243 lines
8.5 KiB
Plaintext
243 lines
8.5 KiB
Plaintext
$Id$
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*** This is GRAMPS Frequently Asked Questions ***
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The questions below frequently come up in mailing list discussions and forums.
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This list is by no means complete. If you would like to add questions/answers to
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this list, please email your suggestions to gramps-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
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*** Index ***
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1. What is GRAMPS?
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2. Where do I get it and how much does it cost?
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3. Does it work with Windows?
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4. Does it work with the Mac?
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5. Do I really have to have GNOME installed?
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6. Does it work with KDE?
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7. What version of GNOME do I need?
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8. Is GRAMPS compatible with other genealogical software?
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9. Can GRAMPS read files created by GenApp X?
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10. Can GRAMPS write files readable by GenApp X?
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11. Can GRAMPS print Genealogical tree for my family?
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12. In what formats can GRAMPS output its reports?
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13. Is GRAMPS compatible with the Internet?
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14. What standards does GRAMPS support?
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15. What is the maximum database size (bytes) GRAMPS can handle?
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16. How many people can GRAMPS database handle?
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17. How fast is GRAMPS?
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18. My database is really big.
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Is there a way around loading all the data into memory?
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19. Can I create custom reports/filters/whatever?
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20. Why is GRAMPS running so slowly?
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21. Why are non-latin characters displayed as garbage in PDF/PS reports?
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*** Questions and answers ***
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1. What is GRAMPS?
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GRAMPS is the Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Program System.
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In other words, it a personal genealogy program letting you store, edit,
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and research genealogical data using the powers of your computer.
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2. Where do I get it and how much does it cost?
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GRAMPS can be downloaded from http://sf.net/projects/gramps at no charge.
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GRAMPS is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License.
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You have full access to the source code and are allowed to distribute the
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program and source code freely.
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3. Does it work with Windows?
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In principle, it could. GRAMPS depends on Python (http://www.python.org)
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and GNOME (http://www.gnome.org), so as long as these two are available,
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GRAMPS will work. Currently, we are not aware of working GNOME2 port to
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Windows platform. This, however, may change in the future.
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GRAMPS is being developed and tested on Linux, and virtually all Linux
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distributions satisfy the requirements for GRAMPS.
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4. Does it work with the Mac?
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A port of GRAMPS to Mac OS X exists from the Fink project
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(http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/package.php/gramps). It is not unusual
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for this version to lag behind the Linux version. The port is not supported
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by the GRAMPS project (since few if any of us have Macs), but we try to
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help out where we can.
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If you have problems installing the Mac port, you will need to contact
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the Fink project. If you encounter a run time bug or have issues not
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specifically related to the Mac, contact the GRAMPS project.
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5. Do I really have to have GNOME installed?
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Yes, but you do not have to be running the GNOME desktop.
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6. Does it work with KDE?
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Yes, as long as the required GNOME libraries are installed.
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7. What version of GNOME do I need?
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The latest versions of gramps (0.9.0 and higher) require GNOME 2.0 or higher.
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Previous versions required GNOME 1.X.
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8. Is GRAMPS compatible with other genealogical software?
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GRAMPS makes every effort to maintain compatibility with GEDCOM, the general
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standard of recording genealogical information. We have import and export
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filters that enable GRAMPS to read and write GEDCOM files.
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It is important to understand that the GEDCOM standard is poorly implemented --
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virtually every genealogical software has its own "flavor" of GEDCOM. As we
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learn about new flavor, the import/export filters can be created very quickly.
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However, finding out about the unknown flavors requires user's feedback.
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Please feel free to inform us about any GEDCOM flavor not supported by GRAMPS,
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and we will support it!
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9. Can GRAMPS read files created by GenApp X?
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See above.
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10. Can GRAMPS write files readable by GenApp X?
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See above.
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11. Can GRAMPS print Genealogical tree for my family?
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Yes. Different people have different ideas of what Genealogical tree is.
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Some think of it as a chart going from the distant ancestor and listing
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all his/her descendants and their families. Others think it should be a
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chart going from the person back in time, listing the ancestors and their
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families. Yet other people think of a table, text report, etc.
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GRAMPS can produce any of the above, and many more different charts and
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reports. Moreover, the plugin architechture enables a user (you) to create
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his own plugins which could be new reports, charts, or research tools.
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12. In what formats can GRAMPS output its reports?
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Text reports are available in HTML, PDF, AbiWord, KWord, LaTeX, RTF, and
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OpenOffice formats. Graphical reports (charts and diagrams) are available in
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PostScript, PDF, SVG, OpenOffice and GraphViz formats.
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13. Is GRAMPS compatible with the Internet?
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GRAMPS can store web addresses and direct your browser to them. It can import
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data that you download from the Internet. It can export data that you could
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send over the Internet. GRAMPS is familiar with the standard file formats
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widely used on the Internet (e.g. JPEG and GIF images, MP3, OGG, and WAV sound
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files, QuickTime, MPEG, and AVI movie files, etc). Other than that, there is
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little that genealogical program can do with the Internet :-)
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14. What standards does GRAMPS support?
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The nice thing about the standards is that there never is a shortage of
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them :-). GRAMPS is tested to support the following flavors of GEDCOM:
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GEDCOM5.5, Borther's Keeper, Family Origins, Familty Tree Maker, Ftree,
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GeneWeb, Legacy, Personal Ancestral File, Pro-Gen, Reunion, and
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Visual Genealogie.
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15. What is the maximum database size (bytes) GRAMPS can handle?
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GRAMPS has no hard limits on the size of a database that it can handle.
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In reality, however, there are practical limits. Currently GRAMPS loads all
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data into memory, so the limiting factor tends to be the available memory
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on the system.
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16. How many people can GRAMPS database handle?
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We have found that on a typical system, GRAMPS tends to bog down after around
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15,000 users. Again, this is dependant on how much memory you have.
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17. How fast is GRAMPS?
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No idea.
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18. My database is really big.
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Is there a way around loading all the data into memory?
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Currently, there is no way around it. However, this is our biggest priority
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after releasing 1.0 version. The real database backend will be incorporated
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in the next stable release (1.2) which will dramatically improve performance
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in both speed and memory usage.
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19. Can I create custom reports/filters/whatever?
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Yes. There are many levels of customization. One is creating or modifying
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the templates used for the reports. This gives you some control over
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the fonts, colors, and some layout of the reports. You can also use GRAMPS
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controls in the report dialogs to tell what contents should be used for a
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particular report. In addition to this, you have an ability to create your
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own filters -- this is useful in selecting people based on criteria set
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by you. You can combine these filters to create new, more complex filters.
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Finally, you have an option to create your own plugins. These may be new
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reports, research tools, import/export filters, etc. This assumes some
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knowledge of programming in Python.
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20. Why is GRAMPS running so slowly?
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If GRAMPS seems too slow to you, it is most likely that you have a large
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database. Currently, GRAMPS loads all the database into memory, therefore
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large databases lead to be less than responsive. Specifically, the system
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can be virtually brought to its knees if swapping is needed for GRAMPS' data.
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This will be addressed in the stable release following 1.0 version.
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Temporarily, adding more memory could make a huge difference, but we realize
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that this is a poor way of treating the problem. If you would like to help
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with the implementation of the real database backend, please don't hesitate
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to email us at gramps-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
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21. Why are non-latin characters displayed as garbage in PDF/PS reports?
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This is a known problem -- PS (and PDF) have builtin fonts which pretty much
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reflect the latin-1 charset. Any font in principle could be used with PS/PDF
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but then it would have to be embedded in the file. This is problematic since
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every system has different idea about fonts and their setup.
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This should be resolved as we move to gnome-print. In the meantime, a useable
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workaround is to generate reports in OOo format and the export to PDF from OOo.
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*** End of GRAMPS Frequently Asked Questions ***
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