It’s been nearly seven years since Clooz 3.0 was first publicly released in July 2012.   A steady stream of new features and capabilities in Clooz has continued since then.  Here are just a few of the highlights during the lifetime of Clooz 3:

• Clooz 3.1 (2012) – Exchange people and sources with Legacy Family Tree databases
• Clooz 3.2 (Feb 2013) – The Composite View (hierarchical display of documents & people)
• Clooz 3.3 (Oct 2013) – Expanded Legacy Family Tree interface allowing Clooz documents to be exported to Legacy and create events for people in the Legacy database.   Media Location Tool for fixing broken media file links when moving to a new computer.
• Clooz 3.3.5 (April 2014) – Imports from RootsMagic, The Master Genealogist and GEDCOM files were added.
• Clooz 3.4 (Aug 2014) – Event exporting to RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, and other programs via GEDCOM files was added.
• Clooz 3.5 (Oct 2015) – Import/Export capability with Family Historian. Improvements to the Composite view filtering and sorting capabilities.

Since 2014, we have been working on a total rewrite of the program to support more flexible development of document templates and use of document data, and allow the program to run on both Windows and Mac OS X computers (without special virtual Windows environments).  This has  been a long and exhausting process for a small company such as Ancestral Systems, LLC.  We have maintained top-notch user support throughout the effort.  However, some of the development tools and products being used in this effort have not delivered the level of quality you deserve.  Correcting or working around these issues have used up substantial amounts of time.  Dealing with these types of unforeseen issues is a fact of life in the software development industry.

Unfortunately, after years of effort we have now come to the conclusion that our goal of supporting both Windows and Mac OS X computers is beyond our limited resources.   It remains possible that there may be a Mac OS X version further out in time, but for now, the initial implementation of version 4 is now focused entirely on Windows.   In the meantime, Clooz does operate fine on Mac computers under virtual Windows environments such as VMWare Fusion and Parallels.    Clooz 4 will require Windows 7, 8 or 10.

The plan at this point is to begin an early beta testing program with a limited set of capabilities, and then adding the missing components as they are ready.   When the program is fully functional and tested, it will be officially released.   The list below describes our goals, and should not be considered a commitment.   It remains subject to change.

Beta version 4a [July-August 2019]

• New document editor for both form-based and tabular formats, supporting all of the current document types as well as new templates such as for baptisms, estate files/wills, obituaries, military service
  • Spreadsheet type document templates for documents having tabular formats (e.g., censuses)
  • Form-based document templates for documents such as certificates
• Embedded document viewer to assist in document transcriptions (zooming, panning)
• Add ability to edit all of the summary data for a person while in the document editor
• Data from previous Clooz versions (1.23, 2.1, 3) will upgrade to version 4

Beta version 4b [September 2019]

• Tool for moving data from one template type to another (such as from a Generic Document to a new more specific document type)
• Import/Export capabilities with Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic, and Family Historian.   Data exchange with other programs such as Ancestral Quest and Family Tree Maker via GEDCOM.   These are already in version 3.   

Beta version 4c [November 2019]

• A new report generator providing more interactive settings and control by the user
• Expanded research planning capabilities

Clooz 4 [end 2019]

• Release of the production version having the full set of capabilities described above

Ideas under consideration for the future:

• Expansion of direct interfaces to other genealogical software
• Import / Export capability to external spreadsheet files
• Interfaces to online data repositories for finding and downloading document information
• Integration with online services such as Dropbox for moving Clooz data between user systems
• Additional new templates
• Add ability to group document lists by geographic area
• Improvements and new features to support interactive analysis of document content (assisting in the proper identification of people mentioned in a document, building of relationships between people)
• Additional new reports and options for user customization
• Versions of Clooz for mobile devices allowing retrieval of information and photographic capture of documents
• Multi-language support
• Ability for users to edit / create document templates
• Ability for users to edit / create report formats

Want to help make these plans actually happen?  Go to https://clooz.com/join-us/

Have comments or suggestions?   Drop us an email at support@clooz.com