when I press f11 and the screen maximizes, the 3 horizontal lines that give the drop-down menu disappear too along with the titlebar. If I use the maximize carrot, I keep the titlebar and the 3 horizontal lines. So there is a difference between the f11 and the maximize carrot.
Can you try Alt+Shift+F12 ?
This toggle option (reportedly) enables/disables KDE desktop effects.
Another suggestion was that some changes to configurations (& some distro updates) create a change in settings files for individual applications. But switching back does not revert those changes. You have to fix 'em all manually!
- change the setting in system settings to “In application”. (System Setings > Style > and in Menubar Style have selected In Application)
- vim.tiny ~/.kde/share/config/ [Application name]
- Change the line “MenuBar=Disabled” to “MenuBar=Enabled” (or just delete the line)
- start [Application name] check if still no menubar
When you DO find time, might I suggest that you start by trying to create a learning/testing tree? Use the importing the example.gramps wiki instructions to create some sample data.
This has all the data used in the Wiki’s illustrations & examples. It is REALLY hard to grasp how Gramps works without data… but learning how to enter data is easier once you grasp how Gramps works. (There a little chicken & the egg problem here!)
You can switch between Trees once you get those missing menus back!
I uploaded my full gedcom from ancestry to preserve it and clean out the duplicates and other garbage ancestry.com keeps inserting. My intent was to use ancestry and other dna services to find family members documents and then put them onto a permanent database that won’t get altered. This Gramps is not easy to work with and certainly not very intuitive.
One thing that really bit me was giving a tree a name and attempting to work with two trees. Gramps seems to give the tree name a code, so that when I want to look at the other tree I have to figure out what the code is for the tree name to get the right tree to look at. I ended up deleting them and just working with one code as I can’t remember which code was which tree name. What a PITA!
How do you actually open your Gramps Database?
If you use the Family Tree Manager (CTRL + O on windows) you will have a list of named familytrees there, and if you don’t like the name you first gave them, you can change them as you like …
There are no reason to open the Gramps databases from Explorer or Finder if that is what you are doing …
Yes, there are something to learn to use Gramps, but when you have learned the basic of it, you will find it will give you a lot of joy because of all the feature you can utilize of you want to …
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Well, the files in the Family Tree Database path are ‘working’ files and really shouldn’t be touched by anything but Gramps. They have ‘pickled’ data structures & it is a single user database configuration.
If you HAVE to touch the data from outside of Gramps, you ought to be working with the backup or Export file instead. They have more user-friendly filenames and user readable/editable structures.
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I wonder if @fritz is opening from the OS ‘Dolphin’ file manager because the OS still has the Gramps menu bar disabled?
If so, he’s going to be running into endless roadblocks. There will be no way to make the Gramps user experience ‘livable’ until those menus are back.
From a Gramps icon near the upper left corner, a down arrow provides a drop menu of a file location with what looks like an 8-bit hexi-decimal number for a tree name. I would call that definitely not an English name and not what I named the tree. The other Gramps icon further into the upper left corner provides a drop down menu that provides a “Manage Family Trees” on second panel. I got rid of the other practice play trees, because I couldn’t tell which one was which from the previous menu. But then that was before I discovered I am/was missing menus.
The other thing that weirds me out about Gramps is from the launcher it has “root” power. I am wondering if this shouldn’t be changed to a user level and what else I should do to it. Root level powers can be abused and might be a security problem.
I open the Gramps by selecting the launcher in the “apps” menu. It automatically launches the last tree before closing. I don’t use windows so I know nothing of explorer or finder. Now that I have the missing menu available, I can proceed to work through the tutorial.
There’s still something wonky with your installation. Yes, the Root/Admin rights should only be invoked when installing Gramps. And then, only when installing it for All Users. Gramps should only be using User level rights during normal operation. Add-ons, preferences, map tiles, backups & Tree data all go into a User Directory folder. That’s how the Windows & Mac installers set things up automatically. The KDE GUI package installer for Linux & BSD may be configured incorrectly. (If you manually installed or Gramps was part of your OS Distro, it is more likely that that configuration was not set up to meet Gramps standards.)
In the case of this 1st step, a missing menubar should not be an obstacle. The Gramps icon and the down arrowhead menu will do the same thing as the 1st two menu items on the “Family Trees” menu: the “Manage Family Trees…” and “Open Recent” list.
And yes, launching Gramps should automatically load the Tree that was active at the end of the previous session. (That is a Preferences… option in the Family Tree tab – if you have access to the Edit menubar tab.)
However, the 8-character hexadecimal folders are not supposed to be visible from the interface. (The Info does show that path but it’s just for completeness as a troubleshooter tool.) Instead, Gramps is supposed to scan the database path folder and build a human-friendly alias listing for the contents of each of those arbitrarily named database folders. The name.txt has the human-friendly Tree name. The database.txt identifies what database engine format in which the .db file is written.
From the OS, it is very un-intuitive.
But the Manage Family Trees dialog should not have the hexadecimal names (unless you chose to rename the Tree to match the OS foldername)
Choosing the Info button identifies the contents of working folder, its OS path/filename, and the Alias used in the Trees management.
Thanks emyoulation,
I’m able to find most of what you show. Open recent is not there, but then I don’t have recent things done, maybe that’s why. I do have this permissions setting in the launcher that concerns me as shown from the launcher as properties for gramps.desktop.
the files appear to be located in my /home/username/.gramps. when I switch to /username folder the name immediately changes to /Home. I think this is the OS automatically replacing my username with /Home instead of my name, all of the hidden files and folders for me are in this folder including /.gramps. Maybe this isn’t so much of a concern as when I check my /Home/.gramps the permissions there have it as User: me and Group: me. Perhaps it’s just the launcher that needs root?
OK, I just caught a screenshot of the menubar and now it’s gone again. It’s located above the titlebar? And not there after saving the screenshot. There is something very weird going on.
Gone
Oops, guess it’s me. I clicked in a blank area of gramps and suddenly there it is again! If I click on another monitor the Gramps menubar disappears! ?
That’s definitely the window management from your OS
In MS-Windoze, I have tools that hide the application menu bar, minimize it, or dim it. This is all controlled ‘contextually’ — depending on which Window or object is actively selected or implicitly indicated. I don’t use any of those options because I find it too distracting.
Unfortunately for me, a recent Windows update decided the OS should start dimming my Gramps windows aggressively (And inaccurately!) It keeps dimming the clipboard, editors, Quick Views or main window as if the floating ‘palette’ windows/dialogs were all ‘modal’ instead of ‘modeless’ windows!
Microsoft probably thought it would help users by forcing their focus track to the active entry area. Instead, it reduces the value of a multiple screen system. This doesn’t interfere with operation but a dimmed window is darned hard to read! So I’ve got an annoying (but less obstructive) GUI setting to track down too.
This sounds similar but your OS doing more extensive information hiding.
We all have such occasional oddnesses caused by our OSes. I might be able to help a MS track down such a problem… but I’m just not familiar with any of flavors of the Linux cookbook.
The ▼ (down triangle) icon on the Toolbar is ‘Open Recent’
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