Leister Productions today, released Reunion 10 for Mac. To help you evaluate, upgrade or buy, and make the transition I created a Reunion 10 Review and Guide resource page.
The review and guide tells you what you need to know before you buy or upgrade and what you need to know after you get it. The latter section contains videos that show you how to use some new features and how to do some tasks that have changed in the new version. There are separate articles for those topics as well and they’re linked in the review and guide, near the videos.
There are a ton of new features and changes. The review tells you what version 10 does that version 9 won’t, what version 10 won’t do, how to upgrade your family files, and my recommendation on whether or not to buy or upgrade among many other topics. Here’s the table of contents:
- What to Know Before You Buy-A Reunion 10 Review
- What Reunion 10 Will Do That 9 Won’t
- Why Not Stay with Version 9?
- Will It Mess up My Family Files?
- 5 Things Reunion 10 Won’t Do for You
- Can I Keep Reunion 9 on My Mac?
- How Much Does It Cost?
- Are There Any Discount Codes or Coupons?
- To Buy or Not to Buy
- What to Know After You Buy
- How to Get the Most Out of Reunion 10
- How to Upgrade without Messing up Your Family Files
- When to Delete Reunion 9
- How to Do What You Used to Do
- How to Use the New Features
If I’ve missed anything or didn’t answer a question you have please leave me a comment on this article. I created this resource page for you. I want you to find it indispensable. Likewise, if I made any errors or anything is unclear to you, let me know.
I’ll be adding more instructional articles and videos to the site and inserting the videos in the review and guide page, so you may want to bookmark it and definitely share it with colleagues. Sign up for my email list so you won’t miss out. The form is in the sidebar to the right.
There’s a new Reunion 10 tutorial index page so you can find articles about Reunion 10 without sorting through the version 9 articles. That’s important because with the new user interface in version 10, the initial steps to many tasks have changed. The guide tells you how to find features you use in version 9, like listing sources. You can combine that knowledge with the version 9 videos to figure out to get the job done until I update the videos. The Reunion 9 tutorial index page will remain in place so you can quickly find help when you need it.
Please share your thoughts and questions about Reunion 10 in the comments below this article. I appreciate your feedback and will use it to choose and prioritize what topics to cover for you.
Ben, Haven’t you been busy. Really looking forward to spending time reading your latest information on Reunion 10. Many of us have been waiting for this update for a very long time and really appreciate your wise words.
Explains the recent lack of Reunion 9 videos, eh?
I paid the $ 50 upgrade fee and took a quick look at the software using the demo file. My initial impression is that I am extremely disappointed. I admit that I only spent 30 minutes previewing it, but I disliked it enough to decide that it wasn’t worth going any further.
Likes:
– The Tree View. It looks nice although I find the variable widths of the boxes to be distracting.
Dislikes
– The overall interface. Terrible.
– The report are still as ugly as ever. Very boxy and no style
– The Charts are still very ugly too.
– We don’t have direct access to media in the iphoto or Aperture Libraries.
– No full screen mode.
– I dislike how the Multimedia sidebar works. It is distracting to see several peoples name labels in multiple places on the same screen.
– Geocoding. What good does geo-coding places do if you cannot view a set of places together on a map.
– I absolutely HATE how you have to click on a birth, date or note in the Family View to edit the info, just to have Family View slide off the screen? Crazy!
It seems to me that they did not make any attempt at redesigning this app from the ground up using the latest Apple technology and OS enhancements. If you are using Reunion 9, stick with it. For me, I am still looking for the right solution, although I am leaning towards Family Tree Maker. It may not be perfect, but it is clean and is the best Mac Genealogy App for now. I am keeping my fingures crossed that they make some signifiant improvements in the future.
Grrrrrr
Hi, Philip.
I appreciate all your points. Please share them on the ReunionTalk.com forum for Reunion 10.
By the way, you can view all the geocoded places for a person on a map at the same time. I’ve got that topic on my list to cover.
—-Ben >@<
Hello Ben,
I did share some points of dislikes on the ReunionTalk forum and as a result I was banned from it. The reason the told my was negative publicity. Strange guys at LeisterPro that don’t tolerate to hear dislikes.
What I like is a newer interface that look likes a 90% copy of the MacFamilyTree interface. And that is also the point that I dislike. With such a long development time I expect more improvement that Reunion 10 has to offer. In my opinion MacFamilyTree is a better choice. Better interface, charts and reports.
Ben, you are fantastic! This posting, with all the videos, has just zoomed right to the top of my Best of Ben list! Not only is it everything I need/want to know to decide whether or not to purchase Reunion 10, but the timeliness of the posting and videos – before I even knew there WAS a new Reunion version – blows my mind! Your abilities to communicate so completely, concisely, and succinctly still just amaze me! Thank you, thank you! I see no reason to even go to the Leister site at this point! You told me everything I need to know – AND, I’ll wait to purchase the upgrade until I can get it from Amazon through your site. (Leister really needs to pay you for this!)
Thanks Linda. I love you too! —-Ben >@<
Still looking at all the info. Was an update for the iPod Touch/iPhone to Reunion also released?
Hi, Bonnie. No, no update to the iOS apps. Reunion 10 works with them as is. —-Ben >@<
Hi,
You might want to take into consideration that FamilySearch is replacing New.FamilySearch.org with FamilySearch Family Tree as announced by the end of the year. Family Tree is already live and online and gaining users every day. So there will eventually (sooner rather than later) be little advantage to the programs that sync with New FamilySearch.
Thanks James.
I just heard about it very early Tuesday morning. One thing that struck me while watching the video that it seems to remind me, however vaguely, of another genealogical program.
MacFamilyTree. The interface of Reunion 10 is almost the same as MacFamilyTree.
One other thing, Ben. What about your R9 EE project? How does EE work with R10? Is it easier in R10 than R9 or vice versa?
Based on positive reviews and added functionality I purchased and installed Reunion 10. I like the new things that it can do such as enhanced web search, etc., but I really do not like the interface. Maybe it is because I was so used to Reunion 9 that I am having such a hard time warming up to this version but I find the interface clunky. I do not like the gradient color on the name buttons. It is possible to change the color but you are stuck with the gradient (I ended up changing the color to white so that I would not have to deal with the gradient). I also prefer the list style of children and parents available in Reunion 9 over the boxes in Reunion 10. The good news is that the children can be set to display in a list but, unfortunately, this option is not available for the parents displayed in the family card.
I am sure that I will get used to it eventually but, right now, because of the clunky interface, it is not a pleasure to work with this application.
I started out with reunion 4.07 in 1994. I still like many features in it that are not available in later versions. I like creating a calendar for everyone born, married or died on todays date and quickly click thru them to see if you needed to do further research or updates. I also like the register report as you could make a double column page and cut down the number of pages in half making a very readable report. I know there are a lot of drawbacks but for creating a simple family tree it was great!