* Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Questions regarding use of any Version of Family Historian. Please ensure you have set your Version of Family Historian in your Profile. If your question fits in one of these subject-specific sub-forums, please ask it there.
Post Reply
avatar
andrewlife
Silver
Posts: 9
Joined: 10 Feb 2019 13:39
Family Historian: V7

Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by andrewlife »

Hello

I use FH.V7 and am developing a family history website. I would like to include family trees, the boxes of which link to Individual pages on the site, and have been using the KnowledgeBase page Family Tree Tips ~ Diagram Hyperlinks PDF as a guide. However, I have a very basic problem in producing a text scheme template to achieve this.

I am using the standard Birth, Marr, Death (compact) text scheme, and I assume I need to edit this to add the Hyperlink. However, I can’t find the means by which I can copy a hyperlink item from the left panel of the Edit Text Scheme dialogue window to the right panel, in order to edit it.

I was expecting ‘Hyperlink’ to appear in the list of Available Items on the left, but no luck.

I am clearly overlooking something very fundamental! Please can anyone help?
Martin A. Life
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28342
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by tatewise »

The Knowledge Base page does not make it clear that there is no existing Hyperlink item defined.
Use the <Custom Item...> and fill in the details for Template and Description, etc.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
avatar
andrewlife
Silver
Posts: 9
Joined: 10 Feb 2019 13:39
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by andrewlife »

Thanks Mike!

That's got me back on track - I think I should be able to progress from here. Will get back to you if any further guidance needed.
Martin A. Life
avatar
andrewlife
Silver
Posts: 9
Joined: 10 Feb 2019 13:39
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by andrewlife »

Hi Mike

Further to your help in response to my post on 23 Oct, I have been working on a text scheme template containing a hyperlink, but am having difficulty in specifying the target path for the link appropriate for my particular case. I’ll set out more clearly what I am trying to do.

1. I have been generating the basic components of my proposed website using the FH7 Create Website publishing tool, but have been transferring the components (e.g. tables) to Dreamweaver to build in more features, such as tabbed navigation, dropdown menus etc., and to make it perhaps more accessible to non-genealogist users.

2. I wish to include a 3-generation family tree in pdf. format in an iframe on each Individual page, and, in addition, trees for whole family lines going back 6+ generations accessible from a menu on the home page. I have a workable prototype site, which I am now refining, that includes these features. It would be great if I could also make these various trees link to Individual pages, and this is what I am now working on.

3. I have not yet bought a domain name as the site is still only a prototype.

4. The text scheme I have developed to include hyperlinks ‘works’ (i.e. behaves like a hyperlink) if I use the dummy domain name exemplified on the KnowledgeBase page, but obviously it goes nowhere!

5. What I would ideally like to do is use a relative file path, rather than absolute, so that when I finally upload the site to a domain host all links are contained within the site

6. With this in mind, I had hoped I could create a hypertext template that might look something like:

=Text("../../ind_pages /ind" . RecordId() . ".html")

[This reflects the situation in which my tree pdf is located in a folder of trees two levels below the folder ‘ind_pages’.] However, such an expression is clearly not recognisable as a hyperlink by FH and so doesn’t work!

7. I have experimented with using versions of the path suggested in the KnowledgeBase for CD/DVDs (i.e.

=Text(file:///D:/data/ind …etc.

but have, so far, not succeeded in making them work. Could the solution lie in the use of a variant of the CD/DVD path model? I could pursue this further if it could work in principle; however, I am unsure whether this approach makes sense given the intention is to publish online.

8. The situation is perhaps rendered more complex by my desire to present pdf trees in iframes.

I am somewhat out of my depth here! It could be that I should abandon the plan to include the hyperlinks, which would be a pity, but not a fundamental problem for the site.

I would welcome any comments, especially if you can see a possible way through this!
Martin A. Life
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28342
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by tatewise »

Others have asked for a similar feature, but it is not possible via PDF files.

You say the "expression is clearly not recognisable as a hyperlink by FH and so doesn’t work!"
However, I think it is not FH but the PDF file that cannot recognise the hyperlink.
The PDF file is rendered on the user's PC outside the website context, so relative paths are meaningless.

The CD/DVD format won't help because that is reliant on PC file locations.

To achieve relative webpage links needs 'diagram' components local to the website with embedded hyperlinks.
Some genealogy websites use that mechanism but not the FH created websites. Sorry!

I think the only solution using PDF files is to regenerate the PDF diagram for each change in website domain and upload the PDF file when necessary.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
avatar
andrewlife
Silver
Posts: 9
Joined: 10 Feb 2019 13:39
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by andrewlife »

AAAAH! I see! Thanks, Mike, for a very clear explanation.

I did have some success in previous experiments using HTML image maps, defining the tree boxes as clickable areas linked to Individual pages. However they had their drawbacks (e.g. tendency towards lower image quality and onerous to create), so have not pursued them further. Hmmm.

I'll reflect on it further, but maybe time to move on for now! Thanks once more for your help.
Martin A. Life
User avatar
ADC65
Superstar
Posts: 457
Joined: 09 Jul 2007 10:27
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by ADC65 »

I can't help with the technical questions you have asked, but it does occur to me that you might be making life hard for yourself by designing your own website and uploading data in a PDF to it. I do understand that this gives you maximum flexibility over the look and feel of what you want to present, but have you considered the scale of changes required each time you update the source data in your database?

There are a number of very good web products available, some free. I use The Next Generation (TNG) which is very configurable, and modestly priced. You may have thought of this already. If you do want to know more, I can give you details of my site.

Adrian.
Adrian Cook
Researching Cook, Summers, Phipps and Bradford, mainly in Wales and the South West of England
avatar
andrewlife
Silver
Posts: 9
Joined: 10 Feb 2019 13:39
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by andrewlife »

Hi Adrian

Thank you for your suggestion: I have indeed done quite a bit of research into alternative platforms for family history websites and gave much thought to the decision to try building my own!

Various factors led to it. Firstly, I wanted to produce something that would be accessible both to younger members of my family who aren't really into genealogy, but are interested in stories about their ancestors; I also wanted to provide the genealogy and associated sources if they (or others) want to dig deeper. The products on the market didn't quite get this balance right for me. Secondly, I wanted a challenge, and designing my own 'ideal' family history site certainly represented that. I have been interested in web design for a many years, although never had the opportunity to immerse myself in learning the nuts and bolts of it. The isolation of the pandemic was just what I needed! And finally, using Dreamweaver makes the whole business of designing and updating sites much easier than would be the case if I were doing it without that support. In practice it comes down to completing a standardised template for each new individual and updating the links to other pages.

I know this still sounds highly masochistic, and I may well come to regret it. However, if it all goes pear-shaped I can always
come back to one of the options on the market, and I will have learnt a lot in the meantime! Fingers crossed....

Martin
Martin A. Life
User avatar
ississi
Diamond
Posts: 83
Joined: 15 Feb 2021 14:47
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by ississi »

Martin - go you! :-)

I'm also wanting to do my own site, tho using free Wordpress, so no plugins available :-( . It's been driving me nuts trying to find a suitable tree diagram for a website, I've looked at all sorts of tools too. I'd wondered about a hotspot tree image but was wincing at the amount of re-work required each time I'd update it, so I'm going to try the pdf version too so your email query has been very timely for me.

I wish there were better tree diagram->web page tools! Seems a kinda fundamental requirement for a genealogy website to me. If you find anything better do please let me know - or if anyone else knows of a better tool, please shout up :-)

Good luck,
Isabel
User avatar
ColeValleyGirl
Megastar
Posts: 5465
Joined: 28 Dec 2005 22:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Gedmill produces clickable tree diagrams (I used to use them in a previous incarnation of my website, together with webpages produced by FH) but I don't know how it will cope with FH7 (although the developers webpage -- accessible at https://github.com/alexandercurtis/GEDmill) says:
GEDmill was designed with GEDCOM 5.5 in mind, which is the latest non-markup version of the GEDCOM standard, but it can handle data in earlier formats too!
If all you're using it for is the diagrams, it may be OK... Download (via the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20180902195 ... taller.exe).

An alternative is SVG: SVG Family-Tree Generator
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28342
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by tatewise »

GEDmill does not have to cope with FH v7 as the 'Export Gedcom File' plugin will create appropriate GEDCOM files by using the (GWC) GEDmill Website Creator mode.

Can the clickable tree diagrams be migrated to another website such as ones own web domain? I think not?
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
ColeValleyGirl
Megastar
Posts: 5465
Joined: 28 Dec 2005 22:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Can the clickable tree diagrams be migrated to another website such as ones own web domain? I think not?
Well, I did it. Full disclosure: I stitched (using a editor for which you could write scripts/macros) the diagrams output by GedMill into the website generated by FH. (In addition, a quick bit of global replace was needed to make the file names in the diagrams match the files that FH provided -- from memory there was one character difference in the naming conventions.)

FTPd the resultant website (plus the js file needed for the clickable diagrams to work) to my domain and hey presto.

I did modify the Gedmill source (now open source) to increase the size of the tree boxes and fonts in the diagrams, so that they worked better on hi res screens. If I revert to using Gedmill, which is a possibility as I intend not to use Gedsite in future, I will tweak the code further to make the file naming change automatically, and probably strip out the un-necessary content generation so that it just produces the trees. I will however be exploring SVG Family Tree Generator first.
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28342
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by tatewise »

Would some FHUG Knowledge Base articles on this topic be worth considering?
There are already entries for the SVG Family-Tree Generator and GedMill, although the GedMill entry has issues. The link to http://www.logicmill.com is broken and that it does not work well with FH7 needs a reference to the Export Gedcom File plugin.
Even simply adding a link to this thread would be useful
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
ColeValleyGirl
Megastar
Posts: 5465
Joined: 28 Dec 2005 22:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Quite possible, but I won't have time to do it for a few months.
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28342
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by tatewise »

OK, I'll add it to the Maintaining the KnowledgeBase forum as a reminder.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
avatar
andrewlife
Silver
Posts: 9
Joined: 10 Feb 2019 13:39
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by andrewlife »

Isabel – Thanks for your encouragement – great to know I’m not alone!

Helen (and Mike) - I really appreciate all the work you have put in on exploring possible alternative approaches.

When I saw your first post, Helen, I too downloaded GEDmill and found that it worked fine on Windows 10 and with a recent GEDCOM file. I explored the HTML it generated, but when I got back to the bulletin board you were streets ahead of me! My only observation from the perspective of my own requirements is that the 3-generation trees generated would be fine for individual pages, but a limitation for generating a tree for a whole family line. Do you see away of making that aspect more flexible?

Regarding SVG-FTG, I used this a year or so ago and found the process of manually designing the trees laborious. However I discovered the new version (V6) allows imports from GEDCOMs which looks promising. One issue for me (as an HTML newbie) was that the generated HTML script was inevitably longer more complex because of the need to specify the vectors for the lines and boxes. The consequent definition on the screen was great, but it seemed less conducive to stitching easily into an FH website. I’ll be very interested to hear how you see it in due course.

Thank you all so much for your efforts on this: very instructive and much appreciated!
Martin A. Life
User avatar
ColeValleyGirl
Megastar
Posts: 5465
Joined: 28 Dec 2005 22:02
Family Historian: V7
Location: Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Martin,

The 3 generation limit in GEDmill is pretty hardcoded -- fine for embedding a mini-tree in an individual's page -- but it would be a total rewrite to generate a tree for a whole family line (and one I can't take on).

SVG-FTG seems more promising, but I haven't had time to explore it in depth. It will be the first option I explore, as V6 is a massive improvement from earlier versions. I'm not sure the complexity of the generated HTML script matters if it's a simple copy-paste? My thought would be to generate it as a master navigation aid rather than stitch it into individual pages? And leave the links that FH generates for moving around relatives intact? Or maybe (not sure how feasible this is) use SVG to generate 3 generation trees for each individual page -- but that is completely blue sky thinking and I may come back and say: uh-uh!
avatar
andrewlife
Silver
Posts: 9
Joined: 10 Feb 2019 13:39
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by andrewlife »

The 3 generation limit in GEDmill is pretty hardcoded -- fine for embedding a mini-tree in an individual's page -- but it would be a total rewrite to generate a tree for a whole family line (and one I can't take on).
That sounds fair enough!

Good luck with your further exploration of SVG-FTG. Your blue sky thought sounds great if you can do it!
Martin A. Life
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28342
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by tatewise »

Development of these ideas is in the Website Tree Diagrams with Hyperlinks (19930) thread in the Plugin Discussions forum.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
User avatar
ississi
Diamond
Posts: 83
Joined: 15 Feb 2021 14:47
Family Historian: V7

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by ississi »

SVG is not supported by Wordpress.com, 'cos of the scripting, unless you can afford to fork out for their Business Plan :-(
User avatar
tatewise
Megastar
Posts: 28342
Joined: 25 May 2010 11:00
Family Historian: V7
Location: Torbay, Devon, UK
Contact:

Re: Adding hyperlinks to pdf family tree charts

Post by tatewise »

The Improve Website or CD DVD HTML plugin has been updated in the Plugin Store and offers the ability to add GEDmill family tree diagrams to each featured web page created by the Publish > Websites & Family Tree CD/DVDs… wizard.
I recognise it is not ideal but is better than nothing until an SVG/FTG solution is available!
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
Post Reply