MacFamilyTree 5.7.6

Synium Software has released version 5.7.6 of MacFamilyTree, their Mac OS X genealogy application.

It’s mainly some printing fixes and better online MobileMe web site exporting.

Changes:
* Multiple bugfixes when printing to multiple pages in the graphics editor
* Norwegian translation updated
* Improved GEDCOM parsing for person and family events
* MobileMe Web Site Export improvements

Safari and IE-only Genealogy Sites, Todo X, Camino,

Find yourself at a genealogy website that only accepts Windows “Internet Explorer? eFritz.net has a simple trick to enable the “debug” menu in Safari, which lets you select the user agent – i.e., you can select “Windows Internet Explorer” and any site you browse after that will think your using Windows Internet Explorer (until you change it back). A surprising number of sites can be fooled this way. The only time you may have problems are sites using plug-ins that are not supported on Mac OS X.

Todo X 1.9 has been released. It’s a simple to-do list with some iPod and iCal functionality.

Camino 0.9a2 is out. Although it’s alpha, it’s Camino 0.9 is shaping up to be a good rival to Safari (Camino is based on Firefox).

Novacell Technologies offers historic USGS topographic maps.

Miscellaneous: GeneWeb, iWatermark, photography,

GeneWeb 5.0 is nearing completion and is in beta testing. GeneWeb is a genealogy software program with a Web interface. It can be used off-line or in a Web environment. It uses very efficient techniques of relationship and consanguinity computing, developed in collaboration with Didier R�my, research Director at INRIA.. It works with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

iWaterMark is in beta and nearing 3.0 – for those of you who publish family photos on the internet, you might want to look into this. There are a number of extensive changes in the first beta, you can read about them at MacUpdate.com

Tips for photographing cemetery markers – Ancestry.com

Update: The Next Generation of Genealogy Site Building 5.0.3/5.0.4

The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding Version 5.0.4 has been released. The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding� (“TNG”) is a powerful way to manage and display your genealogy data on the Internet, all without generating a single page of HTML. Instead, your information is stored in MySQL database tables and dynamically displayed in attractive fashion with PHP (a scripting language). A listing of features as well as demo pages/screenshots can be found at the author’s website.

Requirements: Web Server/host, PHP, MySQL

Version 5.0.4
# Addresses attached to events were not always being imported or displayed (fixed).
# Spaces and periods have been removed from TNG cookie names because some servers couldn’t handle them.
# Thumbnails on the What’s New page were not aligned with the top of their respective rows (fixed).
# The “Suggest” tab was not changing to “Edit” on the showsource.php page, even after logging in with rights (fixed).
# When displaying surnames first, the Register report was sometimes using the surname where it should have used the first name (fixed).
# When the TNG menu was displayed as a dropdown list (instead of icons), the list would only take you to a new page if it was accompanied by a language switching dropdown (fixed).
# The menu dropdown list did not include a link to the “Browse Sources” page (fixed).
# If the max pedigree generations was set to less than 4, the number would revert to 1 instead (fixed).
# Selecting a tree on the Headstones or “Show Map” pages would still show all headstones instead of narrowing the list to the selected tree (fixed).
# When adding spouses to a family record, the gender of each spouse is no longer constrained (husband as male, wife as female).
# Due to a typo, sources could not be deleted with the “Delete Selected” button (fixed).
# The Marriage Type was not being displayed (fixed; bug introduced after 5.0.0).
# Changing the order of multiple parent sets did not work and did not affect the pedigree chart (fixed).
# An HTML-only version of the home page (called index_html.html) is now available (cannot do language switching or show if visitor is logged in).
# The widths of the “Page” and “Citation Date” fields have been increased on the Add/Edit Citations screens.
# When displaying “Photos & Histories” for an individual, logic now requires both a photo link *and* an actual photo be present (fixed; was previously only checking for links).
# The Report generator’s custom SQL function did not allow a query to end in a semicolon (fixed).
# The “Remember login” function was not working in the Admin area (fixed).
# Addesses exported in a GEDCOM were not adhering to GEDCOM 5.5 standards, which meant data loss when the same file was imported back into TNG (fixed).
# The presence of a DEAT tag without an accompanying date or place was not enough to get an individual labeled as deceased (fixed).
# CSS validation errors removed from the standard pedigree chart, but Safari 2.0 problem persists. Additional bug reports submitted to Apple.
# Validation for name and comments fields added to the “Suggest” page (text messages forthcoming).
# GEDCOM media export now includes complete path (within “photos” or “histories” folder), whether Local Path is specified or not.
# Photos linked to a living individual but marked “Always viewable” were still showing “Details withheld” on the What’s New and Browse Photos pages.
# Some users were being directed to the correct page after a login, logout or change language operation (fixed).
# Sources that directly followed notes in a GEDCOM were being assigned to the note and not the individual on import (fixed).
# Database queries could not tell the difference between standard English alphabet characters and other similar characters (for example, “n” and “ñ”; fixed).

Version 5.0.3
1. The “Tentative Edit” and “Allow LDS” user rights were not restricted
to assigned branches (where applicable; fixed).
2. Users could not be assigned to a branch if no people had yet
received that branch label (fixed).
3. Person and Family IDs for new records were not being automatically
generated when the New Person/New Family pages
were loaded (fixed).
4. Citations attached to the LDS Sealed to Parents event were not being
displayed (fixed).
5. Source citations immediately following notes in a GEDCOM file were
being incorrectly assigned to those notes on
import (fixed).
6. Names for the username and password fields on the Admin login page
were changed to “tngusername” and “tngpassword” so
that Firefox would not automatically plug the admin login into every
new user created or existing user edited.
7. Marriages between a living and a deceased spouse were being shown on
the Register page without proper rights if the
deceased spouse came second on the page (fixed).
8. Messages “photo available” and “history available” were not
translatable (fixed, requires translation from English in
all languages).
9. Hidden feature allows you to control the number of leading zeros in
imported IDs (see top of
admin/gedimport_misc.php).
10. “Repeat last search” did not work on Admin/Places (fixed).
11. Photos and thumbnails for living individuals were not being
displayed if election was made to always show living
data (fixed).
12. Add New User and Modify Existing User pages rearranged to remove
ambiguities.
13. Total “Histories and Documents” on Statistics page did not include
v5 “documents” (fixed).
14. Logout was not working properly, due to bug introduced in 5.0.2
(fixed).
15. Import “Append” feature was not working as of 5.0 (fixed).
16. Field length for Custom Event “Type” was not long enough
(lengthened to 90 characters).
17. Notes were not being renumbered on import with “Append” feature
(fixed).
18. Different MySQL concatenation function now used (CONCAT_WS instead
of CONCAT) when gluing name parts together.
19. E-mail addresses with a period after the first character were not
being validated (fixed).

Guide: Building Your Own Genealogy Website

If your curious about building a genealogy-based website, and want to know what’s out there, or at least a sample of what’s out there, We revamped MacGenealogy.org’s.

It was very lengthy/wordy before, and it’s one of the thing things we tackled over the past few weeks. It’s in a much more manageable format now, geared towards beginners, and we hope to make it very comprehensive over time. If you’d like to contribute examples you’ve made (using Mac-based genealogy applications or at least having a Mac involved at some point), contact us, or post a note in the forums (We have a Web/Online-Oriented forum). We are especially looking for critiques so that we can improve it.

January 31 2006 – this is currently offline as we are working on updating, including screenshots throughout the full process.

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