Family Historian User Group

I've only just started exploring this area, as I want to send a friend the results of some research I've done into her family tree. I have done some searching in here (forums and KB) but only found detailed questions/answers. I'm looking for something at more the big picture level at the moment to see if what I have in mind is even possible, which is to generate a 'website' ie either a real one or on a CD which:

a) Allows an all relatives tree with basic details of individuals to be displayed, with navigation and zoom in/out (a bit like Genes Reunited trees or Google maps)

b) Clicking on an individual opens a new tab or browser window displaying a narrative report (for example) of that person,

c) Clicking source reference within that page then opens yet another tab/window displaying the multimedia object using whatever the default application for it is on the users PC.

I haven't thought much further than that yet, but is this sort of thing possible without some in depth web programming knowledge?

I'd find it very helpful to be able to look at the sorts of things that other people have produced if anyone is willing to share it with me, either via this forum or privately.

Thanks, David

ID:5352

FH does not offer the tree based CD/website capability that you ask for.

To view other member websites see Links > Members Web Sites in the Main Menu on the left.
Many of these are produced by software other than FH.

You could look at using something like, phpgedview or tng site building, but you will need some basic web skills such as creating databases and loading php scripts.

In the mean time you could experiment with the basic output from FH, adding diagrams via the picture option, or using the add pages to add some extra information and links.

Thanks for the replies.

I've had a look through the Members Web Sites, and there are certainly some quite swish ones there, with the sort of tree diagram I had in mind, but way beyond my capability at the moment.

I think I'll look further at the FH CD option and see what I can do with that.

Any thoughts on how I could produce a tree diagram, maybe as a PDF, but with a hyperlink associated with each 'box'? I've only got about 70 individuals in this friends tree, so could manually insert hyperlinks without too much pain.

Yes, look at my website at my Tate & Scott Ancestry Created by FH4 at:
http://www.fhug.org.uk/cgi-bin/index.cg ... ites&id=55
Go to the Index page to see PDF.

The technique for creating hyperlinks in a Diagram PDF is to use a custom Text Scheme and include a Hyperlink item with a Template such as =Text('www.domain.co.uk/ind' . RecordId() . '.html').
The last part ind' . RecordId() . '.html' defines the filename of the Individual property details file on the CD e.g. ind99.html
The first part 'www.domain.co.uk/ is the web address or folder where the property details files reside on the CD e.g. file:///E:/data/
This must not contain any space characters.

Thanks tatewise, that should keep my old brain occupied for a good few hours.

Sorry I'm late coming to this thread, but PhpGedView can be run from a CD:
http://wiki.phpgedview.net/en/index.php ... PhpGedView

It's a bit technical (ok, a lot technical) but it would suit your needs. Give me a shout if you're still interested and can't get it to work yourself.

I did look at PhpGedView a while ago but once it started talking about ISP Requirements such as apache, PHP, installing PDO/mysql, needing at least 1 database and a username and password, etc - I switched off.

Although FH only creates a static database, it only needs plain vanilla ISP web space and an FTP upload.
Likewise, burning to a CD/DVD needs nothing extra.

PhpGedView does look interesting, perhaps Merenwen could write a Knowledge Base section about installing and using it.

Ah, well, I use Ubuntu instead of Windows on my FH laptop, meaning I have PhP, apache etc all installed as standard. That's probably the biggest reason why I'm not sure I'd be any good at writing the Knowledge Base article about putting PhPGedView on the web. Besides, the KB already includes a how to on uploading to the web and the PhpGedView Wiki has all the information on how to install & use it.

Having said that, I wouldn't recommend the web-based solution for David at all. It's PhpGedView on cd that would suit his situation best. The website is only useful really if you want to share your research with a large group of people and/or would like them to add or amend details/people. Yes you have full control over what people can do and can undo their changes if needs be, but it's a lot of work you don't need for sharing with just 1 person.

I might have a crack at writing a KB about PhpGedview, but I'm notoriously slow at writing articles!

Just for anyone who hasn't seen a related thread, Tatewise has recently put up a WIKI article on how to make a CD/Website which includes adding urls to multimedia and allowing popup windows for the mm records.

I haven't fully understood it yet but it seems to meet all my needs for publishing something relatively simple.

Have a look here

http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... amily_tree

The Knowledge Base article Make a Family Tree CD or Website is now virtually complete at:
http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... amily_tree

In particular, the Automatic Batch Processing for post-editing HTML is complete at:
http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id ... processing

A few minor code errors crept in over the weekend, especially in the HTML Text Edits sub-section, but these should now all be fixed.

The installation notes for the Recommended Support Tools might need more detail.

If you have any problems or suggestions for the article, please post them here.

Re publishing to a website

I think development on phpgedview has stopped. The core team has transferred to a similar product webtrees at
http://webtrees.net/

As indicated by tatewise you require a good understanding of AMP to manage the creation and maintenance of a website based on webtrees by yourself - definitely one for the more experienced. Your web hosting service also has to be better than some of the bargain basement types.

However a number of hosting companies now offer a website package based on webtrees. They say they will upload your GedCom and maintain updates handling all the technical issues on your behalf.

No experience of any of these companies myself as I am not yet sure I want to go down the webtrees route but those interested in creating their own website without becoming technical experts might want to investigate.

Personally I hope the website facility in FH is developed as it will always be able to utilise functionality specific to FH which the generic products like webtrees cannot.

To be totally honest, if FH included diagrams in the output without having to save them first, it would be much better than PhpGedView or any other program I've tried. What drew me to PhpGedView was to ability to give others limited editing ability, so they could record the changes to living people that I got wrong. But no-one seems interested, so I've given up on that. Other than the diagrams and online edit options, I don't rate it above FH output at all.

Interested to hear your comments Merenwen. I have invested a fair amount of time in assessing phpgedview/webtrees and I am by no means convinced. I am going to look at the other options mentioned above.

David, I've just recently begun providing a free web service that allows anyone to publish their trees online so friends and family have access to them. It supports most of the options you're looking for, is free and painless to use. You can upload your GEDCOM file and have an online tree in just a few minutes. There are also lots of configurable options and interesting reports available. Check out my blog for updates. It is especially tailored to FH users (probably because I am one) because it supports several very useful user defined record fields that can greatly improve the usefulness of your tree and FH makes it so easy to add these. Check out the FAQ on my website for a discussion of some of these tags. Another great feature is that your tree does not need to be public if you don't want. You can choose a controlled link that search engines don't have access to. You can find an example tree here: http://ancestorsnow.com/tree/tjforsythe/

tj, I am not sure this paragraph in your T&Cs makes me keen to post my research your site:

(a) By posting any Content using the Services, you are granting an unrestricted, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide, and fully transferable, assignable, and sublicensable right and license to use, copy, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create collective or derivative works from, distribute, perform and display your Content in whole or in part and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed. You further warrant that all so-called moral rights in the content have been waived.

I agree with Jane, I would certainly think very carefully before publishing data on a site of this nature with those sorts of T&Cs imposed. I really don't understand the reasoning behind them.

(it does rather sound as though they have been lifted from somewhere else!).

I here ya. The TOS was created generically by a free service, and is obviously heavy on the legal speak. Apparently it was not too concerned with a website's users.

I've changed that section to read:

'By posting any Content using the Services, you are granting 'Us' the right to display your Content in whole or in part at the AncestorsNow.com domain and granting no other rights for further distribution. You further have the right to remove your Content at anytime.'

Please, let me know if there is anything else in there that throws up red flags. You must have read it better than I.

Just to clarify, my interest lies in software development and creating tools to help genealogists in their research efforts, not is absconding off with anyone's data. I've been providing various free services like this for 13 years. I don't charge for the service, allow advertising on the site or ask for donations. Ancestors Now further supports numerous privacy options to allow researchers to keep their private data from being published.

I wanted to 'publish' my tree as a CD/DVD to distribute amonst family members, rather than publishing it online. I decided to use FH to create the initial web pages, then used Microsoft Expression to hand craft additional pages and modify some of the FH pages. I used Highslide JS to create picture galleries (with a great deal of help from the support people at Highslide). I now have a page template where I can pour in the extra text and/or photos I want, and still maintain a consistent look and feel by using the FH stylesheet.

There are other prgrams, I'm sure, that will allow web creation, but I get Expression 'free' via work.

I looked at tng and phpGedView, but they seemed far too complicated when I only wanted to create a DVD copy of a site, and I did not want to publish the information on the public internet, even with access controls.

I've long felt that FH really needs to beef up this area of presentation, certainly allowing much better formatting of notes and inclusion of hyperlinks and tabular data.

I wait with anticipation the new release of FH as one of the first things to do is create a new CD, and then I can carry on with the manual additions, including trying to insert over 2000 newspaper references complete with images, synopses, cross-references and subject classifications!