Gramps has 2 import/export plugins that aren’t quite the dialect that my tools use.
Both of the File Formats have headers that identify the tool / version that I want to use. But Gramps doesn’t have any dialect auto switching that reads the identifier and uses the appropriate plug-in.
For instance, my smart phone (and all the ones I’ve tried) will read/write v2.1 vCard but Gramps only supports 3.0 version. (The difference is small enough that mangling the internal identifier still brings in the critical data… albeit with some complaint.)
I might eventually clone the 3.0 plugin and tweak it for 2.1 … but it would be nice if the “autodetect” option in the Import read the headers of the file and could branch to a dialect based on that data.
More importantly, there are dialects of GEDCOM 5.5.x that the importers could be supported more intelligently. Gramps has a couple importer and exporters of GEDCOM dialect. It just isn’t obvious which dialect plugin goes with which Genealogy tool. And Gramps is not smart enough to choose by itself or offer a choice of likely possibilities.
For instance, the WikiTree dialect misuses a couple tags. If mangles the GIVN (given name) and inserts custom _MIDN (middle name) and _PGVN (a bastardized combination of the standard NICK and our _rufname) tags to compensate. Fortunately, it has the NAME redundancy in the original form where the Gramps GEDCOM importer can recover the data. Unfortunately, the importer assumes the mangled GIVN is to take precedence. If the autodetect found SOUR WikiTree.com and routed to a WikiTree dialect GEDCOM importer, then Gramps could adapt to such simple oddities. (Possibly even do a more complex adaptation of their “Biography” notes into Citation Notes for a WikiTree “Source” with the URL as the citation’s “Page”
0 HEAD
1 SOUR WikiTree.com
2 NAME WikiTree: The Free Family Tree
2 CORP Interesting.com, Inc.
1 DATE 18 Nov 2024
2 TIME 21:33:48 UTC
1 CHAR UTF-8
1 FILE 9566856-b01f2c.ged
1 COPR Interesting.com, Inc. and Brian McCullough
1 SUBM @SUBM@
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5.1
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 NOTE This file contains private information and may not be redistributed, published, or made public.
0 @SUBM@ SUBM
The Exporter dialect feedback is much more confusing
