gramps/doc/gramps.1.in

.TH gramps 1 "@VERSION@" "January 2004" "@VERSION@"
.SH NAME
gramps \- Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System.

.SH SYNOPSIS
.B gramps
.RB [ \-\^\-help ]
.RB [ \-\^\-version ]
.RB [ \-i 
.IR FILENAME 
.RB [ \-f 
.IR FORMAT ]] 
.RB [ \-i 
.IR ... ] 
.RB [ \-o 
.IR FILENAME 
.RB [ \-f 
.IR FORMAT ]] 
.RB [ \-a 
.IR ACTION ]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP 
\fIGramps\fP is an open source genealogy program. It is written in Python, 
using the GTK/GNOME interface.
.br 
Gramps should seem familiar to anyone who has used other geneology programs 
before such as \fIFamily Tree Maker for Windows(TM)\fR or the GNU Geneweb.
.br 
It supports importing of the ever popular GEDCOM format which is used world 
wide by almost all other geneology software.

.SH OPTIONS
.TP 
.BI \-f " FORMAT"
Explicitly specify format of \fIFILENAME\fR given by preceding \fB\-i\fR or 
\fB\-o\fR option. If the \fB\-f\fR option is not given for any \fIFILENAME\fR, 
the format of that file is guessed according to its extension. 
.br

Formats 
available for import are \fBgramps\fR (guessed if \fIFILENAME\fR is a 
directory), \fBgedcom\fR (guessed if \fIFILENAME\fR ends with \fB.ged\fR), and 
\fBgramps\-pkg\fR (guessed if \fIFILENAME\fR ends with \fB.tgz\fR). 
.br

Formats available for export are \fBgramps\fR, \fBgedcom\fR, \fBgramps\-pkg\fR, 
\fBwft\fR (guessed if \fIFILENAME\fR ends with \fB.wft\fR), and \fBiso\fR 
(never guessed, always specify with \fB\-f\fR option).

.TP 
.BI \-i " FILENAME"
Import data from \fIFILENAME\fR. For \fBgramps\fR format, the \fIFILENAME\fR 
is actually the name of directory under which the gramps database resides. 
For \fBgedcom\fR and \fBgramps\-pkg\fR, the \fIFILENAME\fR is the name of 
the corresponding file. 
.br

When more than one input file is given, each has to be preceded by \fB\-i\fR 
flag. The files are imported in the specified order, 
i.e. \fB\-i\fR \fIFILE1\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIFILE2\fR  
and \fB\-i\fR \fIFILE2\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIFILE1\fR might produce different 
gramps IDs in the resulting database. 

.TP 
.BI \-o " FILENAME"
Export data into \fIFILENAME\fR. For \fBgramps\fR and \fBiso\fR formats, the 
\fIFILENAME\fR is actually the name of directory the gramps database will be 
written into. For \fBgedcom\fR, \fBwft\fR, and \fBgramps\-pkg\fR, 
the \fIFILENAME\fR is the name of the resulting file. 
.br

When more than one output file is given, each has to be preceded 
by \fB\-o\fR flag. The files are written one by one, in the specified order.

.TP 
.BI \-a " ACTION"
Perform \fIACTION\fR on the imported data. This is done after all imports
are succesfully completed. Currently available actions are \fBsummary\fR 
(same as Reports->View->Summary) and \fBcheck\fR (same as Tools->Database 
Processing->Check and Repair).
.br

When more than one output action is given, each has to be preceded 
by \fB\-a\fR flag. The actions are performed one by one, in the specified order.

.LP
The order of \fB\-i\fR, \fB\-o\fR, or \fB\-a\fR options does not matter. The
actual order always is: all imports (if any) -> all exports (if any) -> 
all actions (if any). 

.LP
If no \fB\-i\fR option is given, gramps will launch its main 
window and start the usual interactive session with the empty database
(since there is no data to process, anyway).

.LP
If no \fB\-o\fR or \fB\-a\fR options are given, gramps will launch its main 
window and start the usual interactive session with the database resulted 
from all imports. This database resides under \fB~/.gramps/import\fR directory.

.LP
The error encountered during import, export, or action, will be either 
dumped to \fIstdout\fR (if these are exceptions handled by gramps) or or 
to \fIstderr\fR (if these are not handled). Use usual shell redirections 
of \fIstdout\fR and \fIstderr\fR to save messages and errors in files. 

.SH EXAMPLES
.TP 
To import four databases (whose formats can be determined from their names) and then check the resulting database for errors, one may type: 
\fBgramps\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile1.ged\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile2.tgz\fR \fB\-i\fR \fI~/db3\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile4.wft\fR \fB\-a\fR \fIcheck\fR 
.TP 
To explicitly specify the formats in the above example, append filenames with appropriate \fB\-f\fR options: 
\fBgramps\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile1.ged\fR \fB\-f\fR \fIgedcom\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile2.tgz\fR \fB\-f\fR \fIgramps-pkg\fR \fB\-i\fR \fI~/db3\fR \fB\-f\fR \fIgramps\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile4.wft\fR \fB\-f\fR \fIwft\fR  \fB\-a\fR \fIcheck\fR 
.TP 
To record the database resulting from all imports, supply \fB\-o\fR flag (use \fB\-f\fR if the filename does not allow gramps to guess the format):
\fBgramps\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile1.ged\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile2.tgz\fR \fB\-o\fR \fI~/new-package\fR \fB\-f\fR \fIgramps-pkg\fR 
.TP 
To import three databases and start interactive gramps session with the result: 
\fBgramps\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile1.ged\fR \fB\-i\fR \fIfile2.tgz\fR \fB\-i\fR \fI~/db3\fR 
.TP 
Finally, to start normal interactive session type: 
\fBgramps\fR 

.SH CONCEPTS
Supports a python\-based plugin system, allowing import and export writers, 
report generators, tools, and display filters to be added without modification 
of the main program.
.LP 
Data is stored in an gzip'ed XML format
.LP 
Instead of generating direct printer output, report generators target other 
systems, such as \fIOpen Office\fR, \fIAbiWord\fR, HTML or LaTeX to allow the 
user to modify the format to suit his or her needs. 

.SH KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
Currently, \fIGramps\fP loads all data into memory, which tends to bog down 
the system for large databases (over 15000 people for a typical system). 
This will be addressed with the 1.2 release by incorporating a database 
backend. The database backend should dramatically improve both speed and 
memory usage. 
.LP 
Direct printing is not currently supported. This is planned to be fixed after
the stable 1.0 release by using gnome-print architechture. 
.LP 
PS and PDF reports output garbage in place of unicode characters.
This should also be solved when we move to gnome-print. In the meantime, a
decent workaround is to produce reports in OpenOffice.org format and then 
export into PDF from withing OpenOffice.org application.

.SH FILES
.LP 
\fI${PREFIX}/bin/gramps\fP 
.br 
\fI${PREFIX}/share/gramps\fP
.br 
\fI${HOME}/.gramps\fP 

.SH AUTHORS
Donald Allingham \fI<dallingham@users.sourceforge.net>\fR
.br 
\fIhttp://gramps.sourceforge.net\fR
.LP 
This manpage was originally written by:
.br 
Brandon L. Griffith \fI<brandon@debian.org>\fR
.br
for inclusion in the Debian GNU/Linux system.
.LP 
This manpage is currently maintained by:
.br 
Alex Roitman \fI<shura@alex.neuro.umn.edu>\fR
.br 

.SH DOCUMENTATION
The user documentation is available through standard GNOME Help browser 
in the form of Gramps Manual. The manual is also available in XML format
as \fBgramps-manual.xml\fR under \fIdoc/gramps-manual/$LANG\fR in the official
source distribution.
.LP 
The developer documentation can be found in the \fBDocs\fR section 
of \fIhttp://sourceforge.net/project/gramps\fR site.