TextPlus Charts

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TextPlus Charts
Summary Two new charts: Text+ Descendant Chart, and Text+ Ancestor Chart.
Validation
Mod Updated {{{mod_last_update}}}
Download link For
TNG 11.0
TNG 10.1.0

textplus_charts_v10.1.0.12.zip


Language Strings:
French, Dutch, German, Norwegian UTF8 translations: textplus_charts_utf8_v10.1.0.12.zip
French, Dutch, German, Norwegian non-UTF translations: textplus_charts_non-utf_v10.0.1.12.zip

See body of article for mod versions for TNGv10.0
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Author(s) Robin Richmond with translations by Henny Savenije, Hendrik Martius, Bernard Wortelboer, & Jan-Thore Solem, and testing help from Henny Savenije and Alan Wilcox
Homepage [TextPlus Charts] (This Page)
Mod Support My Mod Support form or TNG Community Forums
Contact Developer My Mod Support form
Latest Mod 10.1.0.12 for TNGv10.1.* and TNGv11.*
10.0.2.10b for TNG v10.0.2 and 10.0.3
Min TNG V 10.0.2
Max TNG V 11.0.1
Files modified
Updates admin_pedconfig.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,
cust_text.php (English, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian),
css/genstyle.css
Installs: descendtextplus.php, pedigreetextplus.php, tngdblib_textplus.php, English/textplus_help.php, German-UTF8/textplus_help.php, extensions/textplusmenu.png, extensions/textplusinnermenu.png
Related Mods
Notes


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), and are accessed through the TNG "Inner Menu" (the link menu just below the TNG Tab Bar) on the Person Profile and on Pedigree and Descendant chart pages.

Mod Options

The options offered by this mod are implemented through the TNG Admin >> Setup >> Chart Settinsg menu.

  1. To select the Text+ Pedigree Chart as the default chart to generate when you click the "Pedigree" tab in the Person Profile,
    • Select "Pedigree Chart" on the "Charts Settings" menu, and
    • Select "Text+" the "Initial Display drop-down box.
  2. To select the Text+ Descendant Chart as the default chart to generate when you click the "Descendant" tab in the Person Profile,
    • Select "Descendant Chart" on the "Charts Settings" menu, and
    • Select "Text+" the "Initial Display drop-down box.
  3. If you install the TextPlus Charts mod as well as other mods that install links on the TNG Inner Menu, the Inner Menu can become awkwardly long. To save space on Inner Menu by eliminating the original "Text" links:
    • Select "Common Elements" on the "Chart Settings" menu, and
    • Check the "Yes" button next to the new "Hide Plain Text Chart Links" option at the bottom of the Common Elements sub-form.

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, and 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.
  • Both charts draw lines to connect people with their children.
  • Both charts display places of birth and death instead of just dates.
  • Both charts display alternate birth date and/or place (i.e. christening date/place) when the birth date and/or place is missing.
  • Both charts display burial date and/or place when the death date and/or place is missing. (In doing so, they remove some cemetery names (by searching for "Cemetery,") from burial place names.)
  • For living people (when allowed by security constraints),both charts display the last known place of residence and the date of that residence event.
  • Both charts 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,
  • Both charts display a summary at the bottom of the chart, and
  • Both charts have parameters that control the size and spacing of the charts. Some parameters are available in what I'll refer to as the 'standard' TNG page view, and some parameters are available only in the TNG 'print-format' view.
  • Both charts 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 the date and place of marriage, and
  • Displays the starting person's parents, with date and place of birth and death.

And the Text+ Ancestor 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.

This mod adds "Text+" links to the TNG "Inner Menu" of the Person Profile and distributed chart programs (the Pedigree Chart, Vertical Chart, Register Chart, etc). It coordinates with the Count Descendants, World Map, and Fan Chart mods so that

  1. In the Text+ Chart programs, links to the programs by those three mods will appear if and only if those programs are installed.
  2. In the programs installed by those three mods, a Text+ link will be displayed if the TextPlus Charts mod has been installed - no matter whether it was installed before or after the other mod.

However, some other mods also install chart programs that add links to the TNG "Inner Menu". Programs installed by those mods will not have Text+ links, and the Text+ Chart programs will not have links to those programs.

Related Mods

This mod requires Show Mod Names to be installed. It also depends on Blue Info Button to format the little information links that it places next to the new and modified options on the Admin >> Setup >> Chart Settings forms. (See the visualizations.) Failing to install Blue Info Button will not generate a mod conflict or run-time error; it will just fail to format those links.

Visualization of this Mod

Text+ Descendant Chart
  1. This is the "main" screen. Please note that before you print this chart, you should generally use TNG's "Pretty Print" (or "Print Formatting") screen to finalize the chart format.
  2. This program extends the "Inner Menu" to add some run-time options.
  3. The "Text+" link is highlighted within the "Inner Menu" in this visualization.
  4. The two options on the second line of the Inner Menu are available on the main screen and the Print Formatting screen.
  5. This program has a help file, like many administrative programs.
  6. There is a reminder to use the Print button. You'll likely get undesired wrapping if you try to print this screen directly.
  7. Note the abbreviations
    • "chr." to indicate that this is a christening date
    • "b." to indicate that this is the birth place
    • "bur" to indicate that this is the burial location.
  8. The vertical dotted line formed by colons connects spouses of one person
  9. The hyperlinked arrows link to subsequent generations of descendants.
  10. Note the summary at the end of the chart. (I have discovered that the line summary assumes that all collapsable branches of the family tree (the minus signs inside a box) are open. That is, when you collapse a branch, the counts do not change. I'll have to try to take care of that in the next release of the mod.)
Textplus charts-descend.png
Text+ Descendant Chart in the "Pretty-Print Window
  1. Now, we're in the "Pretty-Print", or "Print Format" window. Here, the "Print" button actually prints. The options and buttons DO NOT print with the chart.
  2. The text size and width options are only available in the Print Format window.
  3. Note that you must click Submit for the options to have an effect in this window. The Save button saves a cookie with your current text and width options. (The "Hide data" and "Hide descendants" options do not get saved.)
  4. Help is still available.
  5. Because this chart uses the "Portrait" setting for the page width, it requires 102 lines, rather than the 81 lines required by the chart in the first visualization.
Textplus charts-descend2.png
Text+ Pedigree Chart
  • This chart was generated with the parameter Generations=0, so that all of the starting person's ancestors are shown.
  • The summary footer reveals that the chart displayed seven generations.
  • Note that, as with the Text+ Descendant Chart, the chart width for this screen is equivalent to a "Landscape" setting, and all seven generations can fit on the screen without any wrapping.
Textplus charts-pedigree1.png
Text+ Pedigree Chart in the "Pretty-Print" screen
  • This is the same chart as above. Note that it is formatted for "Portrait" printing and is therefore narrower than the one above, as illustrated by the arrows that point to 5 lines out of the first 14 that must wrap for Portrait printing.
  • The "Siblings" and "Blank lines" checkboxes (outlined in red) are not present in the Text+ Descendant chart.
    • When "Siblings" is checked, each person's siblings are shown.
    • When "Blank lines" is checked, blank lines are inserted at strategic points in the chart to improve readability.
  • The Siblings and Blank Lines checkbox values are NOT saved to a cookie when the user clicks the Save button.
Textplus charts-pedigree2.png
Pedigree Chart with Siblings. Saved as a PDF

12-Generation Text+ Pedigree Chart. with extra blank lines Saved as a PDF
(The charts were saved as PDF using Google Chrome's built-in Print-to-PDF capability.)

Text+ Pedigree Setup in the Admin >> Setup >> Chart Settings Form
Textplus charts-setup.png
This mod adds a "Text+" option to the "Initial Display" selection for Pedigree Chart and for Descendant chart. This allows you to set up the Text+ charts as your default Pedigree and/or Descendant charts. It also adds an option to the "Common Elements" sub-form that allows you to suppress the original plain text chart in case the Inner Menu becomes too crowded with options.

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. Some parameters are visible in the 'main' program window. Other prameters that deal with font size and page width are visible only in the 'Print Formatting' window (i.e. the window that pop up when you click on the TNG "Print" button. 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.)

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 and its subfolder 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.

Space-Saving Techniques

I have used the following techniques to reduce the amount of text required to display a person's data end place information, and thus reduce the amount of line-wrapping required to print these charts:

  • I use "??" instead of "Unknown"
  • If a person was born and died in the same place, I only display the place name once, like this: (Cleveland, Bradley, Tennessee, USA;15 Nov 1815 - 04 Jan 1887)
  • I use a set of unpublished mods that stores two shorter versions of place names (e.g. "Cleveland, Cuyahoga, OH" and "Cleveland, OH" for "Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, USA". This scheme uses "place normalization" techniques to standardize the format of USA places, and then generates the shorter place names algorithmically. These mods affect several programs, such as the Person Profile and placesearch.php. If you're interested in trying to use this scheme, let me know, and I'll share the mods with you.

Mod for older TNG version

This mod was introduced with TNGv10.0.2. If you're still running TNGv10.0.2 or TNGv10.0.3, use these files:

Mod Change History

Mod Version TNG Versions Date Note
10.1.0.12 10.1.2 - 11.0.1 15 Jun 2016 Added the system parameter that suppresses the link to the plain text charts, and the mod and its install programs now coordinate with the Ancestor Map and the Fan Chart.
Languages 10.0.2.10c 10.0.2 - 10.1.2 14 Sep 2015 Modified a few German, Dutch, and Norwegian strings that Google Translator messed up.
10.1.0.10b & 10.0.2.10b 10.0.2 - 10.1.2 6 Sep 2015 Added annotation to make the Chart Formatting Form and help text easier to find and use, especially on the pretty-print page. Also fixed a bug that prevented non-English language installations from saving printer formatting settings to a cookie.
languages 10.0.2.8b 10.0.2 - 10.1.1 27 May 2015 New German translations.
10.0.2.10 & 10.1.0.10 10.0.2 - 10.1.1 25 May 2015 In the config file:
  • To avoid conflicts with a new mod from Eric Hoppe, changed a couple of target locations to put my Text+ innermenu link AFTER the text link instead of BEFORE the register link.

In descendtextplus.php and pedigreetextplus.php:

  • No longer changes the font family for the chart - uses the same font family and size as other charts
  • Removes an extra that could have affected the footer of some sites.

In descendtextplus.php:

  • Positions the conditional descendcount.php link after the PDF link, instead of before.
10.0.2.9 & 10.1.0.9 10.0.2 - 10.1.1 12 Apr 2015 Displays christening data if birth data is missing, and burial data if death data is missing.
10.0.2.8 & 10.1.0.8 10.0.2 - 10.1 3 Feb 2015
  • Added two content-control parameters to the Text+ Descendant program.
  • The Text+ content-control parameters are now on the "main" screen as well as the Pretty Print screen.
  • Added the two Text+ programs to tngrobots.php.
  • Minor user interface enhancements.
10.1.0.7 10.1 12 Jan 2015 Updated database function calls for TNG v10.1 compatibility.
10.0.2.7 10.0.2-10.0.3 10 Jan 2015 Moves the printer-configuration form to the "Pretty-Print" page so that users can view charts without having to fuss with the printer configuration settings.
10.0.2.6 10.0.2 12 Aug 2014 First production release

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
Robin Richmond's Genealogy Database Robin Richmond Mod developer 10.1.0.12 11.0.1 English
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 Site 10.1.0.10a 10.1.1 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. 10.1.0.8/9 10.1.1 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 10.1.0.14 Beta 11.1.1 EN,DE,CS,ES
Our Family Links Chuck Filteau Public site, modified Template 12 10.1.0.12 v10.1.2 EN