GenoPro Support Forum

If I visit my relatives, I typically take my laptop with me. If need be, I'll create a screenshot of the tree and zip the html report pages together and send that to the person who I want to check it or add new info. (Especially since I am using around 60 different Genomaps, one for each one of the different last names.)

However, I find it easiest to directly input all the results from my visits into Genopro, since it allows me to do additional checks. Often I found out that nephews were of slightly different parents that the interviewed people said, which I can then immediately check with them.

My ancestry tree now goes back to somewhere around 1550.. The way I save the data is by doing the following...

- provide a copy of all images, html, GENCOM and genopro .GNO and .XML file on a DVD (it doesn't fit a CD anymore) and provide that once to my relatives. It will happen this year during our family reunion. Besides that, I have a password protected website which has the whole tree including low-res fotos etc on it, so people can check the tree themselves. This allows them to quickly check whether I put newly provided data properly in the tree.

- Once I am happy enough with the whole thing, I'll start looking at an HTML2PDF converter (I know they exist) and will probably move everything into an PDF every now and then. However, even then, I won't have everything I have in the PDF. since that would also be an PDF file which doesn't fit a CD....(Most photos maps etc I have are around 600 KB jpegs, and I have a lot of those :-) )

rgds,

Ronald

I also applaud Ron for his contributions which haven't  ended yet, it appears, and I think we all wait with bated breath to see what comes next!

I also think that the graphic aspect could be an interesting developement for the future as it seems that there are quite a few members who would like to be able to make adequate print-outs with GenoPro one day.

Let us not forget that we already have  an amazing piece of software thanks to Dan.

This is beginning to sound like a Dan and Ron Appreciation Society!

Very well deserved by them anyway.

Edited: Thursday, September 29, 2005 by GenoProSupport

I only used the descendant report as an example. I think that the report generator gives us now enough tools to do such reports. The only thing is that this takes time which I don't have

What Ron did was outstanding. He took the template and improve it in a way that it wasnt like the original template. What I'm saying is that the ability is here and it can be done without the need for further development on Dan's side.

The graphical side is a whole different thing...

I only mentioned TreeDraw because there was discussion about the lack of possibility of print-outs.

Your idea of a descendant report is a good one, but how would it be layed-out?

I also realise that this suggestion of print-out possibilities is not for today, but maybe for GenoPro 3.

Once GenoPro 2 is finished we can start thinking about it, unless there are talented programmers with time to spare who can take up the job for Dan as you suggested.

I unfortunately am not capable of helping here.

Edited: Thursday, September 29, 2005 by GenoProSupport

TreeDraw is a graphical tool. GenoPro's Report generator has a lot to complete in this side, but as Dan said it will be much much later.

However I think we all can help Dan by using the report generator the same way as Ron did and create more templates of new reports. For example there is a Descendant report. One can create the template for an individual and his descendants. This will add more templates to GenoPro without adding more work to Dan.

I know that not all of us knows how to do it, but those who do know can help and have their assistance in adding report templates.

I am 100% in agreement with you about the quality of the report generator, as you can see the tree generated by treedraw (above) was very limited and I only included it as an example of all we had a few years ago.

TreeDraw was very dificult to format as everything had to be de-grouped and moved to save space and then re-grouped to avoid accidental deleting, it can however include photos.

The idea of a graphical layout tree with basic details and a small photo that can be printed could be usefull and perhaps can be made in PDF or Word some day if not already?

The difficulty comes with huge trees requiring hundreds of pages like mine, which is why I stopped using treedraw or trying to do printouts for the moment and concentrated on a web version of my tree.

There are quite a few report generators out there, but nothing comes near GenoPro, I know as I have tried most of them without being very impressed with any of them.

Once the html report generator is finished, perhaps we could turn our attention to the possibility of a graphic printable format like treedraw, but better!

I was thinking of the possibility of showing more details in the genomap, such as dates and places of BMD, which could then be printed ?

Look around at other genealogy titles. You won't find any other genealogy software giving as much flexibility to generate reports.  Using VBScript and JavaScript, you can do almost anything you want in a report. I am more than willing to help and add new methods and functions to improve the report generator, however I have to finish GenoPro 2.0 first.  I can spend years writing new report templates and improving existing reports.  New reports can be easily included after GenoPro 2.0, however if I don't complete new date format or finish the sources & citations dialog, GenoPro will lack important features that I will not able to include until version 3.0.

In summary, Beta13 introduced the "new report generator" as a Proof of Concept.  I am aware there are still outstanding issues with the report generator, but I know the technology underneath is working.

I have copied a page from an earlier theoretical tree into Word so that it can be seen.

It is very basic but printable.

treedraw_test.doc (123 views, 22.50 KB)

That's also the reason why most of the popular genealogy softwares have many kind of printable reports (usually with many options how to generate them) included.

I'd like to know how other people work with the database (tree) "on the way"? Do you visit your relatives? How do you collect the informations? Maybe I just missed something.

And I ask myself another question: Ronald said that his relatives regularly look regularly at his pages with the genealogy. That's nice and I wish my relatives will do the same. On the other hand - do you think they will do the same within next 30,40 or 60 years? Some of my ancestors I have in my tree are from 1650 and I want that at least part of my work will last (will be accessible) many years  therefore I need to redistribute it to many places (relatives) the way that our descendants will be able to read it in 2100, 2200..... (hopefully).
I do not believe that HTML is good for it.

GenoPro is a good tool, it is going to be even better and it will be able to generate printable report too (I hope that at least as many reports as the other genealogy programs). The only think I want to do is to emphasize importance of the NICE printable reports.