Monday, December 10, 2007

It May Be Time For A Switch

JL over at the JLog has a great post that Legacy users shouldn't miss. I've been using Legacy for many years and I am constantly amazed at how much I don't know about it. For instance, I was totally clueless about this "source clipboard".

I think Legacy is a wonderful program but I'm often frustrated when I realize that I could have saved so much time with short cuts I didn't know about. JL's post is a perfect example of this.

I'm seriously thinking of switching programs to something that's faster to use. I liken Legacy to the full version of Photoshop. It's a very "rich" program... meaning it has several ways of doing the same thing and is very complicated to learn. In just the last year I was introduced to Photoshop Elements and I rarely use the full version of Photoshop any more. Mind you, I've had 3 semesters of college level Photoshop classes and have used it for years. I know lots of shortcuts. But I can still get what I need to do done faster in Elements 90% of the time. I only launch Photoshop now for the occasional thing I need it for that Elements doesn't do (like the pen tool).

I originally switched to Legacy from FTM because it had a more robust search engine. But I don't use the search function nearly as much as I thought I would. Meanwhile, the other software programs have come a long way with their search functions in that time. So I'm thinking about switching software again :-7 (but not till after the New Year). I'd really like something simpler and faster to use. My goal is to find genealogy software that is robust enough to give me options for various ways to search the database but not so robust as to require training videos to master it. Any suggestions? (I know I can download trial versions of most software but I'm trying to minimize the number I have to try out.)

I would especially appreciate hearing from anyone who has previously used Legacy and is now using another software. I'd like to know what you miss and what you like better.