<preface id="gramps-preface">
<!--
User Manual for Gramps - a GTK+/GNOME based genealogy program
Copyright (C) 2003-2005 Alexander Roitman
This document is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
-->
<!-- $Id$ -->
<title>Preface</title>
<para>
&app; is a free software package designed to help you with
genealogical research. It allows you to store, edit, and research
genealogical data using your computer. &app; is an open source
software package, which means you are free to run it on any number
of computers, examine the code, make changes, and redistribute as
many copies as you like. It is developed and maintained by a
worldwide team of volunteers and is available at no cost from the
project web site and from many software distributions
</para>
<sect1 id="why-gramps">
<title>Why use GRAMPS?</title>
<para>
Most genealogy programs allow the researcher to input
information related to a family tree. They can usually display
descendant or ancestral relationships through graphical
displays, charts, or reports. Some allow pictures or other media
to be inserted to enhance the raw data. Most provide a means to
include data on individuals or families that may or may not be
related to the primary family being researched. And they may
include other features such as exporting or importing to and
from other programs and printing data contained in various
reports.
</para><para>
&app; has all these capabilities and more. Notably, it allows
you to integrate bits and pieces of stray data as the arise from
your research and put all this information in one place - your
computer. You can then use the speed, power, and accuracy of
your computer to store, manipulate, correlate, and analyze your
data, rather than messing with reams of paper.
</para><para>
&app; has the power to let you rearrange your data in any order
or sequence and to help you fill gaps in genealogical
relationships.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="whats-new">
<title>What's new since 1.0.X</title>
<para>
This section lists most notable changes from the previous
stable branch of &app;, the 1.0.X.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>Berkeley database backend</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The default format for &app; is now the BSDDB database.
This change allowed us to overcome performance issues and
memory requirements of the 1.0.X branch. With the database
backend, the database sizes of up to a hundred thousand
people do not present a major obstacle any longer.
</para><para>
The default extension for &app; BSDDB database files is
grdb. The new format is open and fully documented in the
developer's API reference distributed with the source of
&app;.
</para><para>
A consequence of the new database backend is that the
changes, once approved by the user, are applied
immediately. In short, once you click
<guibutton>OK</guibutton> in the Person, Family, Source,
Place, Media object, or Event editor, all the changes made
to this object are recorded in the database. No saving is
necessary (or even possible). The analog of quitting
without saving would be abandoning all changes and
quitting. Also, it is possible to undo recent actions.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Interface improvements</term>
<listitem>
<para>
There were numerous changes in the interface. Most of them
are subtle and incremental improvements, and all of them
cannot be listed here. The most noticeable changes are:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Removal of alphabetical tabs
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Ability to add/remove/rearrange columns in list views
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Removal of Save function and addition of Undo
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Proper window management and removal of most modal windows
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Support for Tip of the Day
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Person-dependent context menus (right-click) in Pedigree View
listing parents, children, spouses, and siblings
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Export wizard
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Built-in Find function in list views
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Date selector dialog
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Name editor enhancements: patronymic names and non-default
grouping
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Recent file support (both gramps-specific and gnome-wide)
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
Other database backends
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Along with the BSDDB backend, the in-memory database handling
for &app; XML and GEDCOM formats has been added. Simply put, it
is now possible to natively open data in those two formats
(although the preferred and default format is grdb) and work with
that data, without necessarily setting up an empty database and
then importing into it. This approach requires holding all data in
memory, so it is only useful for small databases (depending on the
available memory size). In such mode, the data is automatically
saved upon exit, to mimic the functionality of the real database.
<warning id="gedcom-inmem1-warn">
<title>GEDCOM Editing</title>
<para>
Please keep in mind that some information in GEDCOM
file may be lost during import into &app;. Simply
opening and viewing the file will not change it.
However, if any changes were made and they were not
abandoned upon exit, exiting &app; will save the data,
with the possible data loss.
</para>
</warning>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Import and Export</term>
<listitem>
<para>
New import and export filters available for the GeneWeb format.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Reports</term>
<listitem>
<para>
A new report -- Statistics Chart -- has been added to &app;.
</para><para>
An overall change of the whole report framework has been
accomplished. All reports now remember their options. It
is possible to generate reports from the command line,
without launching the interactive &app; session. The
report API is much simpler now, making it easy to write a
custom report. A single code instance may be used for a
standalone report, a book item, and a command-line
report.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Command line</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The new command line functionality includes opening the
filename argument given without any flags, as well as new
flags and options for report generation. Also, the
addition of new formats leads to additional available
format options.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Internationalization</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The approach for entering and displaying dates has been
completely re-worked. In particular, the new framework
allows for a deeper localization of displayed dates than
was ever possible using the translatable strings.
</para><para>
The internationalization of names have also been improved.
Names can be grouped under a non-default
string. Patronymic names are supported, and it is easy to
program new ways of displaying names, as may be required
by various cultures and languages.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Desktop integration</term>
<listitem>
<para>
All formats known to &app; are now registered as mime
types, each with its icon and &app; as a default
handler. Double-clicking on a file with any of these
formats will launch &app; and open that file. &app; also
added support for the recent documents
functionality. This is on both the GNOME-wide level
and within the &app;.
</para><para>
The preferences are now properly stored using GConf, with
schemas, partitioning of keys into smaller directories,
error checking, and notification.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="typography">
<title>Typographical conventions</title>
<para>
In this book, some words are marked with special typography:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<application>Applications</application>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<command>Commands</command> you type at the command line
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<filename>Filenames</filename>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<replaceable>Replaceable text</replaceable>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<guilabel>Labels</guilabel> for buttons and other
portions of the graphical interface
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Menu selections look like this:
<menuchoice>
<guimenu>Menu</guimenu>
<guisubmenu>Submenu</guisubmenu>
<guimenuitem>Menu Item</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<guibutton>Buttons</guibutton> you can click
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<userinput>Anything you type in</userinput>
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
The manual also provides assorted bits of additional information in
tips and notes, as follows.
<tip id="example-tip">
<title>Tip</title>
<para>
Tips and bits of extra information will look like
this.
</para>
</tip>
<note id="example-note">
<title>Note</title>
<para>
Notes will look like this.
</para>
</note>
</para>
<para>
Finally, there are warnings, notifying you where you should be careful:
<warning id="example-warning">
<title>Example Warning</title>
<para>
This is what a warning looks like. If there's a chance
you'll run into trouble, you will be warned beforehand.
</para>
</warning>
</para>
</sect1>
</preface>