Difference between revisions of "TextPlus Charts"

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! URL !! User !! Note !! Mod-Version !! TNG-Version !! User-language
 
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| [https://www.kloosterman.be/genealogy/rrtextplus_ancestor.php?personID=I2162&tree=001&generations= An example in the Kloosterman Genealogy Database]
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| [https://www.kloosterman.be/genealogy/rrtextplus_ancestor.php?personID=I2162&tree=001&generations= Kloosterman Genealogy Example of Text+ Mod]
 
| [[Cees Kloosterman]]
 
| [[Cees Kloosterman]]
 
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| Webdesigner

Revision as of 09:16, 23 October 2020

Ambox notice.png This article focuses on TextPlus Charts v13.0.0.17, for TNGv13. All earlier versions of the mod are described in and can be downloaded from TextPlus Charts pre-TNGv13.
TNG 13.0


TextPlus Charts
Summary Implements two new charts: Text+ Descendant Chart, and Text+ Ancestor Chart.
Validation
Mod Updated 20 Sep 2020
Download link v13.0.0.17
TNG 13.0
(with Czeck, Dutch, German Norwegian, and Spanish translations)
There is a separate mod for French Translations
Download stats
Author(s) Robin Richmond with translations by Hendrik Martius, Bernard Wortelboer, Ron Krzmarzick, and Kåre Kjøllesdal.
Homepage this page
Mod Support My Mod Support form or TNG Community Forums
Contact Developer My Mod Support form
Latest Mod 13.0.0.17
Min TNG V 13.0
Max TNG V 13.?
Files modified
Updates admin_pedconfig.php, admin_updatepedconfig.php,

Descendant charts (descend.php, descendtext.php, desctracker.php, register.php),
Pedigree charts (pedigree.php, pedigreetext.php, verticalchart.php, ahnentafel.php, extrastree.php),
tngrobots.php,

Installs: rrtextplus_descend.php, rrtextplus_ancestor.php, rrtextplus_lib.php, rrtextplus_help.php, js/rrtextplus_lib.js, css/rrtextplus.css, English textplus_help.php, plus several icons.
Related Mods
Notes
Instalsl Czech, Dutch, German, Norwegian, and Spanish translations. French translations require a separate mod

Purpose of the Mod

To define two new charts - the Text+ Ancestor Chart, and the Text+ Descendant Chart. Both charts follow a text format (basically an outline layout) but draw lines between parents and children. Links to these charts are placed on the TNG "Inner Menu" (the link menu just below the TNG Tab Bar) on the Person Profile and on Pedigree and Descendant chart pages, which contains the native links to the various types of Ancestor and Descendant charts.

Features of the Text+ Charts

  • The Text+ Descendant Chart is very similar to TNG's Text Descendant Chart, but has several additional features.
  • The Text+ Pedigree Chart serves the same purpose as TNG's Text Ancestor Chart, but does not use the standard 4-generations-per-page Pedigree format. It can display at least 15 or so generations in one chart that is one page wide and several pages long. It also has some of the same 'additional features' as the Text plus Descendant Chart.
[Show Additional features]
[Hide features]

Both charts:

  1. Draw lines to connect people with their children.
  2. Display places of birth and death instead of just dates.
  3. Display charts display alternate birth date and/or place (i.e. christening date/place) when the birth date and/or place is missing.
  4. Display burial date and/or place when the death date and/or place is missing. (When the "location" component of a burial placeplace contains the word "Cemetery", the entire Cemetery name is removed from the placename.)
  5. Display the last known place of residence and the date of that residence event for people who are living (if security contraints allow it).
  6. Can display ALL of a person's descendants or ancestors rather than a specific number of generations,
  7. Display a summary at the bottom of the chart,
  8. Have mod options that control where, whether, and how to present dates, placenames, age, and marriage data.
  9. Have run-time options that control the size and spacing of the charts. Some parameters are available in the main window, and some parameters are available only in the Format for Printing window.
  10. Have run-time options that affect the information to be displayed in the chart. (See Mod Options below.
  11. Allow the user to save the size and spacing parameters to a cookie for use by subsequent charts.
[Hide Features]

Options and Settings

This mod has several types of settings, including

  1. Mod-specific configuration variables, which I ordinarily call "Mod Options".
  2. New choices for native selection box options at Admin>>Setup>>Chart Settings
  3. Run-time options in the TextPlus Chart programs that affect charts dynamically
  4. Persistent cookies that retain some of the run-time option settings.
[See all Options details]
[Hide Options Details]

Mod Options

There are about 10 settings (depending on how you count them) in the TextPlus Charts "Mod Options Block" at Admin >> Setup >> Chart Settings >> Mod Options Blocks Textplus17-msb.jpg

Option Choices

This mod adds selection box options to two native fields in the options form at Admin>>Setup>>Chart Settings:

  1. The option to select "Text+" has been added to the "Initial Display" field in the "Pedigree Chart" subform.
  2. Similarly, the option to select "Text+" has been added to the "Initial Display" field in the "Descendancy Chart" subform,

Run-time Options

These options are presented by the two Text+ Chart programs (in the "main" page), to change the charts dynamically, at, well, at run-time. The run-time options are illustrated and described in the Visualizations below, and are described with additional detail in the Text+ Charts help file.

Persistent Cookies

All users (not just Admins, and not just users with accounts) can save their preferred Text+ Print Formatting options (indentation, font size, page width, etc.) for use in subsequent charts. There are separate cookies for the Text+ Ancestor and Descendant charts.

[Close Options Details]

Other Mods

Conflicts

No known conflicts with published mods. However, there is a conflict with older versions of an Add New Items mod that was written by Ian Fettes.

Related Mods

[Show Details ]
[Hide Content]
  1. The Mod Settings Blocks mod packages this mod's options into what I call a "Mod Settings Block", which is a set of form fields that formatted and labeled so that it stands out among other options in an Admin>>Setting form. Mod Settings Blocks is a prerequisite for this mod; it must be installed before this mod can be installed.
  2. An Inner Mod Menu, which provides handy links from TNG pages directly to mod documentation and a mod's Mods Settings Block. (Inner Mod Menus are visible only to TNG Admins; never to end users.)
  3. The Mods Used feature, which captures a list of mods that affected the code used to display a TNG page. (This is analogous to the Mod Manager Analyzer feature that reports which mods affect a given TNG file, but that applies at run-time.
  4. Count Descendants
    This mod coordinates with Count Descendants in two distinct ways.
    1. The Descendant Chart program's Inner Menu:
      • The Text+ Descendancy Chart program installed by this mod contains a link to the Count Descendants chart that is visible only if [Count Descendants]] is installed.
      • Similarly, the Count Descendants Chart installed by Count Descendants contains a link to the The Text+ Descendant Chart that is visible only if TextPlus Charts is installed.
    2. The Admin>>Setup>>Chart Settings form, where both mods add an option to the "Initial Display" selection box in the "Descendancy Chart" section of the Chart Settings form
[Hide Related Mods ]

Installation

Files Installed

  • PHP
    1. rrtextplus_descend.php - The TextPlus Descendand Chart
    2. rrtextplus_ancestor.php - The TextPlus Ancestor Chart
    3. rrtextplus_lib.php - A PHP function library used by both Text+ Chart programs
    4. rrtextplus_ancestor_tracker_ajx.php - An AJAX program that generates the new "Locate In Chart" popup for the Ancestor chart
    5. rrtextplus_descend_tracker_ajx.php - An AJAX program that generates the new "Locate In Chart" popup for the Ancestor chart
    6. rrtextplus_help.php> - A driver for the three TextPlus Chart help files
  • Javascript and CSS
    1. js/rrtextplus_lib.js - A standalone Javascript library
    2. css/rrtextplus.css - A standalone CSS stylesheet.
  • Image files - all containing small icons:
    1. img/rrtextplus_plus.gif - A white-on-black plus sign icon used in the TextPlus Descendant Chart as an icon for tree branches that have been compressed.
    2. img/rrtextplus_locate.gif - The 'locate person in chart' icon for the Text+Descendant Chart
    3. img/rrtextplus_top.png - The up-arrow "go to the top of the chart" link in the floating footer
    4. img/rrtextplus_down.gif - Light down-arrow that implies a pull-down menu
    5. img/rrtextplus_down_black.gif - Dark down-arrow for use in the b&w Format for Printing page
[Hide Related Mods ]

Language Files

The This mod does not add the language strings used by TextPlus Charts programs to conventional cust_text.php files. Instead, they are loaded directly from files named {language}_custtext.php in the languages subfolder within the mod subfolder. The mod's help files are also stored in the mod subfolder, and are not installed to the standard TNG "languages" folder. Most of the help files are not translated.

[Show Standard Installation Process]

Requirements

  • A working TNG installation.
  • An installed current version of the Mod Manager.
  • You should backup files listed in the panel on the right.

Procedure

  1. Remove and delete previous version of this mod.
  2. Backup the files updated by this mod. They are listed in the panel at the upper right.
  3. Download the .zip file, Extract its .cfg file to the mods folder.
  4. Follow the normal automated installation for Mod Manager, as shown in the example Mod Manager - Installing Config Files.

Problems?

  1. Try using the Mod Manager Remove capability
  2. Contact me through My Mod Support form.
[Hide Details]

Visualizations

  • For visualizations that focus on the most recent changes, see New Features in version 6d and version 17.
  • Some of these visualizations are marked up and annotated more thoroughly in the Text+ Charts help file, which can be found on the mod author's TNG site
1. Text+ Descendant Chart

See also the 'Descendant Chart help file on the author's website.

Textplus16 descendant main.jpg
Overview of differences between the native Text Descendant Chart and the Text+ Descendant chart.
[See details]
[Hide details ]
  1. In the "Inner Menu" (white text on dark blue)
    1. The first line of the Inner Menu is essentially the same as it is in the Text charts, though
      • In the "Generations" selection box, the value 'all' has been selected so that all generations of the individual's descendants are to be displayed. The Text+ Chart format can handle upwards of 15 generations in the width of one landscape 8x11 page.
    2. The TextPlus Chart program extends the Inner Menu with two lines of run-time options. On the second line:
      • Four checkboxes on the second line control optional features of the chart. These controls are specific to the Text+Descendant Chart.
        • The "Hide living & private data..." checkbox is visible only to administrators who can see the data of living and private people. This option lets administrators see the chart as it would be seen by non-administrators.
        • The "& Descendants" checkbox hide living and private descendants of living and private people, just to remove some of the not-necessarily-useful "living" and "private" labels in a chart.
        • The "& Descendants" checkbox and label have been disabled and greyed-out because you can't hide living and private descendants until you hide living and private data.
        • The "Siblings #s" checkbox and label have been disabled and greyed-out because the program won't let you display sibling numbers without generation numbers.
    3. On the third line of the Inner Menu (which is the same in the two Text+ Charts),
      • The Width option is used to determine where to wrap lines within the chart. (See Margins and Line-Wrapping below to understand why the Text+ programs cannot depend on the web browser to wrap lines at the right margin.)
      • There is a button that pops up the Text+ Charts help file, which is installed by the mod. (In general, TNG has help files only for Admin programs, not for end-user programs.)
      • The presence of the "Format for Printing" button (which is really a duplicate of the standard TNG "Print" button at the upper right of the page) emphasizes that users who want to print a Text+ chart should essentially always use the Format for Printing page to control the shape of the Text+ Chart and make sure that it fits the desired page width.
  2. At the right side of the Inner Menu is an Inner Mod Menu, which drops down from the label "Mod Information". The Inner Mod Menu is opened here for illustration. It has three links:
    • The Wiki icon is a link to the mod's Wiki article (i.e. this article),
    • To the section of the Wiki article (i.e. this article) that describes the mod options,
    • A direct link to the mod options within the program that edits the options, at Admin>>Setup>>Chart Settings.
  3. The chart legend:
    1. The spyglass icon serves as a "Locate descendant in Chart" link is different from the icon used in the native TNG Descendant Text Chart, because the appearance and functionality of that link is different in this program. See item 4g below.
    2. The Expand and Collapse buttons mimic the Expand and Collapse buttons from the native TNG Descendant Text Chart, except that
      • The Expand button is white-on-black so that it stands out better, and
      • The Text+ Chart does a great deal more with compressed branches of the tree:
        • The counts in the floating footer shown at the bottom of the screen clip change as branches of the tree are collapsed and expanded, and
        • The Text+ Chart uses a session cookie to remember the clipped branches, and shows the chart in the modified state when the chart is displayed in the Format for Printing window or if this person's chart is re-displayed later in the browser session.
  4. In the chart itself
    1. The starting person's parents are shown at the top of the chart.
    2. Connects parents to children with solid lines, and connects spouses with dotted lines
    3. Under the control of mod options, this chart shows dates and places of birth and death, and date and place of marriage.
    4. Dates can be full or year-only, and places and marriage data can be omitted. (not shown)
    5. Under the control of a mod option, Text+ Descendant Charts can also include each person's age. (not shown)
    6. Like the native Descendant Text Chart, branches of the Text+ Descendant Chart's descendant tree can be compressed and expanded. The white-on-black plus sign next to Olive Irene KUYKENDALL reveals that all of her descendants have been clipped out of the chart.
    7. Clicking on the hourglass icon (for 'Locate in chart') pops up a box labeled "Locate James Billingsley Hutcheson', which contains
      • A small chart similar to the Text+ Descendant chart, but that doesn't show siblings; it just shows the path from teh chart's starting person to the target person,
      • Hyperlinks to the chart that the native code displays when its "Locate in chart' icon is clicked, and
      • Hyperlinks to the target person's Descendant and Ancestor Charts.
             (Of course, there isn't much point in locating a person so close to the starting person, but this popup is just for illustration.)
      
    8. As you can see immediately above the Chart Summary, the Text+ Chart, like the native Text charts, show a link to a person's descendant chart if that person is (1) a "leaf" of this tree, and (2) has descendants. Also, the link to the descendant chart is formatted like a button so that it stands out more.
  5. The chart ends with a summary of its contents.
    • The Chart Summary you see here is a floating copy of the summary that is truly at the very end of the chart (and outside of this screen clip). The floating summary keep track dynamically of the number of people who are visible in the chart. It floats at the very bottom of the browser window so that you can always be aware of the size and contents of the chart.
    • Through a mod option, the floating footer can be suppressed.
    • The title bar of the Chart Summary has a 'top' button that take you to the top of the chart. That link is not particularly meaningful in this screen clip, where the top of the chart is already visible, but it can be very handy in long charts.
    • Significantly TNGv12.2 piloted a native "top of page" link in a couple of templates, where it is represented as a bold arrow that always floats in the bottom-right corner of the screen. If and when this arrow is implemented in all templates, the "Top" button will be removed from the Chart Summary.
[Close Text+ Descendant Chart Details]
2. Text+ Descendant Chart in the Format for Printing window
Textplus16 descendant print.jpg
[See details]
[Hide details ]
  1. The "Format for Printing" fieldset supplies chart layout parameters that customize a chart for the printer page width, and allows the user to save a persistent cookie with those parameter values.
    • These run-time options allow users to make sure that the chart program wraps the chart contents to the desired margins.
  2. The "Chart Content" fieldset duplicates the content-control checkboxes that were in the main window.
  3. The chart control form, the Expand/Collapse controls at the top of the chart, the <<Print>> link at the top-right, and the popup copy of the chart summary are not printed to a printer.
  4. The plus sign next to "Anna Mary (Mamie) Kuykendall", which indicates that her descendants have been compressed out of the chart, is a carry-over from the chart in the main window. That is, if you compress tree branches in the main window, those branches remain compressed when you open the "Format for Printing" window.
  5. Note that the icons that link to other charts are still present in the Format for Printing page, but they should not print.
[Close Text+Ancestor Chart Details]
3. Text+ Ancestor Chart
Textplus16 ancestor main.jpg
[See details]
[Hide details ]
The Text+ Ancestor Chart uses what might be called a "double outline" format in which:
  • Each generation is indented by just a few characters,
  • The data for a given person runs to the right margin and wraps back to that generation's left margin (not the chart's left margin),
  • Upwards of 20 generations can be included in a single chart, without having to resort to laying pages side-by-side. On 8.5x11 paper in portrait mode, at least 15 generations are quite readable. (Such a chart would be quite long; its length would, of course be reduced if it were printed in landscape orientation.)

In many ways, this layout is more like an outline-formatted Descendancy Chart(such as the Text+ Descendant Chart) than standard Pedigree Charts (or the TNG variants), which

  • Divide a page (or the screen) into (typically) 5 columns,
  • Constrain all information about people in generation i to column i, and
  • Are generally balanced so that they show (or leave space for) ancestral lines with no data.

As a result (especially when they contain more than 4 or 5 generations), Text+ Ancestor Charts have less whitespace than comparable Pedigree Charts and are much narrower and thus much easier to print, but tend to be a good bit longer.

On the second line of the Text+ Ancestor Chart Inner Menu

  1. The first three checkboxes determine whether certain information is included in the report
    • The "Generation #'s" checkbox is checked, so there is a generation # in front of the name of each person in the report.
    • The "Siblings" checkbox controls whether each person's siblings are included in the chart, or, to put it another, whether the chart contains aunts and uncles.
    • The "Compact Layout" checkbox removes some blank lines that improve readability. That is, the blank lines improve readabilty, and without them, the chart is not quite so long.
  2. The "Focus on Generation" control causes names in the selected generation to be highlighted. It defaults to generation 1; the starting person. For this screenshot, it has been changed to 9. (The 9th generation is represented here by Christian MOYER and Anna Barbara BERGERY.)
    • The highlighted generation should generally be 1 or zero (i.e. no highlighting) when the chart is printed (from the Format for Printing page).
    • When you change the highlighted generation, the display shifts so that the first person in the chart in that generation is visible on the screen.

As with the Text+ Descendant chart, the line wrapping is done by the program, not by the web browser.

[Close Text+Ancestor Chart Details]
4. New features in mod version 16d
These features are not necessarily visible in the screenshots above
[Show Details]
[Hide Details]
  1. The Inner Mod Menu, shown in its open state. It is visible only to TNG Admins.
    Textplus16 revision innermodmenu.jpg
  2. Locate Person In Chart - I never quite understood the native 'Locate Person in Chart' functionality, which displayed a chart that did draw a path from the starting person to the target person, but though siblings and spouses in a way that just confused me. Now, the 'Locate" icon just pops up a short variant of the Text+ Descendant Chart to show how the target person descends from the starting person. The popup also has links to
    1. The old Locate Person In Chart" chart,
    2. The target person's Text+ Ancestor Chart, and
    3. The target person's Text+ Descendant Chart.
    Textplus16 revision locatepopup.jpg
  3. Floating Footer - The footer at the very bottom of the Text+ Ancestor and Descendant Charts can also float that the bottom of the page, so that, at any time, you can see what the scope of the report is.
    • This is particularly significant in the Text+ Descendant Chart, where branches of the chart can be compressed and expanded. The floating footer keeps track of the number of people (and other elements) that are visible at the moment.
    • The "Top" button in the floating footer's title bar scrolls the browser window to the top of the chart.
    Textplus16 revision floatingfooter.jpg
  4. Line Height Adjustment - At some settings in some browsers, the vertical line-drawing characters will become separated, like this:
    Textplus16 revision height1.jpg
    But reducing the 'Line height' setting can bring the verical lines together, at the expense of squeezing the text lines closer together.
    Textplus16 revision height2.jpg
  5. Mod Options - Several mod options now control whether specific elements are included in a chart:
    Textplus16 revision options.jpg
[Hide visualizations of recent changes]
5. New features in mod version 17
These features are not necessarily visible in the screenshots above
[Show Details]
[Hide Details]

Mod options can hide some of these features from end-users, so we don't have to worry about them being forced on end-users.

  1. Per a request, I have added the ability for name&age/birth/death/marriage data to be placed on separate lines, in essentially the same way that a couple of mods affect the Person Profile.
    Textplus-separatelines-descendant.jpg
  2. A set of options enclosed in a box in the mod settings block can be duplicated in the TextPlus programs, where end-users can use these date and place options in real time. The Date & Place form in the Text+ programs is pulled down from the label "Date & Place"
    Textplus-dateplaceoptions2.jpg
    • The subform's "Save as Defaults" button saves the current options in a permanent cookie. The settings saved in the cookie override (for just the current user) the settings established by the mod options, and, when the user clicks "Redisplay Chart", the settings in the form at that moment override the cookie settings.
    • On the Format for Printing page, the action button in the date/place subform does not redisplay the chart; it just changes the settings.
    • The Date & Place options pop-up has changed since I made this screenshot. There is a different "Redisplay Chart" button on the Format for Printing page, so the action button in Format for Printing page Date & Place Options form just says "OK". (Maybe it should just say "Close").
  3. At some point when I was looking at an Text+ Ancestor Chart, I decided that I'd like to see a summary of the family names (ancestral lines) that appear in the chart. So I have added this information to the report footer:
    Textplus-ancestrallines1.jpg

    It then expands to

    Textplus-ancestrallines2.jpg
    where the hyperlinks go to the Person Profiles of the most distant ancestor in the chart with that name.

    FWIW, the "See details" and "Omit details" links are not printed when the chart is sent to a printer.

    Note that

    1. The details are not displayed as the page loads, as shown above, and can be re-hidden after being displayed.
    2. Neither the "See details" nor "Omit details" (why didn't I used "hide"???) will print. The message with the "see details" link does not print, and
    3. A mod option suppresses it altogether
  4. I copied the "Locate person in chart" feature from the native Descendant Text chart, and have modified it fairly significantly.
    • I considered icons than other than the one used in the native descendant text chart, such as the spyglass shown here. But the production version of v17 uses the original icon.
    • There is a new, much simpler popup. I find this small popup to be much more handy and understandable than the old one.
      Textplus-locatedescendant.jpg
      The "Graphical view of this family line" hyperlink links to the chart that the native descendant text chart links to directly. From my perspective, that chart is overkill in most situations.
    • The new "locate in chart" popup has links to the person's ancestor and descendant charts. I tried to implement those two links directly in the Text+ Descendant chart, but they just added too much noise. I still hope to make them handier.
  5. I added a very similar "locate person in chart" feature to the Ancestor chart
    Textplus-locateancestor.jpg
  6. Both charts can have "floating footers" that hang out at the bottom of the web browser window so that they can always be seen. Both footers can be suppressed through mod options. I think that most admins will want to suppress the floating Text+ Ancestor chart footer, but the floating footing in the descendant chart provides useful dynamic information about the chart branches that can be hidden and re-exposed by tiny + and - icons in the chart.
  7. The floating footers include an up-arrow icon that quickly sends the user back to the top of the chart. Darrin has implemented a larger up-arrow for that purpose in all pages in some templates. So my up-arrow may not last forever, but at least it is visually compatible with new new TNG arrow.
    Textplus17-summarydescendant.jpg
  8. The Inner Menu in the Text+ programs now always starts with the label "Chart Types" instead of the "Generations" selection box, which has been moved down to be with other chart formatting and content controls. By itself, the label "Chart Types" isn't very exciting, but it is enhanced by my new (unpublished as of this writing) "Chart Types Help" mod, which
    1. Adds this "Chart Types" label to all ancestor and descendant chart programs and
    2. Adds an information icon that pops up a box with description of all of the ancestor or descendant charts
    The Chart Types Help mod is implemented on my public web site, where you can see a little information icon next to the "Chart Types" label. (See also beta documentation for the Chart Types Help mod)
  9. The Text+ programs have what I call an "Inner Mod Menu". Many of my mods add Inner Mod Menus to the programs that they modify "significantly" (according to my subjective judgement). Inner Mod Menus pull down from a "Mod Information" label at the right end of TNG's "inner menu" (just below the Tab menu), and contain handy links to information about the mod - particularly to the mod options.
    Textplus-innermodmenu.jpg
    Inner Mod Menus are visible only if the optional Inner Mod Menus mod has been installed, and can be see only by TNG Admins; never by end users.)
[Hide visualizations of recent changes]
6. Full Text+ Chart Examples (from version 15 of the mod) saved as PDFs.
The intent is to show you the chart contents, not the menu features of the programs.

These charts do not all use the same chart settings or browser settings. And, of course, the size and shape of charts depends heavily on your data. That's generally not so true with classic Ancestor charts, but is definitely true with the Text+ Ancestor Chart.

  1. Descendant Chart - 4 Generations, Portrait, 2 pages
  2. Descendant Chart - 6 Generations, Landscape, 9 pages
  3. Descendant Chart - 10 Generations
  4. Ancestor Chart - 5 Generations, Portrait, 1 pages
  5. Ancestor Chart - 7 Generations, Landscape, 2 pages
  6. Ancestor Chart - 12 Generations, Legal, 4 pages
    ("Legal" means "Legal-length paper in Landscape mode)
  7. 12 Generation Ancestor Chart with siblings:
    You might, at first, think that, because the portrait pages are longer, the chart should take fewer pages in portrait mode. But in landscape mode, the chart is wider, and fewer lines are wrapped. Thus the portrait chart is 8.5" wide and 154" long, and the landscape chart is 11" wide by 119" long. The "legal" chart uses larger paper, and thus fewer pages. It is 14" wide by 95" long". When I'm sharing or saving a large chart like this, I prefer the legal landscape width because the chart is shorter.

(Note: In the Ancestor Chart PDFs, some of the lines and text are colored. I do not know why. The coloring seems to be an artifact of some browsers, at certain zoom levels.)

7. Changes that the mod makes to the native "Initial Display" options for Ancestor (e.g.Pedigree) and Descendant charts, at Admin>>Setup>>Chart Settings
Textplus15 setup.jpg
This mod adds a "Text+" option to the "Initial Display" selection in both the "Pedigree Chart" and "Descendant Chart" sections of the options form. These options allow you to define the Text+ charts as your default Pedigree and/or Descendant charts.
8. The Text+ Charts Mod Settings Block at Admin>>Setup>>Chart Settings
(with some screenshot annotation)
Textplus17-msb.jpg
These options should be fairly self-explanatory, but it is worth noting that
  1. The stylized "W" next to the mod name is a link to the mod's Wiki article.
  2. The message at the bottom of this block refers to the TextPlus Charts options that are elsewhere within the Admin>>Setup>>Chart Settings page.
9. Margins and Line Wrapping
Because the Text+ charts draw vertical lines connecting the parents and children, they cannot adjust the chart's left margin as generations are indented. In these charts, long lines of text that bump up against the browser window's right margin wrap all the way to the left margin, like this:
Textplus16 early wrap.jpg
Thus, the Text+ Chart programs have to do their own wrapping. To wrap lines effectively, the programs need to know a target page width, which is supplied by an selection box on the Text+ Chart screen, in which the options are options "Mobile", "Portait", "Landscape", or "Legal" (meaning landscape orientation on legal paper. With the appropriate settings, the chart excerpt above could look like this:
Textplus16 good wrap.jpg

where the red underline show where the program wrapped the data lines. Note that the lines were wrapped at logical breaks in the data.

10. Formatting for Printing
See the 'Printing help file on the author's website.

Language Strings

This file has translations in Czech, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, and Spanish. The French translations are installed through the TextPlus Charts-French mod, because there are French versions of the Ancestor Chart, Descendant Chart, and Print Formatting help pages.

Significantly, The TextPlus Charts language strings are not stored in standard TNG cust_text.php files, but rather in files named {language}_custtext.php in a folder named languages in the mod's standard subfolder. The TextPlus Charts help files are also stored in the mod subfolder's code>languages folder rather than the main TNG code>languages folder.

Read about why I handle language strings this way and about how to override the mod's language strings. [1].

Redycubg Line-wrapping

The Text+ charts use unconventional presentations of dates and placenames to reduce the number of characters required to display a person's data, and thus to reduce the amount of line-wrapping required to print a chart:

  • "Unknown" is displayed as "??", and, in some cases, omitted.
  • If an individual was born and died in the same place, the placename is displayed only once followed by a semicolon and the birth and death dates, e.g. Cleveland, Bradley, Tennessee, USA;15 Nov 1815 - 04 Jan 1887 .
  • When both the date and place are unknown, nothing is printed (well, except when it is known that a person has died, in which case "??" is displayed).
  • I also use an unpublished mod to create shorter alternate placenames of USA placenames (e.g. "Cleveland, Cuyahoga, OH" for "Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, USA". At present, this scheme depends on two other published mods: Placename Format and Burials-More Details. If you're interested in using short alternate placenames, let me know, and I'll share the mod with you.

Revision History

Mod Version TNG Versions Date Note
v13.0.0.17 13 20Sep2020 Revision Notes   [Show Details]
[Hide details]
  1. For TNGv13, updated one target location search string change because of an empty() function call in
  2. Removed mappedigree.php from this mod because the TNGv13 version of the Ancestor Map mod adds its own link to the Text+ ancestor chart.
  3. Added translations: French by Katryne Chauvigné-Bourlaud, Dutch by Bernard Woertelberger, German by Hendrik Martius, Norwegian by Kåre Kjøllesdal, and Czeck and Spanish by Ron Krzmarzick
  4. The Descendant chart locator now works for parents so the locator's ancestor and descendant chart links are available.
  5. The Ancestor chart locator now has ancestor and descendant chart links like the descendant chart locator.
  6. Removed the Inner Menu cleanup utility; it will go in its own adjunct mod.:
  7. Added the paper width selection box help text.
  8. Added international paper sizes
  9. Reworked the layout of the chart legends, putting the legend in a bordered box, and adding the label "Legend".
  10. Added an an option to use separate lines for name&age/birth/death/marriage.
[Hide details]
See earlier versions in the separate Wiki article TextPlus Charts pre-TNGv13

Sites using this mod

If you download and install this mod, please add your site to the table below.

URL User Note Mod-Version TNG-Version User-language
Kloosterman Genealogy Example of Text+ Mod Cees Kloosterman Webdesigner 13.0.0.17 13 English and Dutch
An example in Robin Richmond's Genealogy Database Robin Richmond Mod developer 13.0.0.17 13 English
Families all over the world Hans Weebers public / private 10.1.0.13 12.0.1 NL, EN, DE, (Fr)
van Heerden Genealogy Emile Private site v12.0.0.16beta3 v.12.1 English
Van der Maarel Genealogy Edward van der Maarel 12.0.0.15d 12.0.2 EN, NL
Mitchell Families Online Roger Mitchell Another great tool for visitors, very well implemented! 10.1.0.8 10.1.0 English
Turner mob Margaret Grogan Turner Another great tool for visitors, thanks! 10.0.2.6 10.0.3 English
Hooley Family Links Rick Hooley Public/Private Site See Here See Here EN
Wortelboer Genealogy Bernard Wortelboer Public site 10.1.0.10b 11.0.0 NL, EN
Solem Jan-Thore Solem Not public 10.1.0.7 10.1.0 Norwegian
Moss family tree Chris Moss Best text-based display. Public. 10.1.0.12a 11.1.2 EN, DE, FR
Brady Family Tree in Western Australia Darryl Brady Public site 10.1.0.12 11.0.1 EN, DE
Roots & Relatives Remembered Ron Krzmarzick Public & Private See Here See Here EN,DE,CS
Our Family Links Chuck Filteau Public site, modified Template 12 10.1.0.12 v10.1.2 EN
Racine d'Alsace J-Louis Valory Public/Private - T17 customized 12.0.0.16d 12.3 FR
Journeys in Genealogy Patrick Thrush Public WordPress/TNG bundle 12.0.0.15e 12.0.3 English
Our Family Histories Bryan S. Larson See Here See Here English
Familienforschung SCABELL Helga Scabell Public/Private 10.1.0.2 12.1 DE, EN, PT
Kleinmann Genealogy John Kleinmann Public/Private 12.0.0.16d 12.3 EN
Our Acadian Family Randal Suire Public/Private Media (Very Useful) 12.0.0.15e 12.0.3 EN, FR