My list of enhancements

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Keith Wilson
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My list of enhancements

Post by Keith Wilson » Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:10 am

Originally posted by colindun

OK, I'm being greedy, but here's a short list of the things I'd like to see added to iFamily. Most of these are to do with the recent and excellent HTML export facility.

1) The ability on HTML pages to have larger image of a person below the family diagram. Currently this is 100px wide and a wee bit small. Maybe 200px?

2) Ability to add a response email link at bottom of pages. One of the greatest uses of the web site is likely to be the gathering of information from remote relatives and having a convenient and quick way to let them email about a specific person would be very useful.

I'd suggest that when clicked this link would automatically open a new message window in the users mail program, with the name of the person page as the subject line. I'd imagine that this would require a field somewhere in preferences where the iFamily user can enter the email address to which responses should be sent.

3) The ability to show names and birth year of still living people. This would be useful in helping relatives see where they fit in. I appreciate that privacy is a concern, but would this be endangered by showing a name and birth year? What are your thoughts?

4) The ability to configure web page window titles to aid search engine indexing - which I believe Keith is already working on. This could make a big difference in how well a site is indexed, and therefore how easily it is found and how effectively valuable feedback is sent to the researcher.

5) Ability to have given name as caption on photos and name on diagram, rather than birth name. May father, for instance, though baptised Alexander was always called Alastair. Having Alastair as the pic caption and name on diagram would help other members of the family find him more easily when browsing the site.

6) This one's a little geeky - the ability to use a different suffix for HTML files (such as .asp or .php). I'd like to be able to specify .asp as the file suffix as this would let me, personally, set up stats tracking more easily. However, I appreciate that this facility is not likely to be one that most users would need.

Colin

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Keith Wilson
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My list of enhancements

Post by Keith Wilson » Fri Mar 28, 2008 12:08 pm

1) The ability on HTML pages to have larger image of a person below the family diagram. Currently this is 100px wide and a wee bit small. Maybe 200px?
Each image file would then be 4 times the size. The thumbnail you get is stored in the database at 100x100px and blatting it, as is, is very fast. Creating a new thumbnail 200x200px would slow down the generation of the HTML output dramatically.
2) Ability to add a response email link at bottom of pages. One of the greatest uses of the web site is likely to be the gathering of information from remote relatives and having a convenient and quick way to let them email about a specific person would be very useful. I'd suggest that when clicked this link would automatically open a new message window in the users mail program, with the name of the person page as the subject line. I'd imagine that this would require a field somewhere in preferences where the iFamily user can enter the email address to which responses should be sent.
Will add it to the ToDo list for Prepare for Upload to Web Site which has not yet been written.
3) The ability to show names and birth year of still living people. This would be useful in helping relatives see where they fit in. I appreciate that privacy is a concern, but would this be endangered by showing a name and birth year? What are your thoughts?

Please read the legal warning - the laws in other countries must be considered. I have no intention of being part of any litigation.
4) The ability to configure web page window titles to aid search engine indexing - which I believe Keith is already working on. This could make a big difference in how well a site is indexed, and therefore how easily it is found and how effectively valuable feedback is sent to the researcher.
Will add to the ToDo list for Prepare for Upload to Web Site
5) Ability to have given name as caption on photos and name on diagram, rather than birth name. My father, for instance, though baptised Alexander was always called Alastair. Having Alastair as the pic caption and name on diagram would help other members of the family find him more easily when browsing the site.
Try adding the nickname in quotes as the first name - e.g 'Alastair' Alexander Dunn.
6) This one's a little geeky - the ability to use a different suffix for HTML files (such as .asp or .php). I'd like to be able to specify .asp as the file suffix as this would let me, personally, set up stats tracking more easily. However, I appreciate that this facility is not likely to be one that most users would need.
As you said, it is geeky. Please may I apply the KISS principle.

Keith

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Keith Wilson
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My list of enhancements

Post by Keith Wilson » Fri Apr 04, 2008 4:38 pm

Originally posted by colindun
Keith Wilson wrote:
Each image file would then be 4 times the size. The thumbnail you get is stored in the database at 100x100px and blatting it, as is, is very fast. Creating a new thumbnail 200x200px would slow down the generation of the HTML output dramatically.
I understand, but maybe a larger image which is more recognisable online might be worth the additional wait of slower HTML output? In addition, part of the reason for wanting to have a web site of family history online is so that relatives can make some kind of connection with their dead relatives such that they see them as real people, rather than just dates and facts. I think a good photograph helps this.
3) Please read the legal warning - the laws in other countries must be considered. I have no intention of being part of any litigation.
Sorry, but which legal warning is this? Other family history programs output with names but no details for living people and appear to do so without leading to court cases. However, I appreciate the privacy concern, and can understand the cautious approach.
5) Ability to have given name as caption on photos and name on diagram, rather than birth name. My father, for instance, though baptised Alexander was always called Alastair. Having Alastair as the pic caption and name on diagram would help other members of the family find him more easily when browsing the site.

Try adding the nickname in quotes as the first name - e.g 'Alastair' Alexander Dunn.
Thanks. I'll try that.
6) This one's a little geeky - the ability to use a different suffix for HTML files (such as .asp or .php). I'd like to be able to specify .asp as the file suffix as this would let me, personally, set up stats tracking more easily. However, I appreciate that this facility is not likely to be one that most users would need.

As you said, it is geeky. Please may I apply the KISS principle.
As you say. This is probably best left to tinkering through a text editor or WYSIWYG html editor.

Thanks.

Colin

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Keith Wilson
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My list of enhancements

Post by Keith Wilson » Sat Apr 05, 2008 5:10 am

Originally posted by Kirkman
colindun wrote: 2) Ability to add a response email link at bottom of pages. One of the greatest uses of the web site is likely to be the gathering of information from remote relatives and having a convenient and quick way to let them email about a specific person would be very useful.
You could accomplish this very quickly by using a text editor with a multi-file search-and-replace command, such as TextWrangler (which is freeware). Just search through the folder with all the iFamily HTML files...

You could use " br br br br hr " as your search string
and
" p a href=" mailto:your@address.com" Click here /a to contact me. /p br br br br hr " as your replace string.

--Josh

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Keith Wilson
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My list of enhancements

Post by Keith Wilson » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:24 am

Originally posted by colindun
You could accomplish this very quickly by using a text editor with a multi-file search-and-replace command, such as TextWrangler (which is freeware). Just search through the folder with all the iFamily HTML files...
Hi Josh. Yes, that's what I was intending to do. It's be nice if there was a way to set this up in iFamily, but in the meantime the trusty text editor (I'm a TextWrangler user too) will let me get on with it.

Colin

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