GenoPro Support Forum

A brilliant job though it will take me a while to get my head round it.

I have always added the mention of my toc_login.htm and toc_djvu.htm to the config.xml using winmerge and then just added these files along with my personalised heading and home htms and the other personal images including my background to the new skin and the job is done.

I am not sure if your system will help me with this as the only fonts I change are in the files I add.

Easter was very well spent Ron.

You have permission to take a short break (over the weekend) before you start work again on Monday, 7am sharp, do not be late.

Thanks Ron, your Report Skin enhancements mean that I'll have to start working as hard as you do, so I can incorporate all the new features. (If only I were not so lazy) Thanks Ron, we all benefit from your selfless efforts.

Poolzone  a mere cog in a revolution

So I thought perhaps they should be able to customise their Narrative Report 'without getting their feet wet' i.e. no need to create a custom skin. And so I have been a busy bunny over Easter working on some ideas. The result is a new Narrative skin 2.0.0.3j available here.

First thing many users want to do is use their own background image and change fonts etc. So I've added a custom style sheet feature. There is a new Config.xml parameter 'StyleSheet' that can be set via a Document Custom Tag StyleSheet to a file containing the user's replacements for some of standard styles in style.css. I suggest users look at the style.css file generated in their (local) report folder and extract the bits they want to change and add it to their custom style sheet. When the Report is generated the contents of this file will be appended to style.css, replacing any earlier definitions. To replace a background image the file specified in the custom style sheet must exist in the generated Report folder. To do this without using  a custom skin I suggest adding the new background image as a picture to a dummy individual in the GenoPro file. If the image is say background.jpg then it can be specified in the style sheet as pictures/background.jpg. The dummy individual can be excluded from the report by setting the Is label/exclude from report flag under the 'Family' tag of the Individual properties dialogue.
Note also that specific pictures can now be excluded from the main report by setting a new Picture Custom Tag '_Exclude' to "Y".

The next feature is the ability to add custom narrative to individuals, families, pictures, places and sources. Simply place the required narrative in a Custom Tag named _Narrative and this will get added to the report immediately after the standard narrative. This means that all those fascinating anecedotes about people are no longer consigned to live behind the Comments toggle.

The _Narrative tag uses the Custom Markup syntax introduced earlier in this thread. This has now been greatly extended with new functions to add many useful features such as custom 'subsections' (like Occupations, Educations etc.) and custom note entries. There are also easy ways to add photos and to add 'multimedia' links to appear in the 'popup' frame. These can even be used on the home page. The Custom Markup instructions are now:

<?html?>             indicates the following text up to next Custom Markup instruction is HTML
<?text?>             indicates the following text up to next Custom Markup instruction  is plain text
<?hide?>             indicates the following text up to next Custom Markup instruction is not to be generated
<?merge param1 param2 .... paramn?> inserts items specified in param list.

The params in the list are each separated by a space. Each param is either HTML enclosed in double quotes ("....") excluding Custom Markup instructions or Tag Names (custom or standard) which contain HTML and/or Custom Markup instructions.

<?note "subtitle" param1 param2 .... paramn?>  inserts 'note' style collapse/expand item containing content as per param list (see merge above)

<?subsection "subtitle" param1 param2 .... paramn?>  inserts 'subsection' style collapse/expand item containing content as per param list (see merge above)

<?popup "subtitle" "hyperlink text" param1 param2 .... paramn?>  inserts a link "hyperlink text" to a 'popup' frame with "subtitle" as its title containing content as per param list (see merge above)

<?image ref width height?>  inserts an image/photo. 'ref' is either the path to the required image in the generated Report (Web) folder enclosed in double quotes ("...") or the 'ID' of a picture within the .gno file e.g. pic00051. In the latter case the picture may also have an associated image map in its Custom _AreaMap tag. 'width' & 'height' are in pixels and are optional. They must be omitted if the image has an associated image map, otherwise the mapping is invalidated. If omitted the image is shown full size, with scroll bars if required. Using the picture ID means to image gets included in the Report automatically. To get other pictures/images into the Report folder see above regarding the background image.

N.B. At present Custom Tags cannot contain newline characters. So if you prepare your tag contents elsewhere (e.g. in Comment field or by using Notepad) you must remove all newlines before pasting the desired content into the Custom Tag field. If you do not do this then everything after the 1st newline will be ignored. However if you use <?html?> you can still add newlines to the Report using the HTML 'break' tag i.e.  <br/>

The Harry Potter sample report at http://familytrees.genopro.com/Ron/HarryPotter/default.htm shows many of these enhancements, including a custom style sheet (sorry about the colours!). The home page shows a custom 'subsection' with embedded 'note' and 'image' instructions. So does the Harry Potter page, but also has a 'popup' link. Download the 'FamilyTree.gno' from there to see how it was done.

It may take a while for new users to get to use it, but it makes development and individualisation of the home page so much easier.

Well done, excellent report feature.

Poolzone  a mere cog in a revolution