TUTORIAL.TXT: a quick introduction to Geni and Ged2Geni ======================================================= This file is intended to give the user a brief "hands-on" introduction to using Geni. If you work through the steps one by one you should be an expert user when you reach the end! By now you might be wondering what Ged2Geni does and why you can't start Geni right away. The reason is that Geni was designed for people with large databases (more than 5000 individuals) and not much space on their Psion. We decided that it would be better to have a special program (Ged2Geni) to convert GEDCOM files into Geni databases. The GEDCOM and Ged2Geni could then be deleted from the Psion leaving Geni and its databases, freeing up valuable space for those with very little. Users with enough free space might prefer to keep Ged2Geni on their machine especially if they want to update their Geni database using a new GEDCOM file. Note that you have to recreate the Geni database from scratch each time you produce a new GEDCOM file. We anticipate this happening once a month or longer depending on how often your desktop database is changed. The basic operation is: * Copy a GEDCOM file into \GED * Start Ged2Geni with this file - just like Word or Agenda. * Type in a name for the Geni database. * Once started and at the menu choose "Build Geni file". * After Ged2Geni has finished you can delete the GEDCOM file. * Start Geni on the new file in the normal way. * Use HELP for context-sensitive help or check the menus. This is explained more fully below - REMEMBER: you only get 50 browses with Geni before you must register the program. Don't use them all up at once! 1. Copy your GEDCOM file into \GED on your Psion. It should now be listed under the Ged2Geni icon. 2. Highlight the GEDCOM file under the Ged2Geni icon and press ENTER. This is just like other Psion applications such as Agenda and Word. 3. After a brief pause a file dialog box will appear for you to type a name into. Ged2Geni suggests a name based on the GEDCOM file but you can choose something else. Press ENTER to continue, Escape to stop. NOTE: you must not create the Geni file on a Flash disk - see BUGS.TXT. 4. After another pause a menu will appear with several options. For now select "Build Geni file". Press ENTER. The menu will disappear and a sliderbar titled "Making index..." will take its place. In turn that will be replaced by one for "Sorting individuals...", "Sorting families..." and processing individuals. The last of these will flash up the names of the people it comes across. NOTE: at any time during the conversion you can pause the program by pressing any key. A small window will appear asking you if you want to quit or continue. Choose continue when you are ready. Little or no battery power will be used when the program is paused. Read MANUAL.TXT for an explanation of the other menu options. 5. Once the conversion has finished you will be told how many individuals and families were found and how long it took. Press ESCAPE or ENTER to leave the program. 6. If you want to save disk space you can now delete the GEDCOM file from your Psion. Either use PsiWin/PsiMac or refer to your Psion manual if you don't know how to delete files. 7. At this point you should install Geni (see INSTALL.TXT) if you have not done so yet. 8. Move to the Geni icon and select your newly created database. Press ENTER to start Geni. If you want to experiment press the HELP key to see what keys you can use and off you go! 9. You should now be looking at an ancestral tree of the first person in your database with their parents and grandparents. To see more details on this person, their spouses and children press ENTER or the diamond key. Press ESCAPE or the diamond key to return to the tree. 10. On either display you can go to the father of the current individual by pressing the "f" key. Press "m" to get to their mother and press "s" for their spouses/partners. If there is more than one spouse you will be given a list to choose from. Similar "c" goes to a single child or displays a list if more than one. Note that "c" lists all the children of the current person by all their spouses/partners. 11.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 given. Press the left and right arrows to change to a different spouse or TAB to jump to the current spouse (i.e. 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. 12.If there is extra information on this person (an "X" is shown in the top left corner of the screen) this can be viewed by pressing "x". Press ESCAPE to return to the tree or details display. For more information on this please see MANUAL.TXT. 13.Browsing is easy but you may wish to search directly for the name of an individual in the database. To do this press the MENU key and select the "Find" option from the "Search" menu. Type in the name of the person and put "/" characters around the surname e.g. to search for my name I would type: Martin /Dunstan/ The trailing "/" can be left out if you want and you only have to type the first part of the surname. If the wrong person is found then return to the menu and select "Find again". Geni will then look for the next matching individual. Note that the search is case insensitive which means that lower and upper case letters match each other. For example you can search for someone called John using both "john" and "John". 14.To search for someone by their surname you should use the * "wildcard" e.g. */dunstan/ will find the first person with the surname Dunstan. This way could loop through all the individuals with a given surname in your database, or quickly find someone with an unusual name. 15.The * wildcard can also be used in place of information you don't know, for example middle names or unusual spellings e.g. mart*/dunstan/ could be used to find all of the following names: Martin Dunstan Martyn Dunstan Martin William Dunstan Martina Dunstan The wildcard is also handy for looking for people in the GENIDEMO.GED file. Try searching for "henry*viii" to find King Henry VIII and his family. 16.Finally the "Zoom in" and "Zoom out" menu options change the font size. If you choose the smallest font you can get four generations (up to great-grandparents) on the tree display! Get out your magnifying glass though. The clock window can be changed or removed by holding down the "Control" key and pressing MENU. Repeat this until you have what you want. ================================================================ (c) Martin N Dunstan (mnd@dcs.st-and.ac.uk) February 17th 1998 ================================================================