gramps/FAQ

**** This is GRAMPS Frequently Asked Questions ****

The questions below frequently come up in mailing list discussions and forums.
This list is by no means complete. If you would like to add questions/answers 
to this list, please email your suggestions to gramps-devel@lists.sf.net


**** Index ****


 1. What is GRAMPS?

 2. Where do I get it and how much does it cost?

 3. Does it work with Windows (tm)?

 4. Does it work with the Mac?

 5. Does it work with KDE?

 6. Do I really have to have GNOME installed?

 7. What version of GNOME do I need?

 8. Is GRAMPS compatible with other genealogical software (GenApps)?

 9. Can GRAMPS read files created by GenApp X?

10. Can GRAMPS write files readable by GenApp X?

11. Can GRAMPS print a genealogical tree for my family?

12. In what formats can GRAMPS output its reports?

13. Is GRAMPS compatible with the Internet?

14. Can I create custom reports/filters/whatever?

15. What standards does GRAMPS support?

16. What is the maximum database size (bytes) GRAMPS can handle?

17. How many people can GRAMPS database handle?

18. Why is GRAMPS running so slowly?

19. My database is really big. 
    Is there a way around loading all the data into memory? 

20. Why are non-latin characters displayed as garbage in PDF/PS reports?

21. Why can I not add/remove/edit columns to the lists in People View 
    and Family View?

22. I would like to contribute to GRAMPS by writing my favorite report.
    How do I do that?

23. I found a bug and I want it fixed right now! What do I do?

24. It is obvious that GRAMPS absolutely needs to become a (client-server/
web-based/PHP/weblog/Javascript/C++/distributed/KDE/Motif/Tcl/Win32/C#/
You-name-it) application.
    When is this going to happen?


**** Questions and answers ****


1. What is GRAMPS?

GRAMPS is the Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Program System. 
In other words, it is a personal genealogy program letting you store, edit, 
and research genealogical data using the powers of your computer. 


2. Where do I get it and how much does it cost?

GRAMPS can be downloaded from http://sf.net/projects/gramps at no charge. 
GRAMPS is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License. 
You have full access to the source code and are allowed to distribute the 
program and source code freely. 


3. Does it work with Windows (tm)?

No. GRAMPS uses the GTK and GNOME libraries. While the GTK libraries 
have been ported to Windows, the GNOME libraries have not.
This, however, may change in the future. 


4. Does it work with the Mac?

The Fink project (http://fink.sf.net) has ported an old version of 
GRAMPS (0.8.0) to OSX. The Mac OSX port is not directly supported by 
the GRAMPS project, primarily because none of the GRAMPS developers 
have access to Mac OSX.

The GNOME 2 version of GRAMPS (0.9.x) does not appear to have been 
ported by the Fink project. Please contact the Fink project for more
information.


5. Does it work with KDE?

Yes, as long as the required GNOME libraries are installed.


6. Do I really have to have GNOME installed?

Yes, but you do not have to be running the GNOME desktop.


7. What version of GNOME do I need?

The latest versions of gramps (0.9.0 and higher) require GNOME 2.0 or higher.
Previous versions required GNOME 1.X. 


8. Is GRAMPS compatible with other genealogical software (GenApps)?

GRAMPS makes every effort to maintain compatibility with GEDCOM, the general
standard of recording genealogical information. We have import and export
filters that enable GRAMPS to read and write GEDCOM files. 

It is important to understand that the GEDCOM standard is poorly implemented --
virtually every genealogical software has its own "flavor" of GEDCOM. As we
learn about new flavor, the import/export filters can be created very quickly.
However, finding out about the unknown flavors requires user feedback. 
Please feel free to inform us about any GEDCOM flavor not supported by GRAMPS, 
and we will do our best to support it! 


9. Can GRAMPS read files created by GenApp X?

See above.


10. Can GRAMPS write files readable by GenApp X?

See above.


11. Can GRAMPS print a genealogical tree for my family?

Yes. Different people have different ideas of what a genealogical tree is. 
Some think of it as a chart going from the distant ancestor and listing 
all his/her descendants and their families. Others think it should be a 
chart going from the person back in time, listing the ancestors and their 
families. Yet other people think of a table, text report, etc. 

GRAMPS can produce any of the above, and many more different charts and 
reports. Moreover, the plugin architechture enables users (you) to create 
their own plugins which could be new reports, charts, or research tools. 


12. In what formats can GRAMPS output its reports?

Text reports are available in HTML, PDF, AbiWord, KWord, LaTeX, RTF, and
OpenOffice formats. Graphical reports (charts and diagrams) are available in
PostScript, PDF, SVG, OpenOffice and GraphViz formats. 


13. Is GRAMPS compatible with the Internet?

GRAMPS can store web addresses and direct your browser to them. It can import
data that you download from the Internet. It can export data that you could 
send over the Internet. GRAMPS is familiar with the standard file formats 
widely used on the Internet (e.g. JPEG, PNG, and GIF images, MP3, OGG, and 
WAV sound files, QuickTime, MPEG, and AVI movie files, etc). Other than that, 
there is little that a genealogical program can do with the Internet :-) 


14. Can I create custom reports/filters/whatever?

Yes. There are many levels of customization. One is creating or modifying 
the templates used for the reports. This gives you some control over 
the fonts, colors, and some layout of the reports. You can also use GRAMPS 
controls in the report dialogs to tell what contents should be used for a 
particular report. In addition to this, you have an ability to create your 
own filters -- this is useful in selecting people based on criteria set 
by you. You can combine these filters to create new, more complex filters. 
Finally, you have an option to create your own plugins. These may be new 
reports, research tools, import/export filters, etc. This assumes some 
knowledge of programming in Python. 


15. What standards does GRAMPS support?

The nice thing about the standards is that there never is a shortage of 
them :-). GRAMPS is tested to support the following flavors of GEDCOM: 
GEDCOM5.5, Brother's Keeper, Family Origins, Familty Tree Maker, Ftree, 
GeneWeb, Legacy, Personal Ancestral File, Pro-Gen, Reunion, and 
Visual Genealogie. 


16. What is the maximum database size (bytes) GRAMPS can handle?

GRAMPS has no hard limits on the size of a database that it can handle. 
In reality, however, there are practical limits. Currently GRAMPS loads all 
data into memory, so the limiting factor tends to be the available memory 
on the system. 


17. How many people can GRAMPS database handle?

We have found that on a typical system, GRAMPS tends to bog down after the
database has around 15,000 people. Again, this is dependant on how much
memory you have. 


18. Why is GRAMPS running so slowly?

If GRAMPS seems too slow to you, it is most likely that you have a large
database. Currently, GRAMPS loads all the database into memory, therefore 
large databases tend to be less than responsive. Specifically, the system 
can be virtually brought to its knees if swapping is needed for GRAMPS' data.

This will be addressed in the next stable release following version 1.0. 
Temporarily, adding more memory could make a huge difference, but we realize
that this is a poor way of treating the problem. If you would like to help 
with the implementation of the real database backend, please don't hesitate 
to email us at gramps-devel@lists.sf.net


19. My database is really big. 
    Is there a way around loading all the data into memory?

Currently, there is no way around it. However, this is our biggest priority
after releasing  version 1.0. The real database backend will be incorporated 
in the next stable release (1.2) which will dramatically improve performance 
in both speed and memory usage.


20. Why are non-latin characters displayed as garbage in PDF/PS reports?

This is a known problem -- PS (and PDF) have builtin fonts which pretty much 
reflect the latin-1 charset. Any font in principle could be used with PS/PDF 
but then it would have to be embedded in the file. This is problematic since 
every system has different idea about fonts and their setup.

This should be resolved as we move to gnome-print. In the meantime, a useable 
workaround is to generate reports in OpenOffice.org format and then export 
to PDF from the OpenOffice.org application.


21. Why can I not add/remove/edit columns to the lists in People View 
    and Family View?

This will be addressed after the TreeModelSort bug is fixed in pygtk,
see http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125172 for the details.
Once the patch is committed and incorporated into pygtk, we will add the 
ability to add/remove/edit sortable columns.


22. I would like to contribute to GRAMPS by writing my favorite report.
    How do I do that?

The easiest way to contribute to reports, filters, tools, etc. is to copy 
an existing GRAMPS report, filter, or tool. If you can create what you want 
by modifying existing code -- great! If your idea does not fit into the logic
of any existing GRAMPS tool, the following page may provide some help in 
writing your own plugin from scratch:
http://gramps.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/GrampsDevelopersPage
If you need more help or would like to discuss your idea with us, please 
do not hesitate to contact us at gramps-devel@lists.sf.net

To test your work in progress, you may save your plugin under
$HOME/.gramps/plugins directory and it should be found and imported on startup. 
The correctly written plugin will register itself with GRAMPS, create menu 
item, and so on.

If you are happy with your plugin and would like to contribute your code 
back to the GRAMPS project, you are very welcome to do so by contacting us 
at gramps-devel@lists.sf.net


23. I found a bug and I want it fixed right now! What do I do?

The best thing you can do is to fix the bug and send the patch to
gramps-devel@lists.sf.net :-)

The next best thing would be to submit a good bug report. This can be done in
one of the two ways: (1) send your report to gramps-bugs@lists.sf.net
or (2) file your report with the bug tracker system at 
http://sf.net/tracker/?group_id=25770&atid=385137 (this function is also 
available by selecting "Help->Report a bug" from gramps main menu). 

A good bug report would include: 
   (1) Version of gramps you were using when you encountered the bug 
       (available through Help->About menu item)
   (2) Language under which gramps was run
       (available by executing "echo $LANG" in your terminal)
   (3) Symptoms indicating that this is indeed a bug
   (4) Any Traceback messages, error messages, warnings, etc, that showed up
       in your terminal or a in separate traceback window

Most problems can be fixed quickly provided there is enough information. 
To ensure this, please follow up on your bug reports. In particular, if you 
file a bug report with sf.net bug tracker, PLEASE log into sf.net before 
filing (register your free account if you don't have one). Then we will have 
a way of contacting you should we need more information. If you still choose 
to file your report anonymously, at least check every so often whether your 
report page has something new posted, as it probably would.

If the above explanations seem vague, please follow this link:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html


24. It is obvious that GRAMPS absolutely needs to become a (client-server/
    web-based/PHP/weblog/Javascript/C++/distributed/KDE/Motif/Tcl/Win32/
    C#/You-name-it) application.
    
    When is this going to happen?

The surest way to see it happen is to get it done by yourself. Since
GRAMPS is free/open source, nobody prevents you from taking all of the
code and continuing its development in whatever direction you see fit.
In doing so, you may consider giving your new project another name to
avoid confusion with the continuing GRAMPS development. If you would
like the GRAMPS project to provide advice, expertise, filters, etc., 
we will gladly cooperate with your new project, to ensure compatability 
or import/export options to your new format of a project.
                                                                                
If, however, you would like the GRAMPS project to to adopt your strategy,
you would need to convince GRAMPS developers that your strategy is good
for GRAMPS and superior to the present development strategy.
                                                                                
HINT: if GRAMPS developers are still not convinced after about three
messages sent to gramps-devel, maybe you are better off on your own
rather than with a company of retards who can't fully realize the
potential of your great idea :-)

**** End of GRAMPS Frequently Asked Questions ****

$Id$