What should I be checking out in Beta?
I haven't visited the beta.familysearch.org pages in quite a while, but understand there are some features being worked on there, presumably before changes are made in the production version.
There have been suggestions of different fonts, a change in the source linker, etc., but I cannot see any noticeable changes and wonder what I should be looking out for.
At present, I am using Edge to view the beta version, while carrying on with my regular FS work in Firefox, so understand I might be getting slightly different page views from browser to browser.
Any advice on specific features to look for would be appreciated.
Incidentally, perhaps I picked a bad day, but I don't seem to be able to access record pages, repeatedly getting the "Something went wrong" or "Well this is unexpected..." messages. (No problem in viewing the same records from https://www.familysearch.org, however.)
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I've seen a notice that the new source linker has started a gradual roll out and should be visible to all of us there by the end of the month. I'm not sure why you can't see it in beta. It's been there for at least a few months. There is one of those links at the top to switch the view on and off:
It sort of works to evaluate it if you look at sources that are already attached. So many sources are not actually in the beta version that trying to attach a new source usually does not work, especially if that new source has an image.
The font changes I saw there yesterday are all gone today so I suspect there is no reason to comment much on those until they really settle on something.
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In my experience, the vast majority of indexed records don't work in Beta. I think they're simply not copied over there (yet). This makes it rather difficult to test the changes to Source Linker -- which probably explains why, like you, I haven't been there lately. (Also like you, I use Edge for the Beta site and Firefox for everything else.)
It seems that whatever's going on with the typeface changes, it's intermittent or only partially rolled out, even in Beta, because I haven't seen it yet.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi said "In my experience, the vast majority of indexed records don't work in Beta. I think they're simply not copied over there (yet)."
The Beta site is a copy of Family Tree as it exists around the end of November (so we're close to the time of year when it will be refreshed again). However, the sheer bulk of the billions of records available on the Production site would make it very expensive to copy all of them to Beta, so FamilySearch has chosen not to copy them. That decision means that references to records on Beta will mostly not work, since the corresponding records are not available on Beta. Much of the metadata is copied, so you'll see the usual source lists for persons in the Tree, for example. But the actual records aren't there so you eventually run into the effects of broken links as you drill down or do other things (such as Source Linker) that rely on the presence of the actual records.
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@Paul W I know that most of us have used Beta Mode a time or two. I am adding this knowledge article link to this discussion just in case there are some that may be unfamiliar with Beta.FamilySearch.org. https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/can-i-use-the-beta-version-of-familysearch-to-teach-a-class I have used Beta for teaching classes. I am able to set-up experiences and practice scenarios. Lovely place to play :)
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Mod note - replies were merged into one place, but that made your request for the moved unnecessary. I deleted those. Please let me know if there is anything else you want changed in the discussion by flagging your comment. Maile 🙂
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Thanks, Maile.
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