TNG V9 Major Changes

The following was provided by Darrin. The top 10, which I'm going to highlight at my RootsTech demo, are these:

1. Style updates (rounded corners, shadows, menus, etc.)
2. Three new templates, plus better template configuration abilities
3. Speed (image sprites)
4. Share icons
5. Timeline improvements
6. New maps API, plus geocoding abilities
7. NicEdit for histories
8. Media sorting
9. Citations (create a source when adding a citation, "copy last" button)
10. New user rights (private, PDF, user profile)

Style Updates

• Rounded corners
• Shadows

49 Menus: The public dropdown menus are now using a different JavaScript "engine". The most visible result should be a smoother opening when each menu is triggered.

50 Menus: The language dropdown menu has been moved to be in line with the other dropdown menu lists.

Template Settings

• Three new templates were added
• Several changes were made to the Template Settings to provide better template configuration abilities.

86 Templates: Images can now be previewed and changed from the settings. The dimensions in pixels are also displayed for each current image.

87 Templates: Templates can have names instead of numbers, and the number of templates is not limited anywhere.

88 Templates: There are new templates to choose from (thanks to C5 Designs).

89 Templates: Previews of the template look-and-feel are now visible on the Template Settings pages.

90 Templates: Template messages may now be easily translated into other languages (you supply the translation).

See Template Settings - V9 for additional details and some illustration of the changes.

Speed Improvements

84 Speed: Most small icons (except for custom media types) will now be pulled from a tray of "sprites". This will decrease the amount of time needed to load each page.

See Explanation tray of sprites on Darrin's integration of the icon sprites in the pull down menu

95 Speed: Deprecated regular expressions were replaced, speeding up the processing, especially in the Mod Manager.

Social Networking

82 Share: A small icon at the top right of every page will allow visitors to see share options for the current page (Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter). This is off by default (can be enabled from General Settings/Site Design).

Timeline Improvements

Several changes were made to the Simile Timeline. Some of these changes include:

• An added table field to handle separate titles and descriptions
• The upper and lower sections of the timeline were switched
  • This fixed several bugs
  • It also synchronized upper and lower sections.
• Additional events have been added to the simile timeline including marriages, births of children, and custom events.
• Different colored 'dots' depending on the type of timeline event.
  • Purple - major life events (birth, marriage, birth of children)
  • Green - custom life events (occupation, census, etc.)
  • Red - timeline events (Events added through the admin menu as global timeline events)

91 Timeline: A separate field has been added for the Event Title (helps with the Simile timeline).

92 Timeline: Enhancements have been made to the Simile timeline (individual and family events added for first person, sections now synchonized).

See Simile Timeline for additional details and some illustrations of the changes.

Google Maps

22 Export: Places with notes or map coordinates will now be exported from the Admin GEDCOM export utility.

37 Maps: A utility now exists to automatically geocode places in a batch (Admin/Places/Geocode).

38 Maps: The new Google Maps API (version 3) is now being used. You will notice more map types and some other new control features.

39 Maps: Map pins on the Place and Individual pages will now include a "Get Directions" link inside the text bubble that appears when the pin is clicked.

NicEdit

The NicEdit is used to edit

• Body Text in Histories media collections

26 Histories: The Body Text option now uses NicEdit, a free and lightweight inline editor.

See Editing Body Text for an example

• What's New message

101 What's New: The textarea field used to enter a message at the top of this page now uses NicEdit (inline editor)

Media Improvements

2 Albums: Albums may now be linked to events.

3 Albums: Albums may now be flagged as "Always viewable".

20 Export: It is now possible to indicate which media types will be exported when creating a GEDCOM from the Admin side.

21 Export: Custom media types now have an "Export as" field to allow you to indicate how those types are represented in an outgoing GEDCOM (e.g., "TYPE _PHOTOS").

41 Media: The page to show an individual media item (showmedia.php) has been slightly rearrnaged for aesthetics and consistency.

42 Media: Slide show links have been placed on pages where multiple images are listed, thus allowing you to start the slide show without first clicking to open an image.

See Individual Person Slide Show for an example

43 Media: The size of the slide show dialog window has been increased.

44 Media: Media linked directly to events and flagged as "Always viewable" were not visible on a living person's page (fixed).

45 Media: Media links listed on the Admin/Edit Media page will now be accompanied by a link to the "Sort" page for the individual, family, or other entity being linked.

46 Media: Individuals without a "Default photo" will now be given a generic, gender-specific thumbnail as a default photo if the gender is known. This can also be turned off in the General Settings.

47 Media: When re-ordering media, one can now enter a sequence number and click "go" as an alternative to dragging.

48 Media: Any media type may now be linked to a cemetery.

Citations

5 Associations/Citations/Notes: The "Add New" and "Finished" buttons that accompany a listing of these items will now appear at the top of the list.

6 Associations/Citations/Notes: If none existed before, activating one of these popups will go directly to the "Add New" form.

10 Citations: A "Copy Last" button on the New Citation screen will allow you to duplicate the most recently used citation (if one exists in the current session).

11 Citations/Notes: Cross-reference style notes attached to a citation were not getting linked to that citation within TNG and were thus not visible anywhere (fixed).

83 Sources: You can now add a source (or select an existing source) from the New Citation window. Also, the dropdown box to choose a source has been eliminated (enter the ID, or use the "Find" button).

New User Rights

Allow Private

Allow to view information for private individuals

96 Users: Users will now have a "Allow Private" flag so that access to private individuals can be distinguished from access to living individuals.

Allow PDF

Allow to download PDFs

98 Users: A user may be given the right to view PDF charts, thus overriding the flag set in the Tree record that prevents creating PDFs.

Edit Profile

97 Users: An "Edit Profile" link at the top of each public page (next to Login/Logout) allows a logged in user to edit their own user profile without entering the Admin area.

If you provide a Guest user name for logging into a closed TNG site, you should uncheck the box for Allow to edit user profile for the Guest username

Setting Changes

General Settings

• Privacy

81 Settings: A new option was added for "Show Names for Private".

• Site Design, Share (social networking)

82 Share: A small icon at the top right of every page will allow visitors to see share options for the current page (Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter). This is off by default (can be enabled from General Settings/Site Design).

Import Setting

• Set Private flag on import

71 Privacy: Import can be configured so that people dead less than a designated number of years will be labeled as "private".

Tree Record

• Don't allow users to create PDF files

57 PDF/Trees: The ability to prevent PDF charts from being created is now tied to individual trees, just like the ability to prevent GEDCOM files from being downloaded.

User Records

• Disable or suspend users

96 Users: User accounts can now be enabled or disabled from Admin/Users.

• Allow to view information for private individuals

97 Users: Users will now have a "Allow Private" flag so that access to private individuals can be distinguished from access to living individuals.

• Allow to download PDFs

98 Users: A user may be given the right to view PDF charts, thus overriding the flag set in the Tree record that prevents creating PDFs.

• Allow to edit profile

97 Users: An "Edit Profile" link at the top of each public page (next to Login/Logout) allows a logged in user to edit their own user profile without entering the Admin area.

If you provide a Guest user name for logging into a closed TNG site, you should uncheck the box for Allow to edit user profile for the Guest username

Import / Export

Import Settings

• Assume private if not dead this many years:

71 Privacy: Import can be configured so that people dead less than a designated number of years will be labeled as "private".

Export Media

• Export as mediatype

21 Export: Custom media types now have an "Export as" field to allow you to indicate how those types are represented in an outgoing GEDCOM (e.g., "TYPE _PHOTOS").

Places

Place Merge

62 Places: When multiple places are merged, if the place that the rest are being merged into does not have any latitude or longitude values, that place will take on the latitude and longitude of the first other place on the list that has such values.

67 Places: An extra criteria field on the Merge Places page will now allow you to merge places whose names are dissimilar (e.g., "VT" and "Vermont").

Geocoding

36 Maps: A utility now exists to automatically geocode places in a batch (Admin/Places/Geocode).

While you are geocoding locations, you may want to capture the returned screen for later reference.

See Geocode Function for additional information.

Sorting

65 Places: The public Place page (placesearch.php) can now be sorted by name or event date (and your preference is remembered for the duration of the session).

See Sorting Places for additional information.

Search Editing

63 Places: The public Place page will now show an "Edit Place" link if the user is logged in with edit rights.

Pooling

64 Places: The option now exists to pool places from all trees (in other words, all trees will share one set of places).

To share places with all trees, you need to change the Admin >> Setup >> General Settings >> Miscellaneous >> Assign Place records to Trees: from Yes to No A Merge button will be displayed, which you should click to merge your places or remove the Tree Assignment if you only have one tree and intend to add another tree.

See Pooling Places for additional information.

Export geocodes

22 Export: Places with notes or map coordinates will now be exported from the Admin GEDCOM export utility.

During beta testing, the generated GEDCOM was imported successfully to RootsMagic 4.

Database Improvements

15 Database: All people-related queries in the public area have been consolidated into tngdblib.php (first step toward database abstraction).

96 Users: User accounts can now be enabled or disabled from Admin/Users.

100 Users: When one user starts to edit a person or family record, that record will be locked for a number of minutes (defined in the General Settings). During that time, no other user will be allowed to edit that record.

101 Users: Support was added for the Portable PHP password hashing framework (an encryption scheme used by WordPress and Drupal).

Email Improvements

• The email message subject line for the Contact Us generated message will now include the page title as part of the subject and the first line of the comment.

This change uses the first parameter value passed to the tng_header function to update the subject and comment areas of the Contact Us message and therefore will work for user-created pages that use the tng_header function to generate the page heading.

13 Contact us: The mail generated by this page will now include a descriptive subject name derived from the previously viewed page.

• SMTP mail support

34 Mail: SMTP mail is now fully supported. Options are configurable from the General Settings.

• Mail for Tentative Edit changes

35 Mail: The administrator can now get an email about every edit submitted for admin review (turned off by default, must be enabled in the General Settings).

• Mail address validation

36 Mail: A sender's email address will now be validated a second time in the PHP layer before any message is sent (to thwart spammers who get around the initial form validation).

APIs and Hooks

TNG V9 adds some (Application Programming Interfaces) APIs and hooks

• APIs

4 API: Functions are now available to get individual person or family data in JSON format.

• Queries

15 Database: All people-related queries in the public area have been consolidated into tngdblib.php (first step toward database abstraction).

Some mods like the Age Calculation Mod and the Event Map add children mod now use this new query capability.

• Hooks

51 Menus: A "hook" in genlib.php will allow for custom menu entries to be defined in customconfig.php.

See Custom Menu Hook for additional details and Site Menu Mod for the update site menu example that now uses this new hook.

Mod Manager

51 Mod Manager: The Mod Manager now sets an error message (instead of displaying the Clean Up button) if the mod cannot be installed.

See Interpreting the Mod Manager Status

52 Mod Manager: Message highlighting was added to show successful completions and critical errors.

53 Mod Manager: Clearing and restoring string variables using the Edit function produced syntax errors (fixed).

54 Mod Manager: When a configuration file was the target of the change, the Config Path was not used to find the file (fixed).

84 Speed: Deprecated regular expressions were replaced, speeding up the processing, especially in the Mod Manager.