Fan charts

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Sat May 03, 2008 4:19 am

Originally posted by favell44

The existing ancestry chart is stunning, and people to whom I have given their personal ancestry chart in pdf form are very impressed. A fan chart can be useful for easily following ancestry (for a few generations at least). Has this been considered, or are the graphics problems not worth pursuing?

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Sat May 03, 2008 6:17 am

favell44 wrote:The existing ancestry chart is stunning, and people to whom I have given their personal ancestry chart in pdf form are very impressed. A fan chart can be useful for easily following ancestry (for a few generations at least). Has this been considered, or are the graphics problems not worth pursuing?

I have seen some rather ugly fan charts generated by other genealogy applications - for some you have to stand on your head to read the the text because it is upside down and for others some the text is too small to read. Fan charts are not one of my favourite ways of presenting genealogy data - but they say that the customer is always right, so ...

Keith

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Sat May 03, 2008 6:50 am

Originally posted by favell44

It is a long way from being a must-have for me. For three or four generations it can be quite an informative way of reading the data at a glance - maybe the sort of thing I might put in the front of my (physical) folders. But I agree - some fan charts are diabolical.

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Sat May 03, 2008 6:53 am

favell44 wrote:It is a long way from being a must-have for me. For three or four generations it can be quite an informative way of reading the data at a glance - maybe the sort of thing I might put in the front of my (physical) folders. But I agree - some fan charts are diabolical.

Now that I see what you want them for, then OK - I will add a (limited generations) fan chart to the ToDo list - but no upside-down text. There will be no fanfare when it done - it will be just another enhancement that is included in a.n.other release of iFamily for Big Cats. Cheshires are rather small aren't they? or are they horses? Don't they live in Wonderland? I guess the size of a Cheshire Cat depends on which bottle you last drank from or which mushroom you ate.

Keith

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Sat May 03, 2008 8:00 am

Originally posted by favell44

I suppose you think it's easy, living in a teapot ...

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Tue May 27, 2008 5:45 am

favell44 wrote:It is a long way from being a must-have for me. For three or four generations it can be quite an informative way of reading the data at a glance - maybe the sort of thing I might put in the front of my (physical) folders. But I agree - some fan charts are diabolical.

Hi Favell44,

I generated some fan charts but I didn't like them so I scrapped the idea. After about 3 generations they are sort of cramped and hard to read.

As an alternative I suggest that a Context Diagram - as shown in the top half of the main window would provide the same information and be more readable.

At the moment you can save a JPEG of the Context Diagram using menu option File - Print /Save Diagram or use the Printer button in the Toolbar. But it is low resolution and the text can looks bitty when it is is resized in a word processor. I could add some code so that the user can choose the frame size for the diagram, but ....

You can also generate suitable Context Diagrams (en-masse) using the Generate HTML option - and in this case you can generate them as uncompressed JPEGs which can be resized better. The output for these Context Diagrams is saved in the HTML sub-folders in the iFamilyForTigerData/ Reports /XYZs Web Pages / Diagrams / Diagrams01, 02, 03, ...

Keith

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:51 am

Originally posted by favell44

Hi Keith

Thank you for the time you have put into this. Your suggestions certainly cover the information and, indeed, I have been using some already and will continue happily to do so.

Regards, Tony