starting with tabs and/or spaces and add a message in the log file about it.
  • Display custom GEDCOM records correctly, e.g. _EVENT_DEFN.
  • Display the _PLAC_DEFN custom record used by Legacy as information about the place in the Place Details.
  • Display RootsMagic's _EVDEF (Event Definition) records correctly, but hide them by default, since most people won't want to see them.
  • Prevent the clearing of the Tags page when a change on that page is applied.
  • Eliminate the double printing of the tag name that happened sometimes within hidden text.
  • Use a single refresh of the Everything Report instead of a double double refresh when selecting a TreeView item after navigating via a hyperlink in the Everything Report.
  • Increase and decrease text size correctly in the TreeView. (The spacing between lines still has to be adjusted).
  • Web:
  • Get the Behold Newsletter going again after a long hiatus and send a new issue to all users.
  • Contact all people who have expressed interest in Behold or in being a beta tester.

Version 0.99.10.1 beta, 24 May 2010.

  • Fixed:
  • Got hyperlinks broken by the period at the end of the sentence to work again.

Version 0.99.10 beta, 24 May 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Check internet connection and new version information only at startup.
  • Recalibrate progress meter to better reflect progress of new optimizations.
  • Prevent more than a fraction of a second periods of "non-responsiveness" while Behold processes large files.
  • Show only the first 100 references and then list how many more there are. The reference list is not very useful when there are so many references for a particular source/event combination.
  • Indicate in the title area which files have possible data problems and/or non-standard GEDCOM, and link that to their file information.
  • Include record counts, summarize the messages, and add links to the GEDCOM file and log file in the file information.
  • Add periods to separate lines within a section where they normally would be placed one after another with no punctuation in between.
  • Fixed:
  • Prevent reading of UTF-8 files from getting messed up because of a buffering problem at every 4 MB of large GEDCOM files.
  • Display concatenated notes correctly.
  • Get tags not defined in the Behold's default list to display with their tag name rather than incorrectly using one of the other tag's descriptions.
  • Make several fixes to the display of schema tags.
  • Show reverse link relationships (e.g. Relationship to Father) on one line rather than separate lines.
  • Show the correct file size in the File Information. 0 wasn't correct.
  • Repair the display of undefined records back to the correct way it worked in the alpha.
  • Show the NOTE references in the undefined records.
  • Display notes in sources properly when they only have one reference.
  • Use the Unicode non-breaking hyphen instead of the Ascii one which no longer seems to display.

Version 0.99.9 beta, 19 May 2010.

  • Fixed:
  • Repair all the source linkages. This was a very bad bug introduced in the last beta.
  • Ensure a file associated with Behold opens properly when the filepath has one or more spaces in it.
  • Properly handle a place with the "@" character in it to prevent the placename from truncating at that character, and fix the reporting of "no valid files" that would happen when the "@" was the first character of the placename.
  • Prevent the crash caused when scrolling or searching through the name index if a name had an "@" character in it.
  • Make a number of repairs to the display of detail information for people links.
  • Add record info to the correct GEDCOM record rather than to the next record when the next record is just a single line.
  • Handle a problem with some files when reading additional 4 MB buffers. Hopefully I've fixed this, but I'm not sure.

Version 0.99.8 beta, 13 May 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Include the old GEDCOM/logfile that was in version 0.98.9d alpha, 27 Aug 2007 and was taken out in the next version.
  • Add the View Logfile command and toolbar icon.
  • Add a file summary to the log file.
  • Add a message for GEDCOM lines that are indented.
  • Change the connected/disconnected to the internet icon to both be terminals (white and black).
  • Do not read all the data back in for operations that don't require it.
  • Ensure menu items are correctly enabled/disabled when no file is loaded.
  • Remove the "Incorrectly Linked Families" section which did not really help with identification of the loops and replace with a more useful "has own ancestor" message in the log file.
  • Treat duplicates IDs as new IDs instead of merging them together.
  • Don't show log messages in the Organize Report page since they don't need to be selected or text changed now that they're in the log file.
  • Change the Exception dialog to not attempt to set up an email, but instead to allow copying the message to the clipboard and opening up the Behold website's feedback page to allow the message to be pasted as feedback and sent to me.
  • Ensure that nested links of any depth are handled.
  • Do preprocessing "on the fly" where possible, i.e. don't do it at loading time, but delay it until display time.
  • Fixed:
  • Load a .GED file in Behold when clicking on it and when the association is set. (Bug preventing this introduced in 0.99.7 beta).
  • Eliminate memory leaks.
  • Eliminate abend and fix display of Instant Organize when a person without a spouse is selected. (Bug introduced in 0.99.1 beta).
  • Show a message box when nothing is found when searching in an up direction.
  • Get the animated find files "working" indicator to work under Vista and Windows 7.
  • Repair problems with the Find function including: not skipping the selection when reversing direction, adding the hourglass during long finds over the Find box, preventing pressing the Find button again while finding, and allowing the section number in the divider between sections to be found.
  • Ensure that association and disassociation with .bho and .ged files works correctly.
  • Removed:
  • Remove the page setup menu item which has not been implemented for Behold.
  • Remove the selection menu items which won't work until editing is added.

Version 0.99.7 beta, 06 Feb 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Show a pointing and working cursor instead of a simple working cursor (hourglass/ring) when the cursor is over the Stop button and Behold is processing.
  • Ensure that the SCHEMA tag still works correctly.
  • Change the default for the CONC tag to assume the program does it correctly, rather than incorrectly. Change the internal table from a listing of correct programs to be a listing of incorrect programs.
  • Add a message for GEDCOM lines longer than 255 characters.
  • Order Unconnected Individuals by surname.
  • Fixed:
  • Enable the CONC tag to work properly during reading and not just when displaying. This will prevent truncated data from getting loaded into the NAME and a few other structures.
  • Add back the messages to the file information that inadvertently got removed in Version 0.99.6 when the Gedcom record structure was added.
  • Re-sort the tags in the file information alphabetically by tag name as they were in Version 0.98.99.
  • Repair the handling of the Legacy Place Definition tag: _PLAC_DEFN
  • Do not display the structure title again in the structure contents.
  • Prevent the range error when pressing the Back key with more than 15 history entries in it.

Version 0.99.6 beta, 24 Jan 2010.

  • Fixed:
  • Allow recent files to properly handle pathnames longer than 100 characters and conveniently abbreviate them.
  • Correct the tag counts that were double counted and move the count for PLAC tags back from the pointer group into the data group. This bug was introduced in 0.99.1.
  • Correct problems in buffering the view area of the Everything Report that sometimes made it jump positions when scrolling up or down with the arrow keys or mouse wheel.
  • Do not give a blank line message for blank lines following the TRLR line.
  • Prevent an on-idle exception from happening at program startup. If you were getting this, it was a really bad bug that prevented you from continuing or exiting.
  • Eliminate an on-idle bug when determining who is under the cursor for Instant Organize purposes, and also put the space back in between the first and last names when the names of those people are displayed.

Version 0.99.5 beta, 15 Jan 2010.

  • New:
  • Allow modification of the concatenate method used for CONC tags, as either 0 spaces, 1 space or let Behold pick one based on the source program. This is done on the GEDCOMs Organize page and can be set for each GEDCOM independently.
  • Improved:
  • Added a default tag name for HEAD.DATA.
  • Make minor adjustments to the recently used file menu and toolbar items.
  • Fixed:
  • Repaired the incorrect flipping of two characters when certain special characters were encountered in the ANSEL character set.
  • Eliminate the insertion of " CONB " when only a space should have been inserted in concatenated lines. This bug was introduced in 0.99.1 beta.
  • Eliminate the error when scrolling the current selection out of the loaded view.
  • Ensure the opened files are correctly added to the recent file list.
  • Eliminate the error when registering using a name of 5 or fewer characters. This bug was introduced in 0.99.1 beta. It looks like 7 people may have been affected before it was finally reported to me.

Version 0.99.4 beta, 08 Jan 2010.

  • Improved:
  • Add better quality small icons to the Behold file.
  • Change the merging Tags and Custom Text dialog to be a resizeable form and space the items on the form correctly under Vista and Windows 7.
  • Fixed:
  • Use a non-protected temporary file for downloading the instant update setup program so that webupdate will work in Vista and Windows 7.
  • Correct four incorrect titles that appeared when the title text was customized.
  • Do not import Custom Text that is no longer used by Behold.

Version 0.99.3 beta, 06 Jan 2010.

  • New:
  • Add an option to NOT include married names in the Everything Report.
  • Improved:
  • Do not include the husband's surname in the wife's name if the family info contains: 1 MARR followed by 2 DATE NOT MARRIED.
  • Make the error handling less obtrusive by using the user's default email program.
  • Redo the error message box and allow dragging and dropping of the attachments to include.
  • Fixed:
  • Turn off the "New Version Available" on the Menu after upgrading to the newest version.
  • Change Status Line so that all but the last panel width is set. This will hopefully eliminate a window resizing error that may only occur in Windows 7.
  • Mark lines without a Tag as a bad GEDCOM line and ignore the line.
  • Do not display recently used files that don't exist.
  • Get standard shortcut keys (e.g. Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, etc.) to work in the find box, find files window, and organize form.
  • Replace the old ElTree routine used for the Organize pages with the new ElXTree routine to correct a few issues including the ugly up/down arrows, column widths and selecting a checkbox by clicking.
  • List stepfamily connections with only a single spouse that were previously skipped in the Everything Report, resulting in their family information being put on the wrong person. This will also prevent the error that happens when Instant Organizing on the family information.
  • Ensure that the error checking between the Unicode file header and the GEDCOM character set is reported correctly.
  • Get the inplace editing in the Organize pages working properly.
  • Make sure name suffixes are included at the end of the name, e.g. not John II Smith, but John Smith II.
  • Eliminate the error when pressing Ctrl-Home, Ctrl-End or middle-mouse scrolling in an empty Everything Report.
  • Prevent the error that occurs when reading in Forward/Backward data from a Behold file that was created with a pre-Unicode version of Behold.
  • Ensure large Behold icons show up in Vista and Window 7.
  • Eliminate the abend caused by scrolling up using the up arrow key.
  • Eliminate the jerkiness in the window display when scrolling using the mouse wheel.
  • Use text from the Report Page rather than Tag Text for section titles. (This bug was introduced in 0.99.1 beta)

Version 0.99.2 beta, 30 Nov 2009.

  • Fixed:
  • Prevent the "New Version Available" on the Menu from displaying unless there actually IS a new version available.
  • Update the text in the info box to reflect that Behold is now beta rather than alpha.

Version 0.99.1 beta, 30 Nov 2009. Initial beta release. (Technology Improvement; Unicode and Speedup of Everything Report)

  • New:
  • Implement Unicode capabilities throughout Behold to allow data with multiple languages to be loaded and saved, and to make way for Version 2.0 so that multiple languages can be entered and edited.
  • Include place descriptions with the Place Details if the GEDCOM file includes it (e.g. from the _PLAC_DEFN tag in Legacy).
  • Added "Bottom of Report" into the Tree View.
  • Change to an active cursor during searches and allow interrupting the search with the stop button.
  • Add large Behold icons for Vista and Window 7's extra large icon support.
  • Include an exception capturing facility so that they can be easily reported during beta testing.
  • Add a "New Version Available" link to the right of the menu bar.
  • Improved:
  • Upgrade to newest version of Delphi 2009 allowing more compatibility with newer features in Windows XP and Vista. This resulted in an immediate 25% reduction in runtime.
  • Show only 1 column instead of 2 in the Recent File dropdown menus, so the Behold and GEDCOM files are now combined into one list.
  • Display memory use for Behold alone, rather than from a calculation of system memory use after less system memory use before.
  • Upgrade to new version of the ElPack components compatible with Delphi 2009.
  • Virtualize the ElPack TreeView.
  • Virtualize the Everything Report to speed it up and reduce memory requirements.
  • Rewrite the PageUp/Down and Top/Bottom of file commands.
  • Rewrite the scroll bars of the Everything Report.
  • Reimplement the ANSEL and UTF-8 encodings to go to and from Unicode.
  • Ensure main form displays on screen if it is dragged off or if screen size changes between runs.
  • Get the right-click selection of person to work again (required due to virtualization)
  • Split the "unspecified name" custom text into unspecified first name and unspecified last name.
  • Rewrite the Back/Forward commands (required due to virtualization).
  • Get the Find Dialog to remember its position if you've moved it.
  • Redo the positioning of the viewport after viewing/hiding tags or references (required due to virtualization).
  • Display titles of custom structures using the structure tag's description.
  • Rewrite the Find procedures (required due to virtualization).
  • Rewrite the Print and Print Preview procedures (required due to virtualization).
  • Rewrite the Export to RTF and to HTML procedures (required due to virtualization).
  • Change 90 day expiry from date of program into a 45 day trial from the date the key was downloaded.
  • Fixed:
  • Add a section title and cross reference to the Everything Report which was missing when the "descendants of" family was earlier in the report and the report section sort method was "by surname".
  • Correctly show the custom text for people who had no first name specified in the GEDCOM which was in some cases not displayed, or displayed to the right of the surname.
  • Add a cross reference and underline for "family of" sections where the person has been detailed earlier in the report.
  • Use the text viewer that the user has requested in the File Viewer Selection Box to view GEDCOM files. (I can't believe this wasn't working before and no one reported it).
  • Enable exported HTML hyperlinks starting with "www." to be clickable and take you to the site.
  • Enable exported email addresses to be clickable and load into your email program just like any other weblink. Also obfuscate it for safety from spam bots.
  • Eliminate a somewhat hidden but annoying flicker in the bottom right hand corner of the TreeView that's been there for awhile.
  • Recalibrate the progress bar to reflect the new loading time.
  • Get hyperlinks to work in the Good Ideas window.
  • Removed:
  • Remove the Encoding menu item along with the Code Page and ANSI conversion functions. They no longer seem needed with Unicode, since non-unicode character codings are automatically converted to Unicode when read.

Version 0.98.9.91 alpha, 2 Apr 2009. Last alpha release prior to going beta.

  • No Changes - Released to prevent 3 month expiry

Version 0.98.9.90 alpha, 4 Jan 2009. Last alpha release prior to going beta.

  • No Changes - Released to prevent 3 month expiry

Version 0.98.9.9 alpha, 7 Oct 2008. (Not quite the) Last alpha release prior to going beta. (Several fixes)

  • Improved:
  • Change all menu items and web update scripts to point to the new beholdgenealogy.com website.
  • Fixed:
  • Eliminate crash caused by a NOTE followed by a CONC tag with text formatted as like a link in a GEDCOM file.
  • Allow Trailer 2 and Trailer 3 to be unselected and not printed if Trailer 1 is selected.
  • Display some words from the Organize Reports page that were not displaying correctly.

Version 0.98.9.8 alpha, 9 Aug 2008. (New Website Completed, Update to prevent expiry)

  • Web:
  • Finalize web design using new web technology (CSS - Cascading Style Sheets) for display.
  • Customize the new Wordpress Blog Design.
  • Convert Forum to use bbPress.
  • Convert all web pages to new web design.
  • Ensure key sending and purchasing will work.
  • Move site to www.beholdgenealogy.com and make that site live.

Version 0.98.9.7 alpha, 12 May 2008. (Released to prevent 3 month expiry)

  • Web:
  • Worked on redesigning the website, blog, forum and support tools for Behold. (Not yet completed)

Version 0.98.9.6 alpha, 12 February 2008. (Released to prevent 3 month expiry)

  • Fixed:
  • Change the GetMemory routines so they will not cause an error in Windows 98.
  • Don't ignore GEDCOM lines with Tab characters in them, but treat the Tab as if it were a space.
  • Web:
  • Worked on redesigning the website, blog, forum and support tools for Behold. (Not yet completed)

Version 0.98.9.5 alpha, 19 November 2007. (Move log messages into Everything Report; Customize Messages; Read Partial Files; More Tweaks)

  • New:
  • Add the file size and number of records, pointers and data tags by type into the the File Information.
  • Add a heading line just below the other titles to indicate when there are possible errors and link to the File Information sections to easily access the messages.
  • Add a "Messages" section to the organize Report page. This allows warning and problem messages to be customized, to allow for future language translations.
  • Allow Behold to read partial or incomplete GEDCOM files and pick out and display all the information from them.
  • Improved:
  • Add extra checkpoints for spouses and families so that hyperlinks from their events can go directly back to them.
  • Get the link on the title to refer to the location of the person in that section, rather than to the first occurrence of that person.
  • Deactivate Forward/Backward history if their locations no longer exist after the file has been organized.
  • Rework the input routine to merge concatenated lines together for various internal improvements.
  • Eliminate the *CONC, *BLANKLINE and *BADLINE tags
  • Display the GEDCOM ID of inline notes at the end of the note, when selected.
  • Do not tie the "Refresh" action (F5 key) to the RM and EE selections, but allow regeneration of the Everything Report at any time.
  • Add the Index section names into the Table of Contents on the Everything Report. This is needed to make it easy to get to those sections in HTML and RTF export because they don't have a TreeView. And the concept is that these two exports will always look the same as the Everything Report.
  • Deactivate the "Back to Everything Report" from the View Menu since it doesn't do anything from the Main window.
  • Limit the number of people shown and display full names in the heading lines.
  • Assume a person's surname if surname is missing, first using their father's surname if given, else using their oldest child's surname if given.
  • Immediately regenerate the report when the RM or EE buttons are pressed. This eliminates the need to press the Refresh button first. I flip flopped on this, going back to how it originally was before it was changed in version 0.98.8.
  • Use an "unspecified name" variable for all missing names, and default it to "???". This can be changed in the report options.
  • Include an explanation of what the "Incorrectly Linked Families" section is and how to fix it. Also add a report option so this section and/or the explanation can be turned off.
  • Show tags still using their default in bold text and display an explanation of what these bold tags represent.
  • Review all remaining messages and ensure they adequately explain the problem and how Behold is handling it and a way you might be able to fix it.
  • Move the messages that are in the Log file into the Everything Report.
  • Fixed:
  • Get the memory dials to work on machines with over 2 GB of memory.
  • Deactivate the "Edit ID" button on the GEDCOMs page when no GEDCOMs are loaded.
  • Display the user name on the "Prepared By" line and in the log file for purchasers of Behold. Previously, it only displayed correctly for trial versions.
  • Display top level sources correctly in the Forward/Backward history.
  • Do not display an empty Name tag when subordinate name information exists.
  • Prevent the incorrect hiding of some index entries when the last item before the index is hidden.
  • Display the titles of source and citations correctly when they are made up of multiple lines connected by CONT or CONC tags.
  • Show correct references instead of just an address number when references are in descriptions within other references or in citation info.
  • Indent sources in the Source details section to the correct starting column.
  • Display references to notes.
  • Save custom text into the Behold file with a "Name" key instead of a "Tag" key. Because this was saved incorrectly, the custom text was not being loaded from the Behold file.
  • Display hidden data and links within hidden data correctly and don't number them.
  • Make sure all sources and citations are displayed and numbered when Everyone Else is selected.
  • Prevent Behold from wiping out the custom tags in the Behold file after the Show Used or Show Unused checkmarks are changed.
  • Prevent unsaved Tag changes from being lost after the Show Used or Show Unused checkmarks are changed.
  • Don't export hidden text to HTML or RTF when it is not displayed on the screen.
  • Make sure the Find function will find text in hidden data that is displayed.
  • Removed:
  • Eliminate the Log file.

Version 0.98.9d alpha, 27 August 2007. (Usability Improvements)

  • New:
  • Add a report title at the top of the Everything Report. Allow this to be customized and stored with the Behold file.
  • Add a trailer line at the bottom of the Everything Report.
  • Add a Report options page to the Organize window, and remove Behold's custom tags from the Tags page by changing them into options on the Report page. This will include Contents to select the parts of the Everything Report to display with their titles, Extra information that can be included, and Text phrases that can be customized.
  • Implement "Merge from" and "Merge into" for the options on the Report page.
  • Add a "checkmark" toolbar item for a one button click to toggle between showing just selected tags or showing all tags.
  • Display information for unselected tags with a light color (gray for text, olive for hyperlinks, teal for active hyperlinks) when showing All tags.
  • Display people in the Name Index using a bold font when their father and mother are not in the file. This makes it easy to locate the earliest ancestors for a surname.
  • Add new versions of Family Tree Maker to the internal list of programs that generate correct CONC tags. This will ensure that extra spaces are not be added into concatenated notes for GEDCOMs produced by FTM.
  • Improved:
  • Move the ID Number to the right of the line separating families, which makes it easier to locate and prevents it from visually interfering with the data.
  • Simplify numbering to only include the Family ID/Number and Descendant number, and no longer include GEDCOM ID/Number or Surname ID/Number.
  • Replace the Generation number, which was pretty useless, with a much simpler more obvious and less distracting generation offset number at the beginning of the separating line, but only when the generations fold at level 15 or more. This also allows the removal of the annoying "thick" separator line that was previously used to indicate a new generational offset.
  • Display information about a primary person's name (e.g. sources and notes) on its own line following the person's name.
  • Change the Tags page so that all GEDCOM tags are listed as their own name, and there are no longer prefixes before their names to indicate those that are Records, Links, or standard tags.
  • Show Records, Links, Standard and Total counts for each tag instead of showing Input and Displayed counts.
  • Reverse the order of displaying multi-level tags and separate with a period, e.g., "NOTE/HEAD" will now be displayed in the Tag file as "HEAD.NOTE".
  • Set the default CHIL tag to be unchecked so the list of children of each family is not displayed by default.
  • Use the FAMC tag for displaying direct line parents and set the default to unchecked. Add a "Parents of spouse" option on the Report options page, so that only those parents can be displayed.
  • Use the FAMS tag for displaying spouses and set the default to unchecked. Add an "Other Spouses" Report option to show spouses other than the one the person is currently paired with.
  • Activate Instant Organize and Add Family Of using the person in the link being clicked instead of the person containing the link.
  • Get the main structure text from the first structure rather than the last when a level 0 structure ID is found more than once.
  • Do not display the main structure text of an external NOTE record when including it inline.
  • Simplify how the initial directory is set for Open dialogs. What was done in 0.98.8 to match Microsoft Word but it didn't quite do it.
  • Put the "View GEDCOMs" icon back on the toolbar. What the h--k. I'd like it there and some people will want it. (Removed in 0.98.8)
  • Ensure the View All GEDCOMs button and the View GEDCOMs icon are inactive if no GEDCOMs are loaded.
  • Prevent folding of first row of Toolbar items when width of Behold window is reduced.
  • Reformat the Readme.txt and License.txt so that long lines now are split with line breaks. This looks better when viewed without Wordwrap on.
  • Upgrade to latest version of Inno Setup, my Install program, to meet Vista requirements.
  • Display Schema definitions more clearly in the File Information.
  • Recognize GEDCOM pointers only where valid in the GEDCOM so that the "@" sign can be at the start of data values.
  • Fixed:
  • Prevent pasting text to the Everything Report when the Everything Report is not the active control.
  • Remove the "Open as Read Only" checkbox that was inadvertently added to the Open window in 0.98.8
  • Read in the rest of the file after a blank line in the GEDCOM (introduced in 0.98.9).
  • Ensure tag counts reset to zero after applying Organize changes so they don't double count (introduced in 0.98.9a).
  • Ensure the proper Instant Organize and Add Family people are displayed on right-clicking (introduced in 0.98).
  • Correct problems with the display of entries in the history list of Forward/Back navigation.
  • Get the hyperlinks to work in exported Rich Text Format (RTF) for internal links, external file references, websites and e-mail addresses.
  • Accept leading or trailing spaces on the Registration Key.
  • Removed:
  • Remove the Surname Organize function. The within-family surname sorting effectively does the same thing.
  • Remove the "123" toolbar icon to turn the numbering off. Now that the numbering is out of the way, there's no reason to turn it off.
  • Help:
  • Convert help file from Windows Help Format to Compiled HTML Help for Vista compatibility.
  • Change the help file to be more visual with callout numbers linking to descriptions.
  • Update the Tutorial.

Version 0.98.9c alpha, 02 Jun 2007. (Bug Fix)

  • Fixed:
  • Eliminate the infinite loop when doing an Instant Organize on someone who doesn't have a FAM record.
  • Turn off the saving of Debug lines to Debug.log (Inadvertently left on in 0.98.9b)

Version 0.98.9b alpha, 31 May 2007. (More Bug Fixes and a Few Enhancements)

  • Improved:
  • Make the About Box modal all the time as most programs do.
  • Improve the summary statistics in the log file. Now the speed calculations are based on total time instead of read time.
  • Identify eldest child with a surname and use that for the ancestor's name instead of displaying "Descendants of ???" when an ancestor's family record has no HUSB or WIFE links.
  • Allow interruption of the Find File button while scanning files in a directory and speed up searching for text in large files.
  • Fixed:
  • Process an entered registration key when the About Box is opened manually, and allow the registration key to be pasted into the box. (Bug introduced in 0.98.6).
  • Reset the displayed tag counts back to zero when closing a file.
  • Do not allow AutoOrg to select families already done.
  • Indent level 1 notes properly. (Bug introduced in 0.98.7).

Version 0.98.9a beta, 16 May 2007. (Bug fixes, Improvement to Auto Org algorithm)

  • New:
  • Rewrite the Auto Organize algorithm so that it better determines the main people.
  • Allow Auto Organize to select people from each GEDCOM when multiple GEDCOMs are input.
  • Allow Auto Organize to select more than one pair of people from a GEDCOM if those people are deemed relevant.
  • Add a ~ORG tag to allow display of the Auto Organize relevance value.
  • Improved:
  • Move Submitter and Submission Details to their own sections following File Information. This allows linking to and from these sections.
  • Display the tag text when linking to a structure of different type than the tag.
  • List the Source references in the Repository and other Details sections by the order that they occur.
  • Give a confirmation box with an option to cancel when doing a "Save As" or "Export" that will overwrite an existing file.
  • Close the Organize Window immediately when the OK button is pressed rather than waiting until the report is refreshed.
  • Add TMG to the internal list of programs that handle the CONC tag correctly (along with PAF, Brother's Keeper, and Legacy).
  • Fixed:
  • Correct the numbering of files in the File Information section of the Everything Report when multiple files are input.
  • Show the correct surname ID again in the numbering of sections sorted by surname. (Bug was introduced in 0.98.9)
  • Eliminate the extra line describing the last person of the previous section shown in sections sorted by surname. (Bug was introduced in 0.98.9)
  • Remember changes applied to Tags selections and Tag Text while Behold is open.
  • Correct the display of ancestors for Ahnentafel ordered reports, e.g. as in Instant Organize. (Bug was introduced in 0.98.9)

Version 0.98.9 alpha, 19 April 2007. (Finish Data Handling, Speed Improvement)

  • New:
  • Added statistics into the Log File about the speed of reading the input files.
  • Show source references in the repository index and other structure indexes.
  • Report any links from an INDI or FAM record to an undefined record.
  • Report any links from an INDI or FAM record with no link back.
  • Check and report on Citations referring to a structure that is not defined elsewhere in the input file.
  • Handle references in references. e.g. a Source reference from a Note reference.
  • Display all information from custom-defined top-level structures in their own sections along with references and links.
  • Disable the checkboxes for Tags whose display state cannot be changed.
  • Improved:
  • Remember the Organize page last accessed and open the Organize pages with that page.
  • Order all relationships as given in the input file. This results in the children being listed in the correct order.
  • Change default @CHIL tag from "Child:" to "Children:". It seems to read better in the report.
  • Eliminate the @~SPOU tag that was previously used for reverse HUSB and WIFE links. New coding no longer needs it.
  • Eliminate the @~FAM1 and @~FAM2 Tags and make a single @FAMS* tag to represent other marriages. This will display immediately following the @FAMS tag on the Tags page.
  • Rewrite the data structure for family links in Behold. This improved the code and reduced Behold's processing time by 15% and memory use by 6%.
  • Change the handling of blank and null lines so that the "Lines Input" count is correct.
  • Replace the "Selected" and "Hidden" count columns on the Tags page with a "Displayed" count column.
  • Eliminate the extra indentation not needed in the index listings.
  • Add proper descriptive text to the history entries on the Forward/Back buttons and ensure the buttons work correctly.
  • Sort the events in references by their display name rather than by their Tag name to ensure accurate sorting.
  • Group TreeView additions together with a BEGINUPDATE and ENDUPDATE statement to result in an instant 25% speedup.
  • Handle individuals who have no name assigned, and give them a name with the surname specified by the ~NONAME tag.
  • Change the ~UNSPEC tag used to handle PLAC tags where the place was no assigned, to the ~NOPLAC tag.
  • Add a custom ~DETA tag to represent what follows the Main Section names. Doing so removes the word "Details" from the top level tag names, and the ID tag now displays better without the word "Details".
  • Index last names that are made up of more than one word correctly in the name index.
  • Combine events in the Place Details when they are at the same place and for the same event type but from different input files.
  • Leave places starting with a dash at the beginning of the Place Details, rather than forcing them to the end.
  • Optimize data structures and program code to make Behold 3 to 5 times faster and use 20 to 25% less memory than version 0.98.8.
  • Changed the default orientation of the TreeView and Everything Report from Top/Bottom to Left/Right.
  • Add an ~UNDEF tag to allow you to specify the name to display for undefined individuals.
  • Display the current directory being searched after the number of files found in the status bar of the Find Files function.
  • Interrupt processing faster when pressing Stop Processing button during file reading, and indicate process end in the Log file.
  • Mark separate processes better in the log file by separating them with a dashed line.
  • Improve the line spacing in the Log file.
  • Generalize the HUSB and WIFE tags, allowing spouses of unknown gender, same gender (with a Warning in the log file), and more than two (I'm not sure why, but maybe someone will need it - also with a Warning).
  • Show ID numbers without the @ characters around them and change its default Tag Text to "ID is:". The number of IDs input will be counted so it will now show up on the default Tag list even though it is unselected by default. That will make it easier to select when it is wanted.
  • Move forward and reverse link information into the internal representation of links between people, for more efficient processing.
  • Remove the option to show husband, wife and spouse links back from the family, and the spouse link forward from the individual (except for the other spouse links). Showing these is unnecessary because the display makes it obvious that they are in the same family group. The forward individual information and reverse family information will be shown together under the individuals.
  • Remove the number of Lines Input and Tags Input from the Tags Organize page and display the information in the Log file instead.
  • Ensure all recursive references are displayed in Everything Report.
  • Write the log file to the same directory the data file is in instead of where Behold is located. Vista does not allow data files in the Program Files directory. Also change the log file name to be the same as the Input file but with .log added on the end.
  • Ensure that the log files display what they should for the sample files included with Behold.
  • Fixed:
  • Do not change the active Organize page when the Organize Cancel button is pressed.
  • Enable the dropdown selections for MainOrder, WithinFamilies, GEDCOMs and Surnames to correctly activate the Apply and Cancel buttons (inadvertently introduced in 0.98.7).
  • Eliminate the duplicate display of the tag text for _FREL and _MREL tags.
  • Correctly sync the Everything Report with the TreeView when a line in the TreeView is clicked directly from another window.
  • Correct the Find Files function when Containing Text is asked for so that it will not skip the remaining files in a directory after one file does not contain the text.
  • Removed:
  • Get rid of the Add Family form. Instead, get the Family Organize window to display when a family is added so that the new family list can be seen. This reduced memory use by 15%.
  • Web:
  • Design an HTML template for Behold News to make the mailings look nicer.

Version 0.98.8 alpha, 28 January 2007. (Input/log viewer, Find Files, and other enhancements)

  • New:
  • Use an External Text Viewer to view the GEDCOMs. By default it is Notepad.
  • Save the log to a .log file instead of to the GEDCOMs and Input Log window.
  • Add a "Text Viewer" menu item, where you can select what Text Viewer to use to display GEDCOMs and the Log file.
  • Add buttons to View the GEDCOM files to the GEDCOM page of the Organize window.
  • Add a Find Files window to replace the call to the system to find files.
  • Implement column sorting in the Find File window.
  • Add a default double click action for the files in the Find File window to open them up in Behold.
  • Add a flashlight as a new toolbar icon that executes the Find Files command.
  • Add history lists to the various input boxes in the Find File window.
  • Display any SCHEMA information in the File Information Details.
  • Display what Tags will be merged when the "Merge from" and "Merge into" buttons are pressed.
  • Record the Tags that were merged in the Log File.
  • Limit the number of log files saved by default to 10, deleting any excess older ones.
  • Improved:
  • Change the shortcut of the GEDCOM menu item to F10 and use F11 for the Log file menu and toolbar items.
  • Change the function of the Log file toolbar item so that it now loads the Log File with the external Text Viewer.
  • Change the Add Family, Everyone Else, and Related through Marriage toolbar and menu items so they only make changes to the Organize pages, and add a Refresh toolbar and menu item that will Apply organize pages. This will allow you to make multiple changes before rebuilding the report.
  • Change the Add Family button on the Families Organize page so that it opens up an Add Families window that looks like the Name Index and lets you select the people to include.
  • Interrupt processing when the Exit "X" is pressed, instead of displaying a message to wait until processing is completed.
  • Reorder the Print, Print Preview, and Page Setup items on the File menu.
  • Add families to the end of the Families Organize page instead of to the beginning.
  • Open the Organize window initially to the Tab Page last viewed when Behold was previously run.
  • Simplify the tag definitions to use only the tag, except for the HEAD structure where "/HEAD" is appended, and for SCHEMA tags where the superior structure name and GEDCOM number is appended.
  • Redo the way SCHEMA tags and subtags appear on the Tags page.
  • Do not lose edits when clicking elsewhere in the Organize Window.
  • Change the top level tag headings so they show the full tag text and the word "Detail" is not added to them.
  • Standardized the way the initial directory is set for Open and Save dialogs to match how Microsoft Word does it.
  • Go through the different Open and Save Dialogs and make changes so that they are all done consistently.
  • Allow saving tag definitions into new files.
  • Rewrite the code in the SetLineTag routine that maps what datastructure is represented from any text in the Everything Report. This reduces Behold's loading time by 10%.
  • Rewrite the code in the CountGenerations routine that is used for AutoOrganize. This reduces Behold's loading time for large trees by 5%.
  • Fixed:
  • Handle Places that are just a comma, e.g. "Born in ,"
  • Get the Stop Processing toolbar item to be activated at startup when Behold is opened by double clicking on a file.
  • Get rid of the glitch that prevents a deselected Tree View item from unhighlighting until the mouse goes over it (introduced in 0.98.7).
  • Don't show the extra space in a Note when a CONC tag has an extra space on the end.
  • Add back in the auto-locating in the Everything Report of the family double-clicked on in the Families Page of the Organize Window. This was inadvertently taken out of Version 0.98.7.
  • Add back in the Editing of the GEDCOM ID, Family ID, and Tag Text to the appropriate Pages in the Organize Window. This was inadvertently taken out of Version 0.98.7.
  • Correct some errors in the merging of Tags from and into Behold files.
  • Print Preview of a selection and Printing of a selection was not working (introduced in 0.98.7).
  • Fix the uninstall procedure so that the behold.exe file and the other non-data files are removed from the Behold directory.
  • Removed:
  • Remove the GEDCOMs Toolbar item since viewing the GEDCOM is not something most people would want to do.
  • Remove the GEDCOMs and Input Log window.
  • Get rid of the Export to plain HTML option and have only Export to HTML that exports with CSS.
  • Web:
  • Update the Screenshots on the website to reflect the many changes made in Version 0.98.7.

Version 0.98.7a alpha, 23 November 2006. (Bug Fixes)

  • Fixed:
  • Prevent "Access Violation" when double clicking a .bho or .ged file to open Behold. (Error only occurred in Version 0.98.7)
  • Prevent "Access Violation" when dragging and dropping a .bho or .ged file onto Behold so that Behold will open it. (Error only occurred in Version 0.98.7)

Version 0.98.7 alpha, 22 November 2006. (Program Simplification and Speedup)

  • New:
  • Add right click options to add a family and rebuild report. These will do what the Name Index window did but in a simplified manner.
  • Add a menu and toolbar item to hide or not hide the numbering in the Everything Report.
  • Show the time required and memory used in the log file.
  • Draw a darker horizontal line and moves the indentation back 10 levels once 15 levels deep is reached and every 10 from then on.
  • Add a special ~GEN tag to indicate the Generational level.
  • Add a Logfile button that will open up the Log file for viewing. Needed now so screenshots won't have to be done later.
  • Add a Stop button to allow interruption of processing.
  • Give a "Cannot find this jump location" warning when a click is done on a hyperlink to a jump location that does not exist (usually due to stopping the program).
  • Improved:
  • Speed up internal data searching routine.
  • Remove counting of Ancestors and Descendants to leave only the Autoorg calculations and the checking for ancestral loops.
  • Reassign people toolbar button that was used to open the Name Index window to perform the "add a family" function.
  • Rename the "Relatives of" section titles to be "Family of", since it is shorter and relates in an obvious manner to the "Add Family" functions.
  • Display the husband and wife names in the Everything Report as Bold text. They show up much better that way.
  • Use "Index of Names:" and "Place Details:" rather than "Surname:" and "Place:" in the Forward/Back history to better identify the sections those entries are in.
  • Change the numbering so that it is displayed after the person's name.
  • Bold the surnames in the Index of Names, the places in the Place Details, and the descriptor lines of the other detail sections.
  • Take the hyperlinks off the numbers and move them onto the peoples' names instead.
  • Do not display the Table of Contents as a table.
  • Make the default to be to hide the numbering, except when printing.
  • Remove the underline from all hyperlinks. This looks much better.
  • Make the place hyperlinks visible by default, with the same style as other hyperlinks.
  • Upgrade to the latest version of Richview for many improvements, to be listed here after the upgrade is completed.
  • Move the caret to the destination when clicking on a hyperlink. Previously, only the view was scrolled, but the caret (current location) still remained at the hyperlink. This now allows you to see where the hyperlink took you.
  • Place the hyperlink destinations immediately before their text so the cursor will be in the expected place.
  • Change hyperlinks to the first person in a family so that a click on them now take you to that person rather than to the subtitle line for that family.
  • Remove the "mailto:" that preceeded e-mail address links in the Everything Report.
  • Give file and pathname hyperlinks their own style.
  • Get the hyperlinks to change color and/or be underlined when the mouse is over it, to make it obvious which hyperlink is currently selected. This also looks very nice.
  • Change the Name Index, Place Details and other Reference sections so that a comma separates entries instead of multiple spaces.
  • Change the double or multiple spaces that sometimes separated words to single spaces throughout the Everything Report.
  • Merge the short and long reference menu and toolbar items into a single menu and toolbar item.
  • Change the reference action so that it does not need to rebuild the report (much faster!)
  • Allow Windows to process more often during loading so that Behold does not appear unresponsive.
  • Rewrite the routine to read the header of a GEDCOM file so that GEDCOM files created on Unix machines would properly read the first few lines rather than the whole file. This reduces several seconds from the processing of these files.
  • Speed up the display of the Everything Report by reformatting as it is incrementally built, rather than waiting until it has been completely built.
  • Eliminate the tables from the Everything Report and instead separate sets of people with horizontal lines and indentation of generations.
  • Eliminate the ~INFO tag and the "for information about nnn, see rrr" line. This is replaced by the ~SEE and ~SEE2 tags that are shown on line with the person's name, and by default says "see above".
  • Fixed:
  • Calibrate the progress bar so it works correctly to 100% each time.
  • Get rid of the exception that occurs when doing a find from the bottom of the Everything Report as it attempts to pass into the table area. The latest version of Richview fixed this.
  • Fix the large cell drawing and printing problem. Removing tables fixed this.
  • Eliminate some redrawing glitches when changing font size. The latest version of Richview fixed this.
  • Correct some hyperlinks that did not work properly in saved HTML and RTF files.
  • Removed:
  • Remove the Name Index window. It is superfluous and only complicates things. Its only real use is to select families. The Index of Names in the Everything Report gives the same information and is inline where it should be.
  • Eliminate the leftmost column of the Everything Report that previously contained the numbering.
  • Help:
  • Get new sample GEDCOMs that can illustrate the more powerful features of Behold.
  • Add a new single page Quick Start to the Help file to truly allow a "quick" start.
  • Rename the old Quick Start as "Tutorial" and reflect the many changes made this version and use the user sample GEDCOMs in the examples.

Version 0.98.6 alpha, 25 August 2006. (Parent/Child/Spouse/Family Links)

  • New:
  • Display all Parent and Child links with all their associated information.
  • Display Other Spouse links and all Spouse associated information.
  • Display associated information for Family links.
  • Handle an invalid GEDCOM construct at level 0 where its Structure Type is missing.
  • Improved:
  • Don't add the individual GEDCOM files of a Behold file to the recent files list when the Behold file is read in.
  • Save corrected GEDCOM paths into the Behold file when the user manually locates GEDCOMs that may have been moved or renamed.
  • Change the Behold About Box so that it is non-modal allowing transfer to other windows with it open.
  • Prevent menu or toolbar attempts at processing from interrupting current processing where necessary to prevent errors and lockups.
  • List the short name in reverse order if the full name gives the surname first. The firstname is also the last of the given names. This will allow Behold to properly handle East Indian and similar names.
  • Fixed:
  • Repair a horrible infinite loop that occurred when using Web Update after the current version had already expired.
  • Prevent a memory error that occured on some invalid GEDCOM constructs.
  • Prevent program crash when double-clicking a line on the Family page in the Organize Window (to synchronize the Everything Report with the family clicked).
  • Don't repeat the first line twice for linked notes or objects that have one reference and are displayed inline.

Version 0.98.5 alpha, 30 May 2006. (Full Generalized Linking)

  • New:
  • Include people or families without INDI or FAM records if they are referred to.
  • Add a new ~UNLIST tag and name people without INDI tags (by default) as: --unlisted--
  • Add a new ~UNSPEC tag to name places where the place name is missing (by default) as: --unspecified--
  • Check first in the Behold file directory for GEDCOM files that are not found, and if not there then allow the user to locate them.
  • Improved:
  • Correct major problems and improve the data structure used to handle linking.
  • Simplify linking by using a single definition for both forward and reverse links. So @CHIL is the reverse of @FAMC. @HUSB and @WIFE are the reverse of @FAMS, and vice-versa. Other relationships like witnesses can use their own tags both ways.
  • Change TYPE tags back so they only dominate the EVEN and FACT tags and not other event tags. (This change was made in 0.98.3, but it was better before.)
  • Exclude any surrounding brackets from the reversing of names in the name index, e.g. <Paris, France>
  • Change the default Numbering Order to be Family order, even if multiple GEDCOMs are entered.
  • Fixed:
  • Eliminate the extra blank that was added at CONC tags when first line preceeding all the CONCs began with an extra blank. (It's hard to describe this clearly. :-)
  • Prevent the "Invalid Pointer Operation" and following lockup of Behold that can happen on closing a file when that file has links to people or families without INDI or FAM records.
  • Correct the Ancestor and Descendant Counts on the Name Index Page that was correct in version 0.98 but stopped working in version 0.98.3.
  • Web:
  • Allow purchases of Behold using PayPal, since Plimus now supports that.

Version 0.98.3 alpha, 05 Mar 2006. (Data Structure for Linking)

  • New:
  • Redesign the data structure to include all linking information between events, people and families. This now handles any INDI and FAM custom structures such as WITN (Witness) tags.
  • Improved:
  • Extend TYPE tags to work with all event tags rather than just EVEN and FACT tags.
  • Change the default tag text to GEDCOM 5.1.1 descriptions. This changes the text from past-tense verbs (e.g. "Born" and "Married") to nouns (e.g. "Birth" and "Marriage") and improved readability in the cross-reference sections.
  • Add the rest of the GEDCOM 5.1.1 tags (about 30 new tags). Now all GEDCOM tags have default values.
  • Display alternate names (extra NAME tags) for a person. Include these alternative names in the Name Index.
  • Display subordinate data and sources that are attached to a person's preferred name.
  • Change prefix of Behold's custom tags from "=" to "~" so they would display last in the tags list.
  • Standardize the display of linking information for forward and reverse tag definitions.
  • Fixed:
  • Get rid of the dashes that were inadvertently added into the Tree View section names in version 0.98 alpha.
  • Handle GEDCOM FAM records that do not have either a HUSB nor a WIFE tag.
  • Include the complete line, not just the first word of the EVEN (Event) tag when displayed subordinate to its TYPE tag.
  • Web:
  • Integrate code signing into Behold to assure during installation that the program is exactly as I released it and has not been modified by any third party.

Version 0.98 alpha, 07 Dec 2005. (Custom Structures, UTF-8, Character Sets, Font Size)

  • New:
  • Include the capability to display custom top-level structures that some programs define and the references to them.
  • Display GEDCOMs encoded with a UTF character set so that characters display correctly.
  • Implement Character Sets for Default, ANSI Standard, Eastern European, Cyrillic, Greek, Turkish, Baltic, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Chinese PRC, Chinese Taiwan, Vietnamese, OEM, Mac and Symbol.
  • Allow user selection of the Character Set to display and save this with the Behold file.
  • Allow the font size to be selected and add a menu item for this.
  • Improved:
  • Change the default of the RM and EE buttons to "selected" when opening a new GEDCOM files.
  • Change the section name of "Families that are Not Directly Related" to "Everyone Else".
  • Change the section names of "Everyone Else" to "There is No One Else" and of "Others Related Through Marriage" to "There are No Others Related Through Marriage" when those sections are empty.
  • Display "Everyone" rather than "Everyone Else" when no families and only the Everyone section is selected.
  • Display the name of the GEDCOM file in headings and subheading only if more than one GEDCOM file is loaded.
  • Add lines in the log file to indicate which files are being processed, or which are ignored when unselected.
  • Change the ANSEL input so that it can also use the Character Set selection feature.
  • Correctly display ANSEL combination characters that are split across lines via CONC tags in the GEDCOM file.
  • Fixed:
  • Bypass the access violation caused in the Others Related through Marriage section when it contains a group without any descendants.
  • Bypass the access violation caused by single direction links between INDI and FAM records.
  • Abbreviate long pathnames in the recent file list that can prevent the dropdown of the open files icon from appearing..
  • Ensure that following the input of a Behold file the RM and EE buttons get set as defined in the Behold file.
  • Move the GEDCOM name from the Ancestral Surname title line to the Descendant's subtitle line when Surname Order is selected, since one ancestral surname may be in more than one GEDCOM. The same applies to Relatives Through Marriage and Everything Else.
  • Ensure that no people, places or structures are included from GEDCOMs not selected on the GEDCOMs tab in the Organize Window.
  • Ensure that the Behold Box resizes properly under any display DPI and font size setting.
  • Removed:
  • Remove the empty "Tools" selection from the Menu. It could be included in Version 1.5 when the Options are added.

Version 0.97.9 alpha, 25 Oct 2005. (Custom Events; External Hyperlinks; Alphabetical Structure Sort)

  • New:
  • Handle EVEN and FACT tags that include custom events and facts using their TYPE tag for the definition.
  • Add hyperlinks to the filenames of objects (e.g. pictures, files, movies, etc.) to allow them to be opened with a single mouse click.
  • Add hyperlinks to the URL tag (website addresses) to allow them to be viewed in your browser with a single mouse click.
  • Add hyperlinks to the EMAIL tag (e-mail addresses) to allow a new e-mail message addressed to them to be opened in your mail reader with a single mouse click.
  • Merge unreferenced structures with referenced structures and now assign them the same structure prefix.
  • Use a SmartAddressSort to better sort the street addresses in Places.
  • Sort structures, using SmartSort, by their title/identifier.
  • Add a final section to Everyone Else to include any Unconnected Individuals that may occur. These previously were not displayed anywhere.
  • Ignore any "The " at the beginning of a line when SmartSorting.
  • Include only structures referenced when not choosing Everyone Else.
  • Change it so that a full Auto Organize of new files input will turn both the Related Through Marriage and the Everyone Else buttons on so that everyone will be processed by default.
  • Add a menu item (and toolbar option) to display or hide reference titles (e.g. for sources and citations) in the main section.
  • Improved:
  • Ensure that in GEDCOMs produced by Legacy, a space is not added between concatenated lines.
  • Ensure that the internal tag naming scheme is working so that the assigned tag names can be picked up in all cases.
  • Change Behold at startup so that default tags are always used and are not updated by user changes. To customize tags the way you want, save them into a Behold file and you can have as many different sets of tags as you want.
  • Add about 30 new default tags.
  • Change display of continuation lines so that lines after the first are not indented. This looks better.
  • Handle CONT tags that immediately follow NOTEs as a special case so that the GEDCOM level number and tagname will not be printed.
  • Don't print the Abbreviation if it is the same as the Title.
  • Use the Abbreviation or the Title if they exist as the text line to identify a structure, instead of always using the first tag that follows the structure.
  • List substructure and citation information on multiple lines to improve readability.
  • Indentify substructures and citations by including the structure name with it.
  • Add an extra indent on continuation lines of the first line in a section of the Everything Report to make them more distinct from new lines that follow.
  • Fixed:
  • Replace the custom splitter in Main window and GEDCOMs window so that it can be adjusted more than once and leave no residue line.
  • Ensure that info for a person and his descendants shows up when the person has parents with neither HUSB nor WIFE info. PhpGedView can produce such structures when parents are unknown. The parent info will be marked as: --not specified--
  • Remove the extra space that was inadvertently added to the end of all names in Version 0.97.
  • Prevent incorrect links that could happen when a link is encountered before its structure definition in the GEDCOM.
  • Enable Forward and Back buttons to properly show long descriptions by limiting description length to 100 characters.
  • Web:
  • Remove the Business License as a purchase option. Only personal licenses are now available.
  • Change the Buy Now page so that it starts with the first checkout page, rather than the "store" page.

Version 0.97.1 alpha, 14 Sep 2005.

  • Fixed:
  • Prevent "access violation" message when non-standard top-level tags are used.
  • Prevent "list index out of bounds" message that may occur when loading in a second GEDCOM file.

Version 0.97 alpha, 12 Sep 2005. (Everything Report: Notes, Objects, Repositories, Sources, File Information; tags; Forward/Backward Tool )

  • New:
  • Get the extended Note tag to work. (Note @nn@)
  • Finish the Place List of the Everything Report.
  • Add a count of tags for the selected people and a count of the hidden tags on the Organize tags page.
  • Add the File Information into the Everything Report.
  • Handle the SCHEMA (custom field) tag.
  • Implement Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources in the Everything Report.
  • Subgroup the Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources by Citation/Subsection.
  • Order the Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources by the order they are first referenced.
  • Implement a naming/numbering system for Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources, and their citations/subsections.
  • Add cross reference linking to the Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources from and to their references.
  • Implement Forward/Backward Tool
  • Handle references that link back to Individuals or Families.
  • Use the first line of Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources as its short description.
  • Set the short description to "--no description--" if there is none.
  • Add Hyperlinking to parents.
  • Add a link to the main person from the title.
  • Indicate which Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources are unreferenced.
  • Notes and Objects used only once should be put inline where they are referenced rather than in the Notes section.
  • Add and link the entries for the Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources in the TreeView.
  • Create an "invisible" hyperlink for place names so that one click will take you to the Place Details.
  • Display Lines Input and Tags Input on the tags Page.
  • Add Checkboxes to Show Used and Show Unused Tags on the Tags Page.
  • Display Errors on the Everything Report (in addition to in the Input Log).
  • Show a message on the Everything Report that Behold is ready for input when nothing is loaded.
  • Redesign the way structures work in Behold so that custom-defined top-level structures can be printed in the Everything Report in their own sections and have their own ID numbers.
  • Improved:
  • Suppress the printing of subordinate info for tags marked not to be printed.
  • Add tag definitions at the GEDCOM top level along with their defaults.
  • Add different tag definitions for subtags under the /HEAD tag.
  • Extend the Place List logic to work like the Notes, Objects, Repositories and Sources.
  • Create a single new tag for displaying internal ID numbers.
  • Change to better default text for some of the tags.
  • Place the Submitter and Submission information with the File Information.
  • Fixed:
  • Sorting now works correctly for foreign language characters.
  • Make sure the tag counts are correct.
  • Prevent an error from occurring when a family has neither a HUSB nor a WIFE and make that a valid family.
  • Get Auto Organize to use the first person in the file if it cannot figure out the main individuals.
  • Make Instant Organize correctly start with the selected person when that person has no spouse and no descendants.
  • Display Given names correctly when the Surname is not at the end of the name.

Version 0.92.1 alpha, 27 Jun 2005. (Interim Release to Extend 90 day limit)

  • Fixed:
  • Ensure that the Behold Box does not get cut off when the Windows setting for Large Fonts is used.

Version 0.92 alpha, 17 Apr 2005. (Web update; Ansel, CONC/CONT; Default Tags)

  • New:
  • Show days left until alpha version expires in About Box for trial users.
  • Get the Check for New Version command to work.
  • Show Internet connection status with an icon in the status bar.
  • Implement web update.
  • Display GEDCOMs encoded with an ANSEL character set so that accented foreign language letters display correctly.
  • Document the new features in the Quick Start help and online.
  • Improved:
  • Make it obvious in the About Box when Behold has been activated for evaluation.
  • Ensure the Uninstall will undo any file associations the user made.
  • Color the Good Ideas box light gray instead of bright yellow and made it minimizable.
  • Make the Warning and Information dialogs work consistently.
  • Custom process the CONT and CONC tags so that line breaks and line concatenation are included.
  • Define most of the standard GEDCOM tags to give some basic text to display and eliminate most warnings for unspecified tags.
  • Fixed:
  • Repair Menu bar color on XP machines from white to gray.
  • Get Behold to work on Windows 2000 machines by eliminating kernel32.dll references.
  • Connect the Help file to the menus and the F1 key.
  • Web:
  • Change the Survey page into a Feedback page.
  • Start new forums for Problem Reports, Feature Suggestions, and Questions and Answers.
  • Update screenshots of Behold.
  • Update Future Plans list.

Version 0.91 alpha, 20 March 2005. First Public Release.

  • New:
  • Add registration code processing.
  • Develop the Installation and Uninstall programs.
  • Finalize the Behold License Agreement.
  • Create the initial Readme file for Behold.
  • Set up the Behold Product pages in my Plimus account.
  • Customize the e-mail messages that follow product registration.
  • Include several sample GEDCOM files.
  • Add the Good Ideas box at startup.
  • Help:
  • Write up the Introduction to Behold and Genealogy section.
  • Create the Help topics for the About box.
  • Create the "Quick Start" Help topic.
  • Web:
  • Create Version History page.
  • Create Future Plans page.
  • Replace "How Far Along is Behold" with "What will Behold do for you" on the Behold Home Page.
  • Streamline Headers of all pages and moved quotes to Home Page
  • Build an online key generator Plimus can access.
  • Set up the Buy Now page.
  • Develop template for the Behold Newsletter.
  • Overhaul the website appearance to match the Newsletter and Help File.
  • Develop the basic outline for the Behold Newsletter.
  • Install e-mailer software.
  • Set up program to gather user registration info from Plimus.
  • Set up the Download page with registration form and mailing of license key.

Version 0.90.2 alpha, 15 Jan 2005. Private Release.

  • Fixed:
  • Correct the handling of file names on Windows XP.
  • Remove the extra message displayed for a non-existant file.

Version 0.90.1 alpha, 14 Jan 2005. Private Release.

This was what was included in this initial release:

  1. Everything Report
    • Completed Table of Contents
    • Completed Table-Structured Family Listing
    • Completed Complete Detail for Individuals in One Place
    • Completed Integrated Name Index
    • 60% completed: Integrated Place Index
    • 40% completed: Integrated Repository Index
    • 40% completed: Integrated Source Index
    • 40% completed: File Information
    • 80% completed: Hyperlinking Throughout the Report
  2. Completed Explorer-like TreeView Window
    • Completed Hyperlinks to Everything Report
  3. Completed Free Floating Auto Updating Name Index
  4. Completed Organize Features
    • Completed Auto Organize around Primary Individuals
    • Completed Manual Organize
    • Completed Instant Organize
    • Completed Surname Organize
    • Completed Save and Reuse Organizational Information (Behold files)
    • Completed Customizable Numbering System
  5. Completed Internal GEDCOM Data Structure
    • 20% completed: Handles All GEDCOM tags from any Program
    • 80% completed: Can Specify Text to Display for each tag
  6. Completed Input of Multiple GEDCOMs
  7. Log File
    • 20% completed: Lists Problems Found during Input and Report Generation
    • Completed Displays GEDCOMs that were Input
  8. CompletedPrinting Functions
    • Completed WYSIWYG Printing of Report
    • Completed Print Preview
  9. Completed Export Functions
    • Completed Export to HTML
    • Completed HTML Export looks just like Everything Report
    • Completed Export to RTF
    • Completed RTF Export looks just like Everything Report
  10. Modern Windows User Interface
    • 60% completed: Windows standard menu, toolbars, status bar and shortcuts
    • 80% completed: Remembers Window Viewing Positions
    • Completed Recently Used Files List
    • Completed Standard Windows Find Tool with History List
    • 40% completed: Windows Navigation Tools
    • 80% completed: Progress Bar
    • Completed Memory Monitor
    • 40% completed: Simple Standard Installation Program
    • 40% completed: Quick Start Help File
  11. Online Features