Suggestions

[glagowm148]

Hey all,

I stumbled on this app the other day when attempting to make sense of all my granda's old genology research. It's the best tool I've found - but it seems to be about 10 years out of date. Especially on the design side.

I appreciate it's a very powerful tool - but it's operation is clunky is many respects.


• Editing records isn't intuitive - when you spot an incorrect record in one of the views - being able to click and update would simplify things massively
• The importance of colours is lost - even colouring the minimise/maximise buttons would help as it's not clear what does what
• Simplify! There's wayyy too many buttons. Why is there a calculator for instance? I would make title one of the top navs as 'Views' and split it into subcategories
• Redistribute the graphs into a sub menu within 'Views' which generates them on one click based on the predefined base user - It took me a while to realise you click through on the text on the desired graph from List & Reports > Charts
• Alt-selecting records doesn't work well - For instance when trying to update a common type in locations - you can get it with the arrow keys and then right clicking edit. But this screen takes ~10 seconds to come up
• The WebBook is a great idea - but seems to be missing some of the things you'd most like other people to see (Graphs, trees)
• The ability to view the full, unfiltered tree - would be hugely beneficial. Similar to how myHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA do (But even they do it bad and clunky.)
• The ability to merge with geneanet.org results based on a confidence rating. Seems at the moment it needs to be done manually ?
• Search doesn't work well, needs to be exact. It 'Bruce William' or 'Bruce,William' won't match for 'Bruce, William'
• UserID pane : Button to generate a tree based on this user would be nice. Less space for the photo - get rid of that old scroll vector for file attachments, less space for general info/sources and more dedicated to what most entries will have. Name/DOB/Death/Location. Replace the 'Add spouse/sister/etc' buttons with a simple "Add" which gives a dropdown selection
• No way to add second spouses or half-brothers/sisters?
  
  • Ctrl+A doesn't seem to work. Sometime I use commonly to clear a search field. Instead you need to delete manually.
  
  For the community this BBS is also pretty clunky to use. Mattermost can be deployed within a couple of minutes which allows for faster collaboration in a nice clean UI.
  
  For the all_in_one.svg - generating this for the WebBook and utilising something like https://github.com/egaxegax/dbCartajs would work ?
  
  
  Is the source code available anywhere? I'd be happy to contribute to the development.

[arvernes]

Hi,
Just a quick answer but I'm sure you will get answers from people in charge of Ancestris, but for information about contributing to the dev of Ancestris, check this website. L8r. Francois

[glagowm148]

Hi,
Just a quick answer but I'm sure you will get answers from people in charge of Ancestris, but for information about contributing to the dev of Ancestris, check this website. L8r. Francois

Thanks - I just stumbled onto this myself

[glagowm148]

Some tidying I done

https://ged.phenotype.dev/

Just organised the categories a bit better, imported material design css. Changed the headers on the ancestors page too but don't want to play with it too much as it's all static and internal changes will be lost on regeneration.

[Zurga]

Hi,

I'm glad that you find this software not so bad, but with the list of suggestion, I wonder about the others you tried and how bad you find them.

I will try to add some answers :

Hey all,

I stumbled on this app the other day when attempting to make sense of all my granda's old genealogy research. It's the best tool I've found - but it seems to be about 10 years out of date. Especially on the design side.

Which look and feel do you use ?
Some of them are more outdated than others.
We use Java and swing with Netbeans behind the whole structure. Therefore, the design has no chance to looks like recent mobile applications.

I appreciate it's a very powerful tool - but it's operation is clunky is many respects.

Editing records isn't intuitive - when you spot an incorrect record in one of the views - being able to click and update would simplify things massively

Which editor do you use ?
GEDCOM Editor shows you the GEDCOM records in the hard way
Aries Editor shows you all the linked data in multiple windows
Cygnus Editor shows you unified windows to make the basic actions required with genealogy duties.
On any windows, if you click on a record and your current editor is displayed, your editor is updated with the current record, you can them modify it quickly.
If you right-click, you open a contextual menu with "edit" option which allow you to open your default editor and modify the record.
Please, explain how you work and what you want to enhance.

The importance of colours is lost - even colouring the minimise/maximise buttons would help as it's not clear what does what

I'm not sure to understand this suggestion.
Please explain in which context you are.

Simplify! There's wayyy too many buttons. Why is there a calculator for instance? I would make title one of the top navs as 'Views' and split it into subcategories

Calculator is legacy, we should change it for the date converter.
I'm not sure to know of which buttons you want to drop.
Create, Open, Close, Save, cut, paste, copy, undo, redo seems not superfluous.

Redistribute the graphs into a sub menu within 'Views' which generates them on one click based on the predefined base user - It took me a while to realize you click through on the text on the desired graph from List & Reports > Charts

You already have this : Open Menu "Views" then "Lists and reports".

Alt-selecting records doesn't work well - For instance when trying to update a common type in locations - you can get it with the arrow keys and then right clicking edit. But this screen takes ~10 seconds to come up

Again, I'm not sure to understand this suggestion.
Please, explain what you want to do exactly in which window.

The WebBook is a great idea - but seems to be missing some of the things you'd most like other people to see (Graphs, trees)

Webbook is outdated, for sure.
The real question is : this features is really needed when sites like Geneanet exists ?
So, this is not at top priority.
Feel free to look at the code and propose updates : http://svn.ancestris.org/ id: anonymous pwd:password

The ability to view the full, unfiltered tree - would be hugely beneficial. Similar to how myHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA do (But even they do it bad and clunky.)

This is possible on small trees, impossible on big ones.
You can see all your data of your genealogy with the new graph module.

The ability to merge with geneanet.org results based on a confidence rating. Seems at the moment it needs to be done manually ?

You can export to Geneanet
You can merge several GEDCOM files.
You can choose which individuals to keep when you merge several individuals.
I don't see how you want to proceed to get geneanet results.
Parsing HTML files ?
Export them to text ?
Crawl the pages ?
What is the confidence ratings you wrote about ?
I've never seen it in Geneanet.

Search doesn't work well, needs to be exact. It 'Bruce William' or 'Bruce,William' won't match for 'Bruce, William'

Quick search works well : need to be exact
There is advanced search and others tool to find people.

UserID pane : Button to generate a tree based on this user would be nice. Less space for the photo - get rid of that old scroll vector for file attachments, less space for general info/sources and more dedicated to what most entries will have. Name/DOB/Death/Location. Replace the 'Add spouse/sister/etc' buttons with a simple "Add" which gives a dropdown selection

You seem to speak about Cygnus editor.
You don't have media, OK. Others users loves to see them with the individual.
For the buttons, just right-click on them to see that only on submenu will be a nightmare....

No way to add second spouses or half-brothers/sisters?

Right-click on the infamous  'Add spouse/sister/etc' buttons you mentioned in your previous suggestion....

Ctrl+A doesn't seem to work. Sometime I use commonly to clear a search field. Instead you need to delete manually.

CTRL+A means select all.
In which context do you want to use it ?

For the community this BBS is also pretty clunky to use. Mattermost can be deployed within a couple of minutes which allows for faster collaboration in a nice clean UI.

Mattermost is able to retrieve all messages form all BBS ?
Slack and Mattermost are not exactly the format intended for this billboard.
Perhaps, we are too old school.

For the all_in_one.svg - generating this for the WebBook and utilizing something like https://github.com/egaxegax/dbCartajs would work ?

Webbook generate html pages. all-in-one generate svg.
If your tool is able to display svg in html pages, there is no reason this will not work.

Is the source code available anywhere? I'd be happy to contribute to the development.

Feel free to look at the code and propose updates : http://svn.ancestris.org/ id: anonymous pwd:password

Zurga

[glagowm148]

I'm glad that you find this software not so bad, but with the list of suggestion, I wonder about the others you tried and how bad you find them.

I've had a look at all the ones I can find - they're all much worse.

Which look and feel do you use ?

Material design is usually a winner.

Please, explain how you work and what you want to enhance.

Just the general coherence throughout the app. The example in particular was form the GeoView. I now realise I can click on the name and get the record.

Please explain in which context you are.

Throughout the full app. As one example the 'Maximise' button is a grey square with a square inside it. Convention is usually green with arrows - with minimise beside it. Instead beside it with a down arrow is 'show document list'

I'm not sure to know of which buttons you want to drop.

Drop calculator, GEDCOM Explorer, WebBook buttons, move contents of 'Multimedia' into export. Remove all the buttons from the user pane (like skull for death, etc). Just means the user is hovering over each button to see what it does instead of being presented with a blank profile they can fill in hit (+) to add.

This is possible on small trees, impossible on big ones.

Nothings impossible

The real question is : this features is really needed when sites like Geneanet exists ?

Yep Geneanet might not exist forever and even if it does most people won't want to pay for it forever.

I don't see how you want to proceed to get geneanet results.
Parsing HTML files ?
Export them to text ?
Crawl the pages ?
What is the confidence ratings you wrote about ?
I've never seen it in Geneanet.

Yep, crawl and amend/data/alert users of possible additions/fixes/etc

CTRL+A means select all. In which context do you want to use it ?

When trying to clear a search box. Easier typing ctrl+a+del than del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del

If your tool is able to display svg in html pages, there is no reason this will not work.

It worked, it was just ugly and unusable. I've made a simple js/html file which gives the user a zoom to see the individual things

https://ged.phenotype.dev/tree.html

Again, I'm not sure to understand this suggestion.
Please, explain what you want to do exactly in which window.

I'm not sure what the window is called because they're not named. The one with the tablular view of all records. If you want to select multiple - usually you can click one, then click another and it'll highlight all in between. When you do that in your app and then try and right-click, it deslects them all.

[Paul]

• UserID pane : Button to generate a tree based on this user would be nice.
  

Do you mean a tree based on the selected individual? If so you can double click an individual and the 'Dynamic Tree' will show you what you need.

With regard to search you could use a space such as 'Doe John' (or John Doe!) rather than 'Doe, John' or 'Doe,John'. Ctrl+A works for me to select all in the search toolbox (and in Find).

As you've discovered, genealogy programs tend to be complicated and idiosyncratic. I've used many over the years (PAF, Gramps, Rootsmagic, Family Historian, Legacy, Ahnenblatt, Familienbande, Genj, Ancestris and others) and they all have their quirks. It's just a case of finding the one you're most comfortable with then maybe helping to refine it and you seem to have made a good start with that

[Paul]

I'm not sure what the window is called because they're not named. The one with the tablular view of all records. If you want to select multiple - usually you can click one, then click another and it'll highlight all in between. When you do that in your app and then try and right-click, it deslects them all.

I'm sure this is a 'safety feature', I doubt there are many contexts in which you'd want to change details in this way for multiple individuals. There's always 'Replace' or right-click and edit for something like a place or source that might affect many individuals.

[Zurga]

Which look and feel do you use ?

Material design is usually a winner.

I meant actually in your preferences, which look and feel is displayed ?
Material design is not an option available.
And actually, I'm not sure we can do such look efficiently with the tools we use.

Throughout the full app. As one example the 'Maximise' button is a grey square with a square inside it. Convention is usually green with arrows - with minimise beside it. Instead beside it with a down arrow is 'show document list'

Material design convention ?
Not the Microsoft Windows or MacOs or Linux ones.
My current OS didn't show any green arrow

This is possible on small trees, impossible on big ones.

Nothings impossible

Disputable.
When you have lots of people with intricate relationships, the tree is far more difficult to display. All-in-one is an example, you have lots of people displayed several times.
The dynamic tree do another choice : display standard tree with only one wife for each family.
Beside this, if you find a way to change this, feel free to contribute.
Be ready : this is not done in javascript and the code is 20 years old .....

Yep Geneanet might not exist forever and even if it does most people won't want to pay for it forever.

As far as I know, you can use Geneanet for free.

Yep, crawl and amend/data/alert users of possible additions/fixes/etc

How do you figure to alert user ?
How do you figure to crawl all the Geneanet site to find corresponding data ?
Besides this, I don't like website grabber.

When trying to clear a search box. Easier typing ctrl+a+del than del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del+del

Please indicate which box doesn't work, we will try to fix it.
You can always select with the mouse and press del.

I'm not sure what the window is called because they're not named. The one with the tablular view of all records. If you want to select multiple - usually you can click one, then click another and it'll highlight all in between. When you do that in your app and then try and right-click, it deslects them all.

The window is "Entities table"
The multi-select should be deactivated.
There is no action available from this window to act on several lines.

Zurga