Re: webtrees questions

Ron Savage wrote:
> Hi John
> 
> On Wed, 2011-07-27 at 08:47 +0100, John Dobson wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Let me first admit to not being a webtrees expert, although I am going
>> to use it. Webtrees is a 'fork' in open source terms from the popular
>> PhpGedView. It initially populates the custom database from data in one
>> or more GEDCOM files which remain in the file store but aren't referred
>> to again in operation after the initial loading use. The idea is that
>> the database is updated online by those collaborating in the project
>> and, subject to configuration; any user can export a GEDCOM for their
>> own use at any time.
> 
> OK.
> 
>> Multi-media is more problematic when it comes to portability, the GEDCOM
>> FILE statement contains just a file pointer to a multimedia item, not
>> the item itself. It's unlikely that this location would stay the same
>> through a migration to webtrees so the program optionally strips off the
>> leading part of the path and replaces it with a media directory
>> constant. It's the left to the user to migrate media items manually.
> 
> Yes, external files add a lot of complexity to processing.
> 
> Let's pretend our non-existent new spec is called Gedcom+ (to save
> typing).
> 
> So, in Gedcom+ I'm thinking it'd have a config file, and 1 item therein
> would be a media directory name, so all file references in the Gedcom+
> file would be relative to the local user's value for that dir name.
> 
> Then come the problem of file type, codecs, etc.
> 
> I guess we need to d/l a few open source genealogy program and see what
> they do. That's why I examined the source of Webtrees.

I think you are working this problem from the wrong end. Rather than 
look at file/database content, you should first be defining what your 
application is going to do. What information (reports) do you want to be 
able to extract from the data you collect? What relationships do you 
need to track within your family trees? How will that data be 
documented? Do scans of the source documents become part of the data? 
After you have the purpose and scope defined, then you can decide how to 
build the database to support those activities.

Basically, you need to determine what you want to create before you can 
decide how to build it. Think of it as working with an architect to draw 
up plans for a house before you hire the contractor to build it.

I believe that GEDCOM is the minimalist approach to transferring and 
exchanging genealogy data. So while it may be an easy means to populate 
some parts of a database, it is less likely to be useful within the 
application itself. It may not even be useful as a backup format if it 
does not support all of the data you need to collect as well as the meta 
data that gives it structure. It certainly won't support any of the meta 
data (table definitions and static content) necessary for a full scale 
application.

Bob McConnell
N2SPP