Family Group Worksheet V10

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Family Group Worksheet V10
Summary Provides forms for visitors and invited guests to organize and submit family information for inclusion in the website.
Validation n/a
Mod Updated {{{mod_last_update}}}
Download link fgw_v10.0.0.4.zip
TNG 10.0
Download stats view statistics
Author(s) Rick Bisbee
Homepage Bisbee Family Connection
Mod Support Support for Family Group Worksheet V10
Contact Developer Rick Bisbee
Latest Mod 10.0.0.0
Min TNG V 10.0.0
Max TNG V 10
Files modified
none
Related Mods
FGW Tabs Mod
Personal Table Maintenance
Notes
Worksheet is self installing -- does not use Mod Manager


Introduction

Family Group Worksheet V10 adds a traditional genealogical family group sheet to a TNGv10 website. It differs from previous versions in that it stores worksheets on site and they can be retrieved by both the admin and original submitter.

Worksheets can be used in several ways. Visitors can open an empty worksheet and fill in information about themselves and their families. They can generate a worksheet from a tab on a TNG personal or family group page, pre-filled with information from the page and ready for revision or addition. The admin can generate a family group worksheet, pre-fill it any way he likes, and mail a secure link to someone, say Uncle Harry, and ask him to click on the link and fill in whatever information he can about his family. Uncle Harry is not presumed to have computer skills beyond using email, and he is not required to have an account or log into the website to provide his own family history. This would be similar to mailing a family group sheet to a relative and asking them to mail it back.

When a worksheet is completed and saved, an email notification is sent to the site administrator. A copy is also sent to the submitter containing a secure link for him to re-access it if he wants to add or revise. The admin has a small control panel at the top of each submitted worksheet to manipulate and determine its status.

FGW V10 comes with support files for several languages -- Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish. Some of these files were developed using Google Translate. If a native speaker cares to submit files that are more idiomatic, we will be happy to replace them. There is a master help file in English -- others will be provided as they become available. There are also help links on the form for some of the data fields.

FGW V10 requires a new table in the TNG database that is created during setup. The default table name is tng_forms. If you wish to name it something else, define $forms_table in your customconfig.php file, for example, $forms_table = 'my_forms'; before creating it.

There are also Mod Manager files available to add worksheet tabs to personal and family group pages, and to modify TNG to include the new forms table in TNG backups.

Most of the features from previous versions of FGW remain.

Planned Upgrades

FGW V10 is designed to accommodate future upgrades to 1) add one-click merging of data into the TNG database, and 2) automatically create and attach a source-citation to each new fact, for example, "Unsourced information from Family Group Worksheet 216, submitted to this website by Uncle Harry, son of Jerry Smith, 4 July 2014."

FGW Revision History

Version Date Description
10.0.0.1 28 Mar 2014
  • Initial release of FGW V10
10.0.0.2 31 Mar 2014
  • Modified to accommodate i/net hosting services that have not yet installed MySQLi -- the improved version of MySQL used by FGW
10.0.0.3 4 Apr 2014
  • Fixed notification when leaving page without saving changes (IE)
  • Removed residual test mode settings that may have caused inconsequential warnings
  • Improved labels and added placeholders where needed

Issues

A couple of websites have reported that FGW will not create the forms table. Most likely this is a file permissions/ownership issue. Unpacking the FGW zip folder on your desktop and using an FTP program like FileZilla to upload it to your website may resolve it, as FileZilla sets the permissions and ownership to the proper values.

I haven't tried it, but it may also work to resolve the same problem in a desktop WAMPS site.

Requirements

  • A working installation of TNGv10
  • PHP 5+

MySQLi

The development community is no longer supporting the MySQL Library. In fact most of the MySQL library functions have been deprecated and are replaced by MySQLi (improved MySQL). FGW uses the MySQLi interface, but if it is not present on the server, it reverts to MySQL. That means that during the transition, it should work well, whether your host provider has MySQLi installed yet or not.

Family Group Worksheet

Shown is in the default styling with LDS event fields displayed (configurable by the administrator.) If website has more than one family tree, a drop down selection menu is presented. If the user is an invited guest, the tree list and personID fields are disabled.

Ex001.png


Admin Control

Ex002.png


After the worksheet has been submitted the Admin can access it with just the ID number or by clicking on the link in the emailed notification. Anyone else must have the security key.

For admins, a control panel will display at the top of the form. If the visitor provides information on a person or family already in the database, but has not supplied the person or family ID, the admin can add them here. After merging the new information to the TNG database, he can mark it merged. If the submitter returns and updates his form, new notification will be sent to the admin, the merged status flag will be reset, and the worksheet will be considered active again. The admin can also mark the worksheet closed, in which case the visitor no longer has access to it. Finally, the admin can can use the control panel to delete the worksheet from the database.

The admin control section also allows navigating through the saved worksheets with an option to ignore those that have been merged and/or closed. You can search for other worksheets using worksheet ID (no prefix), family ID (prefix 'F') or person ID (prefix 'I'), or by clicking on the Search by ID button with no ID, you can display the entire selectable list of worksheets, showing their numbers, titles and status (merged, closed).

Please Note: While there is an automated merge capability planned for a future release, currently all merging of new information into the database must be done manually by the admin.

Installing FGW V10

If you download and install FGW V10, please add your Website to the list of users at the bottom of this article. Future upgrades and maintenance will depend on how much it is being used. --Thanks.

  • Remove previous version of the fgw folder from your extensions folder.
  • Download the fgw_10 package from the TNGWiki.
  • Unzip and place the fgw folder inside your extensions folder.
  • Navigate to extensions/fgw/setup.php.
  • Before you create a table to store the worksheet forms, be aware that the default table name is tng_forms. If you would like to name it something else, for instance, gen_worksheets, define the variable $forms_table in your customconfig.php file: $forms_table = 'gen_worksheets';
  • If you are installing FGW V10 for the first time, click on the button that says "Create Table". Clicking on it after it has been created and used will empty all records.
  • Select the other options you want and click on Save Preferences.
  • Click on Family Group Worksheet (button).

Completely Uninstalling FGW V10

  • Remove the fgw folder from the extensions directory
  • Remove the fgw_tabs mod (if installed)
  • Modify or remove the Personal Table Maintenance mod (if installed)
  • Manually remove the alternate $forms_table name (if used) from the customconfig.php file
  • Manually remove the FGW forms table from the TNG database

Administrator's Setup Page

When you navigate to extensions/fgw/setup.php you will see a setup screen where you can create the worksheet forms table in the database and set your preferences. You can revert to the default settings at any time. Bookmark this page in your browser for easy access in the future. Also consider adding an admin-only link to one of your drop down menus (see below.)

Ex003.png


Be aware that the LDS viewability setting for the worksheet does not override your TNG setup. If you have LDS turned off for the website, you can not turn it on in the Family Group Worksheet. The same holds true for individual user settings.

Linking to the Worksheet

You will need to add a link to the worksheet (extensions/fgw/fgw.php) for users to access it. TNGv10 allows you to add links to the TNG drop down menus or to a custom menu you have created. To use this feature you must define your link in your customconfig.php file. In the following example, we add a worksheet link to the TNG *Find* menu. 

$link_nr = 0; // first add-on link_nr must be zero 
$findmenulinks[$link_nr]['target'] = "extensions/fgw/index.php";
$findmenulinks[$link_nr]['sprite'] = "";
$findmenulinks[$link_nr]['icon'] = "extensions/fgw/img/families.gif";
$findmenulinks[$link_nr]['label_text'] = "Submit Family";
$findmenulinks[$link_nr]['admin'] = false;

FGW V10 will list existing worksheets with the following URL: extensions/fgw/fgw.php?id=index. To add an admin-only link to a custom menu that you have already defined and populated with other links: 

$link_nr++; // subsequent add-on links must be incremented (++) 
$custommenulinks[$link_nr]['target'] = "extensions/fgw/fgw.php?id=index";
$custommenulinks[$link_nr]['sprite'] = "";
$custommenulinks[$link_nr]['icon'] = "extensions/fgw/img/families.gif";
$custommenulinks[$link_nr]['label_index'] = "ws_list";
$custommenulinks[$link_nr]['admin'] = true;

Notice in the last example we used a $cust_text.php definition for the link's label in support of multiple languages. Of course, you must provide that label yourself in your cust_text.php files for each language; for example, in English-UTF8/cust_text.php: $text['ws_list'] = 'FGW Index';

For greater detail about how to customize your drop down menus, see the TNGv10 Custom Menu Hook

FGW Tabs Mod

For those who would like to have a tab at the top of each personal and family page to open a Family Group Worksheet pre-populated with data from the source page, see the companion FGW Tabs Mod. There is no change to this mod from TNGv9, so if you already have it installed, there is no need to replace it.

Personal Table Maintenance Mod

Install the Personal Table Maintenance mod by Bart Degryse if you would like to have the FGW forms table included in those that are backed up using the TNG Admin backup utility. If you are already using this mod, add the FGW forms table name to your list of personal tables.

For those who use a third party backup utility such as MySQLDumper, the new table will automatically be included in your SQL backup files. These SQL files are also useful for downloading to a WAMPS site and restoring the database as an exact copy of what is on line.

Using a Captcha

The captcha was removed during testing as it was thought to be unnecessary. If you disagree, please let the developer know about it.

TNG Websites Using This Add-on

If you download and install this add-on, please add your TNG site to the table below to let us know if there is enough interest in it to warrant active maintenance.

URL Admin Note Mod-Version/TNG-Version User-language(s)
A Bisbee Family History Rick Bisbee Public site (FGW developer) 10.0.0.3/ TNG 10.0.1 EN
Mitchell Families Online Roger Mitchell Rick's continuing development of this add-on takes it from strength to strength! 10.0.0.2/ TNG 10.0.1 EN
Farnham & Paradise Ohana Barbara Farnham Paradise beta test site 10.0.0.0g/ TNG 10.0.1 EN
Our Family History Tor Lund Public site 10.0.0.3/ TNG 10.0.1 EN, NO, DA, FR, DE

Disclaimer

There is no warranty. Use the add-on at your own risk. It has been tested in many of the TNG template styles without any particular problems. If you experience difficulty or would just like to comment, please Contact us here

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