MANUAL.TXT: Geni manual ======================= This file describes the features of Geni in detail. You should start by reading the file README.TXT and after installing (INSTALL.TXT) you are advised to look at the tutorial (TUTORIAL.TXT). Refer to the file INSTALL.TXT for instructions on how to intall Geni. Table of Contents ================= 1 Using Ged2Geni 1.1 Editing GEDCOM tags 1.2 Building a Geni file 1.3 Preferences 1.4 Foreign character support 1.5 Summary 2 Using Geni 2.1 Loading your database 2.2 Ancestral tree display 2.3 Details view 2.4 Extras display 2.5 Searching 2.6 Help facilities 2.7 Zooming and the clock window 2.8 Editing data 2.9 Multiple databases 2.10 Deleting databases 2.11 Registering Geni 1. Using Ged2Geni ================= Read through TUTORIAL.TXT to find out how to get started with Ged2Geni. Once you have selected a GEDCOM file and provided a name for the Geni database you will be given a menu with then following options: Edit GEDCOM tags Build Geni file Change Preferences Foreign characters Exit 1.1 Editing GEDCOM tags ----------------------- Dealing with each of this in turn - "Edit GEDCOM tags" allows you to ask Ged2Geni to keep extra information on each individual. By default only a persons name, birth/christening, death/burial, marriage, spouses and children are stored. Select this menu option and the screen changes to a blank scrolling list. Press HELP to see what keys are available: SPACE: Press the space bar to add a new GEDCOM tag for Ged2Geni to look out for. The "tag" field should contain the name of the GEDCOM tag which matches the information you want to keep while the "name" field is the title which will be used in Geni. A table of useful tags is given below - select the ones you want (if any): Tag Meaning BURI Burial event (date, place) CHR Christening event EDUC Education NOTE Notes provided by the user OCCU Occupation or job REFN User-defined reference tag RELI Religion RFN User-defined reference tag SEX Usually "M" for male and "F" for female SOUR Source information - ONLY for old-style sources TITL The title of an individual, eg King, Mr To record occupations you might enter the following into the dialog box which appears: Tag: OCCU Name: Occupation Press ENTER to accept or ESCAPE to cancel. ENTER: This allows you to change the details of an existing tag. Highlight the one you want to change and press the ENTER key. After altering the information press ENTER to accept or ESCAPE to cancel. DELETE: Use this to delete the highlighted tag information. ESCAPE Return to the main menu, saving changes. Note that all the details you set up here will be remembered for the next time you use Ged2Geni. It is a good idea to check which tags have been defined before building the Geni file (section 1.2). 1.2 Building a Geni file ------------------------- The "Build Geni file" is the main option - select this to convert the GEDCOM file into a Geni database. Wait for all the progress guages to go away ("Processing records..." is the last one) and you will be left with a window telling you how many individuals and families were found. Press ENTER or ESCAPE to leave the program. Once you have successfully created the Geni file you can delete the GEDCOM file from your Psion to save precious disk space. You can also remove Ged2Geni and all its files if you aren't going to use it very often - refer to INSTALL.TXT for details. NOTE: you can pause the conversion process at any time by pressing any key. Ged2Geni will bring up a small window asking if you want to quit or continue. Select the continue option when you are ready. Little or no battery power will be used when Ged2Geni is paused. 1.3 Preferences ---------------- Currently the "Change preferences" only allows you to ask Ged2Geni to keep the RIN numbers for individuals. If you aren't sure what a RIN is then you can ignore this setting - make sure it is set to "no". Use the left or right arrow to change the current setting. 1.4 Foreign character support ------------------------------ The "Foreign characters" option is intended to help users with accented characters in their databases. If you find that names with accents come out all wrong then try this option - select the type of computer which was used to create the GEDCOM and press ENTER. If your GEDCOM does not contain accented characters or was produced for a DOS machine then you can ignore this menu option as no translation is required. If your GEDCOM comes from a Windows PC then you should copy WIN95.TBL into \APP\GED2GENI as instructed in INSTALL.TXT. Apple Macintosh users need the MAC.TBL file - users of other computers should contact the author for assistance. 1.5 Summary ------------ Users are expected to use Ged2Geni infrequently so the inconvenience of having to create a special database for their Psion should be offset by the advantages of being able to take the information into places such as record offices and libraries in such a compact format. 2. Using Geni ============= Before you can start to use Geni you must create a database using the Ged2Geni program. If you haven't done this please go to section 1. 2.1 Loading your database ------------------------- After converting your GEDCOM file with Ged2Geni you can run Geni with your newly created Geni database. On the Psion system screen you should see the Geni icon with your new database underneath it. Select this with the arrow keys and press the ENTER key to start. There will be a short delay while Geni starts. If you have not registered your copy then you will be prompted to do so (see the section "Registering Geni") - press Escape to continue. When Geni has finished initialising itself you will see an ancestral tree of the first person in the database. 2.2 Ancestral tree display -------------------------- The program begins by displaying an ancestral tree for the current individual. This is either the first individual in the database or the one which the user was at when the database was last used. The ancestral tree display shows the current individual and their parents and grandparents; the lifespan of each person is given for clarity. From this screen users can browse to the parents, children, siblings or spouses of the current individual via a few easy-to- remember keypresses. Alternatively a detailed display of the current individual can be viewed by pressing ENTER. At the tree display the following keypresses are available: f go to the father of the current individual m go to the mother of the current individual s select a spouse of the current individual c select a child of the current individual o go to the next oldest full sibling y go to the next youngest full sibling x show extra information on the current individual ENTER show details of the current individual DIAMOND same as ENTER HELP show the currently available key-presses MENU bring up the application menu for more options The "o" and "y" key presses browse to the next oldest or youngest full sibling where "older" and "younger" is determined by the order in which the siblings are listed in the GEDCOM rather than by age. Only full siblings are considered - to browse to half-siblings press "f" or "m" and then press "c". If the current individual is the oldest then the "o" search wraps around to the youngest sibling. Similarly the "y" search will wrap around if the current individual is the youngest. If extra information is available an "X" will be displayed in the top left corner of the screen. Refer to the section on Ged2Geni to find out how to create this information. The section "Extras Display" explains what to do after you've pressed "x". 2.3 Details view ---------------- On the details/family display you are shown the birth and death events for the current individual (if known). If the birth is not known but a baptism or christening is then the baptism is shown. Similarly burial information is shown if no death info is known. In addition to this the spouse/partner is shown along with the marriage date and place. If there is more than one spouse/partner their name will be shown inside two arrows and a position. If this is the third spouse/partner out of 7 then 3/7 is shown. Press the left and right arrows to change to a different spouse or TAB to jump to the current spouse (make them the current individual). If there are any children of the current couple these are shown in a scrolling list at the bottom of the screen. Press the up and down arrow keys to move through the list and ENTER to jump to a child. As with the tree display, HELP provides context- sensitive help and MENU brings up the application menu. Press ESCAPE or the DIAMOND key to return to the tree display. 2.4 Extras display ------------------ If an "X" is shown in the top left of the screen then extra information is available on the current individual. Press "x" to view this. If there is only one piece of information (e.g. just an occupation) then that will be shown directly otherwise a list of options will be presented. Select the one you want and press ENTER; press ESCAPE to return to the list. When viewing the extra information the arrow keys will move around the text just as in the Word application. Press MENU for more options - the Find option may be useful for large pieces of extra information. Pressing "P" or choosing "Previous" from the "Extras" menu will display the previous piece of extra information. Likewise "N" or "Next" will show the next piece. This saves you having to press ESCAPE to return to the list of extras, scroll up or down and then press ENTER. 2.5 Searching ------------- Individuals may be searched for by name from the menu. Searching is case insensitive and limited pattern matching facilities are available via the * and ? symbols. The * will match zero or more characters while the ? matches any single character. For example, to find someone called William Gordon with unknown middle names (or even no middle names) the pattern "william*gordon" could be used. To search for someone whose name might be spelt as Elizabeth or Elisabeth the pattern "eli?abeth" should be used. Surnames in Geni are enclosed in two slashes (/). This enables the user to just search on a surname if they wish. For instance, to find the first person in the database with the surname ROBERTS you should search for the text "*/Roberts/". To find the next person in the database with that surname use the "Find Again" menu option. Note that Geni always adds a * after the pattern you type so "*b*sM?th" matches "Fred /Blacksmith/ Jr" as well as names such as "Barbara /Smith/" and "Basmyth". There are no facilities for querying relationships or for searching for people using anything other than their name. It is hoped that these facilities will be available in version 2.00 of Geni. 2.6 Help facilities ------------------- Context-sensitive help is available at all times by pressing HELP. This will bring up a small window listing all the available key presses. More detailed help can be obtained via the "Info" menu. 2.7 Zooming and the clock window -------------------------------- The size of the text used to display the ancestral tree can be changed by choosing the "Zoom in" and "Zoom out" menu options. Three sizes are available - the medium and large settings just show three generations (individual, their parents and their grandparents) while the smallest size shows four generations (includes great-grandparents). The current zoom settings will be retained after you quit Geni and be used as the default level when you run Geni again. Note that the zoom setting on the tree display is separate from that on the details and extras displays so you can have a tiny font on the tree display and a large one on the details view. By default the full-size status window is displayed to the right of the ancestral tree. Press Control-Menu to make the status window narrower and press it again to make it disappear. Pressing it a third time will bring it back at full size. Geni remembers what type of status window you last used so you shouldn't need to keep fiddling with it! 2.8 Editing data ----------------- There are no facilities for altering the information stored in the database except by modifying the original GEDCOM file and recreating the database with Ged2Geni. There is another Psion genealogy program called KGene which allows users to edit their data and Geni has been used successfully as a browser for it. Contact the programmer for more information (see README.TXT). 2.9 Multiple databases ---------------------- Geni supports multiple databases although only one may be viewed at a time. Various details of recently used databases are remembered such as the current individual, search string, zoom settings etc so users can leave Geni and restart at the point where they left off. 2.10 Deleting databases ----------------------- Deleting a Geni database from your Psion isn't simply a matter of choosing "Delete file" from the "File" menu of the system screen. For technical reasons a Geni database consists of a small file which is shown under the Geni icon on the system screen and a directory. The directory contains all the main files that Geni needs and its name is based on the file listed under the Geni icon. There are two ways of remove an unwanted Geni database - the first way is to use PsiWin/PsiMac/PsionLink. If your database is called MARTIN then when you look in the \GENI directory you will see a file called MARTIN.GNI and a directory called MARTIN. Delete the directory and it's contents as well as the .GNI file. If you want to delete the database without using PsiWin etc you should highlight the name of the database under the Geni icon. Press the TAB key and a list of files will appear. As before, if your database is called MARTIN the file highlighted will be MARTIN.GNI and somewhere above that will be a directory called \GENI\MARTIN. Move the highlight over the directory name and press the MENU key. Now select "Remove directory" from the "Directory" menu, make sure MARTIN\ (or whatever your directory is called) appears in the box and press ENTER. Answer "yes" when you are asked if you want to delete the files in \GENI\MARTIN\. Now you will be dropped back to the system screen and you can choose "Delete file" from the "File" menu to remove the MARTIN.GNI file. 2.11 Registering Geni --------------------- Geni is shareware - this means that you can try it out for free and see if it does what you want. If you don't like it you must delete your copy. If you continue to use it Geni will stop working after 50 browses and will only start working again once you register. Registered users won't get the nagging screen asking you to register and browsing will be slightly faster. Upgrades to future versions is completely free. Read the file REGISTER.TXT to find out how to register your copy. ================================================================ (c) Martin N Dunstan (mnd@dcs.st-and.ac.uk) February 17th 1998 ================================================================