Excellent family tree printing/display software

[Rowan Sylvester-Bradley]

I'm looking for a very good tool for displaying family trees on a web site,
and for printing them. Here are set of features that I would like to
achieve, or as close as possible:
1. Flexible choice of which people to show on the tree, not just ancestors,
descendants or fan charts. For example, it should be possible to select "all
my direct ancestors for 7 generations, plus all their descendants for 2
generations, plus all other spouses with their descendants for 2
generations". Personal Ancestral File has a pretty good tool for selecting
such sets of people.
2. A variety of choices of chart format and style, including box charts.
3. Choice of which types of data to include in the chart.
4. Intelligent chart layout to minimise the length of long links, and put
closely related people close together, and make the chart easy to navigate,
and to minimise the number of pages...
5. Intelligent layout onto pages, so boxes don't overlap page breaks etc.
6. Printed layouts can either be a single large page, printed tiled so the
sheets can be stuck together, or multiple sheets of a selectable size with
labels showing where links go off one page and reappear on another, page
borders, page numbers etc.
7. You can manually adjust the automatic layout, and such adjustments can
optionally be saved and reapplied even if the automatic layout process is
re-done, including if there are changes to the chart. Obviously the changes
may be such as to make the manual adjustments meaningless, in which case
they are abandoned.
8. For web based display, the ability to pan and zoom around the chart, and
maybe other "quick navigation" tools.
9. For web based display, intelligent tools allowing one to quickly find any
person of interest, to see easily whereabouts on the full chart one is so
one doesn't get "lost", to see how the person of interest is related to
yourself or to people well known to you etc. These tools must work even if
the whole chart is too large to see legibly on one screen.
10. Relationship markers show how each person on the chart is related to a
selected "key" person.
11. Links from each individual and marriage on the chart to more detailed
information about the person/marriage.
12. Optional facility to omit certain information about living people, or
optionally to omit them altogether.

The above is borne out of dissatisfaction with the family tree
display/printing facilities included with many genealogy programs and
offered by GenesReunited etc. Does anyone know of any software packages, or
genealogy web sites, which come close to this?

If I can't find anything that exists to achieve this, I'm wondering whether
to attempt developing it myself, probably based on some general purpose
graphic tree drawing tool set.

Thanks - Rowan

[singhals]

I realize you're new, Rowan, and I'm going to try to lighten
up some, but really ...

The answers for the web-display and for the print-offs are
different.

Rowan Sylvester-Bradley wrote:
> I'm looking for a very good tool for displaying family trees on a web site,
> and for printing them. Here are set of features that I would like to
> achieve, or as close as possible:
> 1. Flexible choice of which people to show on the tree, not just ancestors,

A "tree" is by its very definition a display of ANCESTORS.
Whether in print or on-screen.

> descendants or fan charts. For example, it should be possible to select "all
> my direct ancestors for 7 generations, plus all their descendants for 2
> generations, plus all other spouses with their descendants for 2
> generations". Personal Ancestral File has a pretty good tool for selecting
> such sets of people.

True, it does, but it doesn't display them in a "tree". It
will however, be happy to print CHARTS for you on paper.
You can always print those to file, open them in WORD, and
then save-as html.

> 2. A variety of choices of chart format and style, including box charts.

A chart and a "tree" aren't synonymous. Legacy, RootsMagic,
FTM, and others have nice charts that differ enough to make
the collection useful.

> 3. Choice of which types of data to include in the chart.

The easy way to do that is to create a GED that includes
ONLY the items you wish to include. Import that GED into a
new database and push PUBLISH WEB.

> 4. Intelligent chart layout to minimise the length of long links, and put
> closely related people close together, and make the chart easy to navigate,
> and to minimise the number of pages...

I've used several programs and none create exceptionally
long links. Most are of the ".../filename.htm" order.

You minimise the number of pages by putting more on each
page. That's an option in most generators.

> 5. Intelligent layout onto pages, so boxes don't overlap page breaks etc.

I've never seen html code that would even /allow/ an image
to span two pages, let alone force it to.

In hard-copy, yes, you'll have to do some tweaking with
sizes. The less you put into a box the smaller it can be;
the smaller the boxes are, the more likely they are to fit
on a single sheet of paper.

> 6. Printed layouts can either be a single large page, printed tiled so the
> sheets can be stuck together, or multiple sheets of a selectable size with
> labels showing where links go off one page and reappear on another, page
> borders, page numbers etc.

PAF does a perfectly decent job of printing those. I never
bother with printing borders myself; if I decide I want
them, I truck myself off to the art supply store and buy
stick-on borders which I can stick down to suit my purposes.

> 7. You can manually adjust the automatic layout, and such adjustments can
> optionally be saved and reapplied even if the automatic layout process is
> re-done, including if there are changes to the chart. Obviously the changes
> may be such as to make the manual adjustments meaningless, in which case
> they are abandoned.

There's a special software for this -- TreeDraw. It always
seemed to me to have a negative cost/benefit ratio, though.
By the time I finished creating one chart, it was outdated.

> 8. For web based display, the ability to pan and zoom around the chart, and
> maybe other "quick navigation" tools.
> 9. For web based display, intelligent tools allowing one to quickly find any
> person of interest, to see easily whereabouts on the full chart one is so
> one doesn't get "lost", to see how the person of interest is related to
> yourself or to people well known to you etc. These tools must work even if
> the whole chart is too large to see legibly on one screen.
> 10. Relationship markers show how each person on the chart is related to a
> selected "key" person.
> 11. Links from each individual and marriage on the chart to more detailed
> information about the person/marriage.
> 12. Optional facility to omit certain information about living people, or
> optionally to omit them altogether.
>
> The above is borne out of dissatisfaction with the family tree
> display/printing facilities included with many genealogy programs and
> offered by GenesReunited etc. Does anyone know of any software packages, or
> genealogy web sites, which come close to this?
>

Someone is bound to mention PhP -- you might try it. In
general though, I think you'll find that panning and zooming
are mortal enemies of not-lost.

> If I can't find anything that exists to achieve this, I'm wondering whether
> to attempt developing it myself, probably based on some general purpose
> graphic tree drawing tool set.

See Tree-Draw, op cit.

Cheryl

[Rowan Sylvester-Bradley]

Thanks for your reply and thoughts.

"singhals" wrote in message
news:mailman.9.133337...@rootsweb.com...

>The answers for the web-display and for the print-offs are different.

Of course they are - but related, surely? I want to solve both problems, and
maybe there is some software that does both. If not, fine - I'll have to
have two solutions.

>A "tree" is by its very definition a display of ANCESTORS. Whether in print
>or on-screen.

Whose definition? Why shouldn't descendants be a tree - it's a perfectly
good tree structure with a single root, plus branches, sub branches to
whatever depth and then leaves. It just has the root at the top, not the
bottom.

But OK - I used the term "tree" loosely, and maybe "chart" would be a better
word. But it's too generic for what I meant. I meant in particular a diagram
showing how many people are related by birth and by marriage.

>It will however, be happy to print CHARTS for you on paper. You can always
>print those to file, open them in WORD, and then save-as html.

This must be about the worst possible way of creating a web site. The
resultant site can surely then make no use of web specific features which
ought to make it easier to navigate around a large diagram. Also Word seems
to create a huge amount of "clutter" in the HTML that seems to be designed
to reproduce precisely what was there in the printed Word document - which
is the opposite of what you want in a good web site.

>The easy way to do that is to create a GED that includes ONLY the items you
>wish to include. Import that GED into a new database and push PUBLISH WEB.

This seems a rather cumbersome way of customising a chart. Possible if there
are no better facilities though.

>> 4. Intelligent chart layout to minimise the length of long links, and put
>> closely related people close together, and make the chart easy to
>> navigate,
>> and to minimise the number of pages...

>I've used several programs and none create exceptionally long links. Most
>are of the ".../filename.htm" order.

GenesReunited does. You often find you are following the "third line from
the left" over pages and pages and pages until you find the person it came
from, by which time you are never sure whether you are still following the
right line, or have slipped one to the left or right. There must be a better
way.

>You minimise the number of pages by putting more on each page. That's an
>option in most generators.

I was thinking of trying to arrange the people on the chart in the way in
which minimises the space taken, and the lengths of links between them. By
analogy with routing of printed circuit boards, if you put the chips down on
the board in a non-optimum order, it requires more tracks, and more track
crossings, so it all takes more space and performs less well. Auto-routing
programs therefore spend some effort optimising the placement of the chips
before they ever try to connect them up. By analogy the same thing should
help with a chart. It's not obvious, it seems to me, how best to arrange the
chart, especially since each spouse that marries into the family potentially
requires another ancestor tree to be fitted in, and those ancestors may
themselves have descendants etc. etc. I think there is scope for some
software to help optimise this arrangement.

>> 7. You can manually adjust the automatic layout, and such adjustments can
>> optionally be saved and reapplied even if the automatic layout process is
>> re-done, including if there are changes to the chart. Obviously the
>> changes
>> may be such as to make the manual adjustments meaningless, in which case
>> they are abandoned.

>There's a special software for this -- TreeDraw.

Thanks for pointing this out. I'll have a look at this package. It sounds as
if it does a number of the things I was aiming for.

>Someone is bound to mention PhP -- you might try it.

Do you mean PHP the web programming language , or something else?

>In general though, I think you'll find that panning and zooming are mortal
>enemies of not-lost.

So without pan and zoom, how do you navigate around a chart that has 2000
people on it and if printed out would cover a large wall, so you can find
any individual, see how they relate to people you know in the chart, easily
get back from this person to your familiar area of the chart etc.? This is,
it seems to me, a difficult problem which needs very good tools to solve.
I'm interested in any good tools that may exist in current software
packages, and in ideas for new ways of doing this.

Rowan

[john]

Many genealogy programs will generated reports in HTML suitable for web
sites.

I often use a PDF print of a chart which can then be panned, zoomed,
searched for individuals on a web page with a PDF add-in. I still use
Genbox for creating charts (it is one of the few that has the option to
generate a chart of everyone whether they are linked or not) although
development seems to have stopped.

Another option is to use one of the PHPH-based programs which run on a
web server, e.g. the free phpGedView, Genmod, or webtrees, or The Next
Generation (TNG) but there is less flexibility in the charting but there
are links to individuals.

[singhals]

Rowan Sylvester-Bradley wrote:
> Thanks for your reply and thoughts.
>
> "singhals" wrote in message
> news:mailman.9.133337...@rootsweb.com...
>
>> The answers for the web-display and for the print-offs are different.
>
> Of course they are - but related, surely? I want to solve both problems, and
> maybe there is some software that does both. If not, fine - I'll have to
> have two solutions.
>

Not related in my experience. On paper, your size is
limited by the dimensions of the available paper. A4 or
8.5x11 or multiples thereof. Digital, you can specify the
size of the chart and if you end up scrolling 8 miles, you
scroll 8miles.

>> A "tree" is by its very definition a display of ANCESTORS. Whether in print
>> or on-screen.
>
> Whose definition? Why shouldn't descendants be a tree - it's a perfectly
> good tree structure with a single root, plus branches, sub branches to
> whatever depth and then leaves. It just has the root at the top, not the
> bottom.

I don't /make/ the rules, I just report 'em. I was told
that back in 1971 by an 80-year-old Genealogy instructor who
had been told the same back when he started out, well before
I was born. I quite agree that logically roots are below
ground and should go DOWN from oneself; however, that's not
how trees are constructed.

>
> But OK - I used the term "tree" loosely, and maybe "chart" would be a better
> word. But it's too generic for what I meant. I meant in particular a diagram
> showing how many people are related by birth and by marriage.
>

At a certain point, which I find to be somewhere around 500
persons, such a chart or diagram or tree or what-the-flip
becomes too large to be useful. A map of the United States
or even England which is large enough to show the entire
country down to legible small-town names is going to be
cumbersome to use...perhaps one-eighth life-size.

>> It will however, be happy to print CHARTS for you on paper. You can always
>> print those to file, open them in WORD, and then save-as html.
>
> This must be about the worst possible way of creating a web site. The
> resultant site can surely then make no use of web specific features which
> ought to make it easier to navigate around a large diagram. Also Word seems
> to create a huge amount of "clutter" in the HTML that seems to be designed
> to reproduce precisely what was there in the printed Word document - which
> is the opposite of what you want in a good web site.
>

I didn't say it was the BEST way. The BEST way to do what
you want is to produce the html with some sort of generator
and then hand-edit it.

>> The easy way to do that is to create a GED that includes ONLY the items you
>> wish to include. Import that GED into a new database and push PUBLISH WEB.
>
> This seems a rather cumbersome way of customising a chart. Possible if there
> are no better facilities though.
>

May be cumbersome, again depending on the number of people
you're dealing with, but it works easily and is available
whatever program you use.

>>> 4. Intelligent chart layout to minimise the length of long links, and put
>>> closely related people close together, and make the chart easy to
>>> navigate,
>>> and to minimise the number of pages...
>
>> I've used several programs and none create exceptionally long links. Most
>> are of the ".../filename.htm" order.
>
> GenesReunited does. You often find you are following the "third line from
> the left" over pages and pages and pages until you find the person it came
> from, by which time you are never sure whether you are still following the
> right line, or have slipped one to the left or right. There must be a better
> way.
>

Ahhh. You're not talking html links, you're thinking of
lines on the screen. Can't help you there. On the wall
charts I print to paper, I generally use Magic Markers (tm)
or HiLiters (tm) to follow the major lines. I hand-edit to
use different font-faces if I'm going digital.

>> You minimise the number of pages by putting more on each page. That's an
>> option in most generators.
>
> I was thinking of trying to arrange the people on the chart in the way in
> which minimises the space taken, and the lengths of links between them. By
> analogy with routing of printed circuit boards, if you put the chips down on
> the board in a non-optimum order, it requires more tracks, and more track
> crossings, so it all takes more space and performs less well. Auto-routing
> programs therefore spend some effort optimising the placement of the chips
> before they ever try to connect them up. By analogy the same thing should
> help with a chart. It's not obvious, it seems to me, how best to arrange the
> chart, especially since each spouse that marries into the family potentially
> requires another ancestor tree to be fitted in, and those ancestors may
> themselves have descendants etc. etc. I think there is scope for some
> software to help optimise this arrangement.
>

I know people who use org-chart generators for that.
Personally, I think it's more bother than it's worth and the
chances of transcription error somewhere are up around 99%.

FTM does a box chart or drop chart and yes, you may
rearrange the boxes.

But, any way you go, you'll end up with: the more info in
the box the bigger the box needs to be to hold it; the
bigger the box the more space it'll take on-screen or
on-paper; the more space each takes the more pages or
screens it will take to hold all of them; and the more
screens it takes, the easier it is to get lost.

There's a reason those charts you see in biographies rarely
follow more than one child for more than 4 or 5 generations.

>>> 7. You can manually adjust the automatic layout, and such adjustments can
>>> optionally be saved and reapplied even if the automatic layout process is
>>> re-done, including if there are changes to the chart. Obviously the
>>> changes
>>> may be such as to make the manual adjustments meaningless, in which case
>>> they are abandoned.
>
>> There's a special software for this -- TreeDraw.
>
> Thanks for pointing this out. I'll have a look at this package. It sounds as
> if it does a number of the things I was aiming for.
>
>> Someone is bound to mention PhP -- you might try it.
>
> Do you mean PHP the web programming language , or something else?
>

Yes, but it seems to be being discussed as if it were a
program ... my reading of its benefits is that fans think it
will solve everything but World Hunger.

>> In general though, I think you'll find that panning and zooming are mortal
>> enemies of not-lost.
>
> So without pan and zoom, how do you navigate around a chart that has 2000
> people on it and if printed out would cover a large wall, so you can find
> any individual, see how they relate to people you know in the chart, easily
> get back from this person to your familiar area of the chart etc.? This is,

Far's I've ever seen, you don't. Several programs probably
make it possible to DO, but it won't be easy to create and
it won't be easy to "navigate" and most folks will get good
and bored before they find the hang of it. That's
EXPERIENCE speaking, now. Most non-genealogists can't even
follow a simple one-page descendancy chart. It isn't
possible to make it easy enough for them. And most
genealogists won't want to do the "how are these two people
related" drill, when they can just ask the program.

> it seems to me, a difficult problem which needs very good tools to solve.
> I'm interested in any good tools that may exist in current software
> packages, and in ideas for new ways of doing this.

It's a difficult problem, yes.

Case Study Follows feel free to quit reading already:

One of my family associations wanted a Descendancy chart for
their reunion. I sent the planners a sample, and we reduced
the project to include only the lines of those who had
already registered to attend. The resulting drop-chart took
100 sheets of paper, which I glued together. We had to
pleat it up to fit the only wall without a door. Of the 80
or attendees, our 6 officers looked at it.

Couple years later, they wanted family group sheets; again,
75 attendees, our 6 officers looked at the sheets.

And 3 years later, I took a draft of the mss of the
genealogy, complete with index (3 reams of paper) and
absolutely no one looked at _their_ entry. Several picked
it up, read the top page, and put it back down.

It was a waste of my time and their resources.

Not a sermon, just a thought, as a local ad claims.

Cheryl

[Ian Goddard]

Rowan Sylvester-Bradley wrote:

> I was thinking of trying to arrange the people on the chart in the way
> in which minimises the space taken, and the lengths of links between
> them. By analogy with routing of printed circuit boards, if you put the
> chips down on the board in a non-optimum order, it requires more tracks,
> and more track crossings, so it all takes more space and performs less
> well. Auto-routing programs therefore spend some effort optimising the
> placement of the chips before they ever try to connect them up. By
> analogy the same thing should help with a chart. It's not obvious, it
> seems to me, how best to arrange the chart, especially since each spouse
> that marries into the family potentially requires another ancestor tree
> to be fitted in, and those ancestors may themselves have descendants
> etc. etc. I think there is scope for some software to help optimise this
> arrangement.

I suspect that if you want that level of customisation you may indeed
need a separate drafting package. In fact, given the extent of
intermarriage in one or two villages I've wondered whether a PCB CAD
program for dealing with multilayer boards mightn't be what I need ;)

--
Ian

The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang
at austonley org uk

[DougVL]

"Rowan Sylvester-Bradley" <ro...@sylvester-bradley.org> wrote in message
news:E6ier.61$5m...@newsfe20.iad...

For item #7, anyway, get the trial version of GenBox. It has a huge number
of customization possibilities, and is a very good overall genealogy
program, too, IMHO.

DougVL


--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---

[Tom Wetmore]

> A "tree" is by its very definition a display of ANCESTORS.

This is untrue. A tree (in computer jargon and in genealogical jargon) is a structure with a root node, where any node can have any number of sub nodes. In an ancestor tree, the root is the person whose ancestors are of interest. These trees are binary trees (each node has zero, one, or two sub nodes), with the weird exception that happens with ancestor collapse.

In a descendency tree, the root node is the person whose descendants are of interest. These trees get out of control quickly as in general there is no limit to the number of sub nodes that a node can have, that is, the number of children a person can have. These trees are very unsatisfactory unless you trim then down to follow a few particular lines of descent that are of interest.