Difference between revisions of "TextPlus Charts"

Revision as of 20:48, 15 September 2014

Purpose of the Mod

To define two new charts - The Text+ Pedigree Chart (on the Pedigree inner menu), and the Text+ Descendant Chart (on the Descendant Charts inner menu). Both charts follow a text format (basically an outline layout), but they also:

• Draw lines to connect people with their children.
• Display places of birth and death instead of just dates.
• For living people (when allowed by security constraints), display the last known place of residence and the date of that residence event.
• Can (when the number of generations is set to zero) display ALL of a person's descendants or ancestors rather than a specific number of generations,
• Display a summary at the bottom of the chart, and
• Allow the user to save the chart parameters to a cookie for use by subsequent charts (whether initiated by the "New Chart" link at the end of a line, or by selecting the chart from an inner menu on a profile page or another chart).

The Text+ Descendant chart also:

• Displays date and place of marriage, and
• Displays the starting person's parents, with date and place of birth and death.

And the Text+ Pedigree chart:

• Can (optionally) display the siblings of each ancestor, giving a richer view of the family tree, and
• Can (optionally) display blank lines at certain points in the chart to improve readability.

Compatibility With Other Mods

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. I have a workaround for those older versions, though a newer version, available from the author, avoids that conflict.

Also, World map mod is an example of a another mod that installs a chart program and modifies the Pedigree inner menu. There is no installation conflict, but the World Map program won't have the Text+ link, nor will the Text+ Pedigree programs have the World Map link. On the other hand, chart programs distributed with TNG releases (e.g. pedigree.php, pedigreetext.php, verticalchart.php) would have both links after both mods are installed.

Requirements

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

Automated Installation

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, and 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.

In the event of a problem

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

Custom Text

The following strings are defined in the English and English-UTF8 versions of cust_test.php

//TextPlus Reports mod: new strings
$text['age'] = "Age";
$text['pedtextplus'] = "Text+";
$text['help'] = "Help for this area";
$text['textplusdescendfor'] = "Text+ Descendancy Chart for";
$text['textpluspedigreefor'] = "Text+ Pedigree Chart for";
$text['nofit'] = "At these printer settings, there is no room for generation";
//The next few strings are used in the TextPlus innermenu form
$text['fontsize'] = "Size";
$text['indentation'] = "Indentation";
$text['pagewidth'] = "Width";
$text['portrait'] = "Portrait";
$text['landscape'] = "Landscape";
$text['legal'] = "Legal";
$text['characters'] = "chars";
$text['frmsiblings'] = "Siblings";
$text['submit'] = "Submit";
$text['save'] = "Save";
$text['blanklines'] = "Blank Lines";
//Strings for the text+ descendant chart summary:
$text['chartrequired'] = "This chart required";
$text['linesprint'] = "lines to print";
$text['peopleincl'] = "people (including";
$text['spousesin'] = "spouses) in";
$text['lcgenerations'] = "generations"; //lowercase version
$text['plus1parent'] = "plus 1 parent";
$text['plus'] = "plus";
$text['sumparents'] = "parents";
$text['peoplehave'] = "people have";
$text['personhas'] = "person has";
$text['additionaldesc'] = "additional descendants not shown on this chart";
//Strings for the text+ pedigree chart summary
$text['chartdisplayed'] = "This chart displayed";
$text['directanc'] = "direct ancestors";
$text['additionalanc'] = "additional ancestors not shown on this chart";
$text['among'] = "among";
$text['sumpeople'] = "people";
$text['in'] = "in";
//Strings used to compose the date/place values
$text['unknownvalue'] = "unknown";
$text['unknowndisplay'] = "??";
$text['alive'] = "alive";
$text['married1'] = "m"; //The prefix for marriage date place, e.g. (m.01 Jan 1911)
//For admin_pedconfig.php
$admtext['pedtextplus'] = "Text+";
//TextPlus Reports mod: End of new strings

Margins and Line-Wrapping

Because the Text+ charts draw lines connecting the generations, these charts cannot simply allow long lines of data to wrap at the browser window's (or printed page's) right margin. The Text+ chart programs have to know the window (or printed page's) width and the font size so that they can wrap lines of data at the appropriate point.

As a result, the Text+ chart programs contain a form with fields that specify printing parameters. Those parameters are described in detail in a help page associated with the Text+ chart programs.

(Author's note: Most web applications with such constraints would generate PDF files, which allow print characteristics to be controlled with more specificity, but I first wrote versions of the Text+ programs long before the PDF format became standard, and I've simply continued to use HTML with each new implementation.)

Space-Saving Techniques

I have used the following techniques to conserve space and reduce the amount of line-wrapping:

• I use "??" instead of "Unknown"
• If a person was born and died in the same place, I only display the place once, like this: (Cleveland, Bradley, TN;15 Nov 1815 - 04 Jan 1887)
• I have gone to some trouble in my own database to generate shortened versions of place names (e.g. "Cleveland, Bradley County, Tennessee" is represented in my Text+ Charts as "Cleveland, Bradley, TN"). At present, I don't think this technique prevents enough wrapped lines to try to distribute it as part of this mod, but I have packaged it as a separate mod, and can release it if there is interest.

Mod Change History

Visualization of this Mod

Text+ Descendant Chart The Generations drop-down box in the first line of the "innermenu" is now a static value (circled) that is used by the other charts shown on that line. The second line of the innermenu (underlined) is a form that must be submitted to display a new chart with new parameters. The Save button (circled, at the right of the second innermenu line) saves the parameters in a cookie. Subsequent Text+ Descendant Charts will use the saved parameters. The column of colons (circled, on the left) forms a dotted line connecting spouses of the same person. The bold plus sign (pointed to by the arrow) is the "New Chart" link that indicates that that person has children not shown in this chart. (The existing TNG Text Descendant Chart uses "=>" for the same purpose.) Note the chart summary at the bottom.

Text+ Pedigree Chart: This chart was generated with the parameter Generations=0, so that all of the starting person's ancestors are shown. The "Siblings" and "Blank lines" checkboxes (outlined in red) are not present in the Text+ Descendant chart. Note that the Siblings and Blank Lines checkbox values are NOT saved to a cookie when the user clicks the Save button. The chart is formatted for "Portrait" width.

Pedigree Chart with Siblings. Saved as an HTML file 12-Generation Text+ Pedigree Chart. Saved as an HTML file

Sites using this mod

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