My very first contribution to Gramps (I think it was 2005) was the Calendar graphical report. Of course, since then it has dozens and dozens of people make contributions to it, and it was already built on top of the amazing report infrastructure that had been written before.
Since this is the time for a new year for many cultures, I thought I’d give some hints about how you can make a Calendar yourself for your family.
First, figuring out who belongs on the calendar and who doesn’t is a minefield! Do you include divorced spouses? Sometimes, but not always. You can select a filter as to who belongs, but I ended up manually tagging people, and creating a filter for that tag. Then I don’t have to rely on a formula, even though it takes some time to tag them.
Getting names correct is also rife with issues. For my family, I pick “Wives use husband’s surname (from last family listed)” which works for most families. That allows their married names on the anniversary, but uses their default name for their birthdays. But you can also add a “Preferred Name” to women who kept their own name, and it will use that for anniversaries. Make sure you get that right (ask my wife)!
The next tricky part is to make sure the names fit in the calendar box. I do the following:
- Adjust the font (I use 8pt for CAL-Text on the style editor)
- Make sure you use landscape on the paper options, and adjust the margins. You probably don’t need 1 inch for every margin.
- I select “Common Surname” as the name format. That will use a nickname if provided, and doesn’t include the middle names. You might have to manually add a nickname to a person if needed.
If the names don’t fit in the box, you can always go with the Birthday and Anniversary Report.
In the text area at the bottom, I put a link to the on-line family tree (thanks gramps-web!) with a guest account username and password.
And I include the holidays for my country. I wrote a holiday computing system for the Calendar that has become Gramps’ libholiday. My favorite equation is for the Christian Easter holiday. It involves yearly, weekly, and lunar calendars. If I remember correctly, it is the first Sunday, after the 4th full moon, after the new year. If you want to see the code, here it is.
I hope this is useful. Happy New Year!
