* Creating a web site with FH

[Nick-V]

I made a small edit to the Facebook line. I've changed the margin style to provide a left and top margin only (if was all four sides before) - the margin below was unnecessary and wasted space. Given margin-left, margin-right, margin-top and margin-bottom you can control exactly where things appear.

[tatewise]

I recommend that you remove the style from the code entered via the Advanced button.
Instead use something like <div class="myfacebook"> and <div class="myfooter"> and define those class styles in your mystyle.css file.
Then by simply changing that CSS file you can experiment with different styles without having to rebuild the web pages. That is what Cascading Style Sheets are all about.

[Nick-V]

Yes, you advised use of mystyle.css originally and your point about not having to regenerate pages is true.

Alternatively, this works well for people not using or understanding a custom CSS file. Also, once positioned a change is unlikely, and this is the only place that where such formatting is required so another entry in the style sheet is unnecessary.

Two alternative options...no strong opinion either way.

[craigmollekin]

Hi Nick,

Do you have a public tree where it would be possible to view the end result please?

I too used to use PHP software (I've tried them all over the years) but tended to find that the many features confused people. Often, the registering and password stage would be the first major stumbling block. Then there were the Russian hackers trying to alter my code...

So, albeit being very time consuming, I am now switching my websites to Family Historian html generated pages. Mike has helped me to create my style sheets:-

http://mollekin.net/swintonpeople/
http://mollekin.net/sepulchra/

I'm not very good at writing codes, scripts and webpages etc. myself, so new ideas regarding this always interests me

[Nick-V]

Craig

You have great sites...and many relatives!

I definitely agree keeping it simple both technically and for the users is best even when this means some compromise...so far I think FH Webs are "adequate" given some stroking. However, we really miss charts! It would be good if certain specified charts (and up to date) were produced and output to PDF automatically as part of the web creation process...this would be a good compromise.

I messaged you privately with my web address. Pleased note I have played with fonts but not colours or other presentation matters much. I am first looking for function over art - I'm not good at the latter anyway.

So, mine is very new but already usable. It uses standard colours but fonts are smaller and consistent throughout CSS. Images are closer together (stolen from your site). Notably, I don't rely on search alone to navigate. Cut down outline reports seem easy to use. I've added a few PDF charts and spaces in the Contents.

Please tell me what else I might do...

[Nick-V]

Craig, you just mentioned in your email that the mailto hyperlink doesn't work for you in Chrome. I thought I would answer here for the sake of others. It does work in Chrome...what such links do is to try and start up your email client (like Outlook etc). I suppose if you don't have one because you only use web mail then it does nothing. It is not designed to open a form for sending messages...

I would also recommend the search box on the index page. Easily added to your site using the Improve Web plugin.

[craigmollekin]

Thanks, Nick although none of the people in those tree are related to me....I'm still preparing my personal tree for a Family Historian generated website; I've only been working on it since last June I'm still using a PHP based website for that: http://mollekin.net/familytree/

I think your site would look good with a background image and a home page image, but I suppose that's personal preference If you want me to help you create any kind of image/background for use on your website, then I don't mind trying What I like about Family Historian sites is that it is so easy to make one look so much different from the next just by using different backgrounds. I know PHP sites can be tweaked, but I found it very hard and they still seemed to look very similar to each other.

I am going to use the Facebook idea though. I like how you have text next to the logo at the top too.

I need to play around with the different reports etc, like you have, with regards to what I can put on the site. I had to abandon Mike's name search feature because I found it just wasn't working on tablets/mobiles. But there are a lot of people to work through on my sites.

Ah, you've answered a long standing question there....no, I haven't used an email client for years now. I only use web based email :-/ I can report this to another group that I'm a member of

[Nick-V]

Had a quick look at your PHP site...functionally, I note it has a Pedigree chart but again, getting to people requires clicking from the few you mentioned on the left menu or searching...personally I like the ability to quickly scan an outline list of ancestors or descendants.

Thanks for your offer of help...I may take you up on that when I put time into the pretty thing. I might do something quick in the interim for an experiment. At the moment I am desperate to get FH working alongside Ancestry so I can process a flood of hints into the tree.

The text at the top to the right of the logo is a standard FH feature - the heading (or title) defined in one of the last steps of the web creation wizard.

My own phone still works on steam and none of my few geriatric friends has mentioned the issue with the search so thanks. As long as it doesn't destroy the page I feel it is still worth having for computer users.

[Nick-V]

This thread is long. To make it useful quickly to new viewers I've edited the original post to bring all points together and add brief comments on status against each.

[tatewise]

The Improve Website... Plugin to fix Start Search with Enter key problem is now in the Plugin Store.

[Nick-V]

Many thanks...I had amended the tiny bit of code and will now get back to the standard release!

[JohnLiddle]

As regards third-party programs which create web sites from genealogical data, you may care to keep an eye out for an upcoming offering from John Cardinal.

John produces the Second Site program, which is used with TMG only. This is an incredibly flexible web site generator of great quality.

However, he has in development a program to produce similar results direct from GEDCOM files, which is rumoured to be available before the end of the year. I fully expect the new program to generate similar quality results to Second Site.

I would recommend that you take a look at John's current site, which includes links to user generated web sites illustrating the flexibility and possibilities with Second Site. It can be found at http://ss.johncardinal.com/

I have no commercial interest or association with John Cardinal - I am just a satisfied user of Second Site.

[Nick-V]

Dear "Satisfied User" Thanks John, most interesting.

It appears that like FH it uses static HTML pages not a database and dynamic pages. However, I can see advantages immediately.

It does provide pretty charts, albeit that these appear pre-chosen and therefore few. I suggested a similar thing for FH, that a set of user specified PDFs be output and put onto the contents pages.

I also like the list of places from which you can click to people linked to them. I guess FH could be made to do that too!

The surname index is a good option although I suspect something similar is achievable, perhaps even using the Index and the Search from the Web Improvement plugin.

I suspect there are other things I've not noticed...perhaps you can highlight them. I look forward to seeing a non TMG version, thanks for mentioning this.

[JohnLiddle]

Dear Nick-V,

I am afraid my use of Second Site has so far been limited pretty well to the vanilla straight out of the box level.

Whilst I cannot guarantee that the GEDCOM version John Cardinal has in hand will have all the bells and whistles that the TMG version has, I would be surprised if it were not the case.

To gain an better idea of the configuration possibilities of the current version, you might care to look at the Second Site section of Terry Reigel's TMG Tips site ( http://tmg.reigelridge.com/SecondSite.htm ).

Although any references to TMG aspects will be of no interest to you, the extent of the tuning you can do the the web site you are producing will be clear.

Hope this helps.

[Nick-V]

Thanks John...the instructions really help to get a view of how it works...!