New FamilyTreeView Addon

[ztlxltl]

@emyoulation

We can wait for Nick to finish his holiday for the definitive answer.

@Nick-Hall
Looks like you are back from your holiday. May I ask you to take a look at this issue regarding providing a fallback for the Addon Manager for systems where the OS has a language other than English?

@emyoulation

GlopGlop ( @grocanar , Éric) reports (on the Geneanet French language Gramps subforum) that the addon will not display when the project is added to the Addon Manager. GlopGlop’s system is french only.

When browsing the GitHub ‘dist’ branch (FamilyTreeView/gramps52/listings at dist · ztlxltl/FamilyTreeView · GitHub), I note that there is only a addons-en.json file and no generic nor french version.

@Nick-Hall is a addons.json required as a fallback in the Addon Manager to support users who do not have English installed in their OS?

[stuck]

@ztlxltl Unless I’m mistaken, something has changed in a recent update with the way FTV handles multiple families.

Initially, if started from myself I could browse ‘up’ the tree to an ancestor and see him and his second wife. I could them continue further up the tree to his parents. Now though, when I reach this ancestor, I still see him and his second wife but his parents no longer appear so I can’t go any further up.

Working down the tree is still the same. I reach this ancestor and can only see him and his first wife and can’t get to the family from his second wife.

[ztlxltl]

@stuck
The logic of which ancestors are shown should not have changed (yet*).

Do you mean by “browse ‘up’” to repeatedly set an ancestor of the current active person as the new active person, or do you mean to pan the canvas so that ancestors become visible? In the second case, please check in the config window that the “Default number of ancestor generations to show” is not too low. Otherwise, I suggest you create a new issue on GitHub and upload a tree of dummy persons with the same structure (an ancestor with a second wife in the correct generation with respect to the home person, etc.). Make sure the new tree has the same problem in FTV.

* Be aware that I’m currently working on an update that introduces expanders. This update will change the logic about which persons/families to show and which not to show. If you want to update, the problem may resolve itself. If not, be sure to open an issue then.

[stuck]

@ztlxltl

Do you mean by “browse ‘up’” to repeatedly set an ancestor of the current active person as the new active person

Yes.

@ztlxltl

please check in the config window that the “Default number of ancestor generations to show” is not too low

Duh! :stupidMe: That was the problem, sorry. I guess an update reset this back to 2 and I didn’t think to check / forgot about this setting.

Move along now, nothing to see here - except my embarrassment.

[ztlxltl]

On several occasions I promised to implement “expanders” to expand the visualized tree by more persons and families. Today I finally fixed the last of several bugs and implemented a config page to customize the expanders. You can try them out in the latest version (v0.1.37). The expanders are small circles with an arrow on or next to the line they control. Clicking them expands or collapses the person and families connected by that line. If there is no expander, there are no other persons/families to expand.

Currently, expanders are implemented for parents/ancestors, children/descendants and other families. I plan to implement them for other/alternative parents of a person as well as children of ancestors (siblings of the active person or ancestors).

I’m not sure if the icons on the expanders are intuitive to everyone. They are intuitive to me, but I’ve been working with them for quite a while (in the HTML/CSS/JS implementation), so maybe I’m just used to them. I can also think of using plus/minus symbols instead of the arrow/chevron.

Feel free to give me feedback on the visualization. I tested quite a few cases that I thought might be problematic and fixed everything I could find. But I’m sure I haven’t thought of all possibilities, so if there are overlapping person boxes or something else looks weird, I’m open to bug reports.

[This paragraph was added later:]
To those who suggested alternatives for the other families: I have seen your suggestion and will consider implementing alternative visualizations based on your suggestions. I just used the visualization I had already implemented and worked on the expanders and their logic.

I’d also like to mention that I’ve reduced the maximum number of generations to be shown initially to 20. This is motivated by the fact that for very large trees it takes quite a while to load the visualization. I even had some strange (memory?) problems when trying to show 100 generations of the royal example tree from @emyoulation’s repo. With the new limit, the view should be much more robust. Maybe I’ll introduce a person limit in the future. Then this value can be increased again.
Note that with the new expanders you can still expand many more generations than the 20, just not for all ancestors with one click, so you will notice if your computer takes more than a few seconds to process everything.

In the config window, you can customize which expanders to show and which to expand (i.e. which corresponding subtrees to show) by default (e.g. other families).

The expanders are a pretty essential feature for me when I just want to browse the tree and look around. I hope this is helpful for some of you as well.
As always, let me know your feedback and bug reports!

[Woody]

@ztlxltl

You have to double-click on the connection line, not the person/family box.
If the connection is just vertical, the bottom half will take you to the ancestor family and the top half will take you to the descendant.
If the connection has a horizontal line, the boundary between these two different “zones” is at the horizontal line itself: the vertical line connecting the descendant to the horizontal part can be double-clicked to jump to the ancestor family, the vertical line connecting the ancestor family to the horizontal line lets you jump to the descendant. The horizontal part itself is not clickable

I tried it. It works, but when the whole image jumps to the previous or next person, I lose my orientation. Maybe it would be better to design the lines differently. More classic.
Personally, I prefer dragging them back and forth. Then I know where I am.

[DaveSch]

My mother now has all of her great-grandchildren!!

[Woody]

@ztlxltl

I can increase the distance between the lines even more but this will increase the generation distance massively. I’m not sure if this will help.
You can modify the distance yourself, if you want to play around with it. Modify the numer in the line self.connection_sep = 10 in the file family_tree_view_canvas_manager.py. Most likely, you have to restart Gramps every time after modifying (and saving) the file.

I set the spacing to 60. This magnifies the whole view, but I can still follow the lines.

[Woody]

@ztlxltl

I’d also like to mention that I’ve reduced the maximum number of generations to be shown initially to 20.

Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Woody]

@ztlxltl

Feel free to give me feedback on the visualization. I tested quite a few cases that I thought might be problematic and fixed everything I could find. But I’m sure I haven’t thought of all possibilities, so if there are overlapping person boxes or something else looks weird, I’m open to bug reports.

Expanding the family tree is great.
I still have a representation that isn’t quite optimal.
My great-grandfather was married four times. His second wife had already been married before. If I now expand the second wife’s first marriage, the first marriage expands on the same horizontal line as the other marriages.

[ztlxltl]

@Woody

Thanks for the feedback!

Just to make sure I have this right:

• Perbar, Maria was married to Bruckner, Heinrich
• N, N was married to Perbar, Maria

(sorry if the names are wrong, it’s a bit pixelated)

With the visualization you proposed here it might be possible to visualize this.

I think the best way is to remove the option to expand other spouses of other spouses of a person for now. I’m not sure where to put N, N, especially if there are more spouses of Bruckner, Heinrich on the left.

[Bouscram]

Hi - This looks good AND is very ergonomic in my opinion (I just tested it for a few moments, but I love it!)

[Woody]

@ztlxltl

Just to make sure I have this right:

• Perbar, Maria was married to Bruckner, Heinrich
• N, N was married to Perbar, Maria

(sorry if the names are wrong, it’s a bit pixelated)

With the visualization you proposed here it might be possible to visualize this.

Yes, the connection is correct. The name ist Ferbar
With my visualization it could work.

[stuck]

@ztlxltl

Feel free to give me feedback on the visualization

The expanders work on my very simple tree. That means I can browse up the tree from myself without reaching a dead end when I get to the ancestor from which I descend via his second wife. Thank you, that’s a big help.

It does seem odd though that this second family expands to the left, which means all the children of that second family, who are younger than those of the first family, appear before their elder half siblings of the first family.

[ztlxltl]

@Woody

Maybe it would be better to design the lines differently. More classic.

@Woody
Could you please explain what you mean by a classic design of the lines? Maybe with a screenshot?

[ztlxltl]

@Bouscram

Hi - This looks good AND is very ergonomic in my opinion (I just tested it for a few moments, but I love it!)

@Bouscram
Thank you very much for the great feedback. Please feel free to report any problems or bugs you may encounter, and let me know if you have any suggestions for improving the view.

[csam]

Excelent !
Please, do not change the expanders - they are very intuitive.

In your example image, there’s a dotted line between the top pair and child. I haven’t seen that on my data. What does the dotted line indicate?

If I expand a second spouse, and edit one of the “expanded” persons, then the expanded graph is removed on clicking [save]. Is that intended?

Regards
Claus

[ztlxltl]

@stuck

Thank you, that’s a big help.

@stuck
I’m glad the feature is working well for you and that you find it helpful!

@stuck

It does seem odd though that this second family expands to the left, which means all the children of that second family, who are younger than those of the first family, appear before their elder half siblings of the first family.

Thanks for the question!
The side on which the “second family” is displayed depends on the side from which the subtree originates.

@stuck

his second wife

Most likely your ancestor is the first spouse in his “main” family (“main” in the sense that it connects him to your active person, i.e. you), he is displayed on the left side of that family. Other spouses are also displayed on his side and therefore appear on the left, the same applies to their children, and so on.

As a counter-example of why sorting each generation by date of birth would cause problems:
Imagine that your two subtrees (originating each from one of your ancestor’s marriages) have very different generation times (average time between births of two consecutive generations). Thus, the birth dates of one side could “overtake” those of the other side, i.e. the subtree that started later and whose first generation is born later could have earlier birth dates after a few generations compared to the people of the same generation in the other subtree (the descendants of the other marriage) after a few generations. If all the people in each generation were sorted by birth date (as you suggest), the two families (subtrees) would have to switch sides, creating a mess of criss-crossing lines.
Similarly, if you were to sort not only siblings but all cousins in a generation, the spaghetti of lines connecting everyone to the correct parents would hardly be an intuitively readable diagram.
I hope that what I’m trying to explain is understandable, and that this illustrates the problems that can arise if you try to sort too much.

[ztlxltl]

@csam

Excelent !
Please, do not change the expanders - they are very intuitive.

@csam
Thanks for your positive feedback! If no one has a strong counter-argument, I’ll leave the symbols as they are.

@csam

In your example image, there’s a dotted line between the top pair and child. I haven’t seen that on my data. What does the dotted line indicate?

The dashed lines are inspired by other charts, such as the built-in pedigree charts or the Graph View addon. If a line is dashed, it means that the child doesn’t have a birth relationship to any of the parents in the connected family (e.g. adopted, stepchild, foster, …). In the example tree (used for the screenshots), there are some non-birth relationships to illustrate the Gramps’ capabilities.

@csam

If I expand a second spouse, and edit one of the “expanded” persons, then the expanded graph is removed on clicking [save]. Is that intended?

Well, it’s not exactly intentional, but I know it happens. At some point the expanders have to be reset. (At least that’s what I had in mind, maybe not?) I choose to reset them always, except when an expander is expanded or collapsed. This “always” includes any changes to the database, including changing a person.
Maybe I’ll reset the expanders less often (e.g. only when the active person changes). But I’m not sure if this would cause problems when people or families are added or removed from the tree (in terms of the database).

[stuck]

@ztlxltl

I hope that what I’m trying to explain is understandable, and that this illustrates the problems that can arise if you try to sort too much.

Yes, thank you.

However, the Interactive Family Tree plugin keeps the two marriages in chronological order, i.e. the second wife appears to the right of the first wife, and descendant generations don’t seem to suffer from crossing lines. Maybe though it just that my tree is small so isn’t complex enough to reveal this sorting problem.