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* doc/gramps-manual/C/mainwin.xml: Add figure. * FAQ, doc/gramps-manual/C/faq.xml: Add two questions. svn: r2449
336 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
336 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
**** This is GRAMPS Frequently Asked Questions ****
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The questions below frequently come up in mailing list discussions and forums.
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This list is by no means complete. If you would like to add questions/answers
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to this list, please email your suggestions to gramps-devel@lists.sf.net
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**** Index ****
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1. What is GRAMPS?
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2. Where do I get it and how much does it cost?
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3. Does it work with Windows (tm)?
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4. Does it work with the Mac?
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5. Does it work with KDE?
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6. Do I really have to have GNOME installed?
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7. What version of GNOME do I need?
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8. Is GRAMPS compatible with other genealogical software (GenApps)?
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9. Can GRAMPS read files created by GenApp X?
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10. Can GRAMPS write files readable by GenApp X?
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11. Can GRAMPS print a genealogical tree for my family?
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12. In what formats can GRAMPS output its reports?
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13. Is GRAMPS compatible with the Internet?
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14. Can I create custom reports/filters/whatever?
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15. What standards does GRAMPS support?
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16. What is the maximum database size (bytes) GRAMPS can handle?
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17. How many people can GRAMPS database handle?
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18. Why is GRAMPS running so slowly?
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19. My database is really big.
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Is there a way around loading all the data into memory?
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20. Why are non-latin characters displayed as garbage in PDF/PS reports?
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21. Why can I not add/remove/edit columns to the lists in People View
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and Family View?
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22. I would like to contribute to GRAMPS by writing my favorite report.
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How do I do that?
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23. I found a bug and I want it fixed right now! What do I do?
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24. It is obvious that GRAMPS absolutely needs to become a (client-server/
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web-based/PHP/weblog/Javascript/C++/distributed/KDE/Motif/Tcl/Win32/C#/
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You-name-it) application.
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When is this going to happen?
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**** Questions and answers ****
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1. What is GRAMPS?
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GRAMPS is the Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Program System.
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In other words, it is a personal genealogy program letting you store, edit,
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and research genealogical data using the powers of your computer.
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2. Where do I get it and how much does it cost?
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GRAMPS can be downloaded from http://sf.net/projects/gramps at no charge.
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GRAMPS is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License.
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You have full access to the source code and are allowed to distribute the
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program and source code freely.
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3. Does it work with Windows (tm)?
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No. GRAMPS uses the GTK and GNOME libraries. While the GTK libraries
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have been ported to Windows, the GNOME libraries have not.
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This, however, may change in the future.
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4. Does it work with the Mac?
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The Fink project (http://fink.sf.net) has ported an old version of
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GRAMPS (0.8.0) to OSX. The Mac OSX port is not directly supported by
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the GRAMPS project, primarily because none of the GRAMPS developers
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have access to Mac OSX.
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The GNOME 2 version of GRAMPS (0.9.x) does not appear to have been
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ported by the Fink project. Please contact the Fink project for more
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information.
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5. Does it work with KDE?
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Yes, as long as the required GNOME libraries are installed.
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6. Do I really have to have GNOME installed?
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Yes, but you do not have to be running the GNOME desktop.
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7. What version of GNOME do I need?
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The latest versions of gramps (0.9.0 and higher) require GNOME 2.0 or higher.
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Previous versions required GNOME 1.X.
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8. Is GRAMPS compatible with other genealogical software (GenApps)?
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GRAMPS makes every effort to maintain compatibility with GEDCOM, the general
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standard of recording genealogical information. We have import and export
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filters that enable GRAMPS to read and write GEDCOM files.
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It is important to understand that the GEDCOM standard is poorly implemented --
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virtually every genealogical software has its own "flavor" of GEDCOM. As we
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learn about new flavor, the import/export filters can be created very quickly.
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However, finding out about the unknown flavors requires user feedback.
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Please feel free to inform us about any GEDCOM flavor not supported by GRAMPS,
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and we will do our best to support it!
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9. Can GRAMPS read files created by GenApp X?
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See above.
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10. Can GRAMPS write files readable by GenApp X?
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See above.
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11. Can GRAMPS print a genealogical tree for my family?
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Yes. Different people have different ideas of what a genealogical tree is.
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Some think of it as a chart going from the distant ancestor and listing
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all his/her descendants and their families. Others think it should be a
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chart going from the person back in time, listing the ancestors and their
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families. Yet other people think of a table, text report, etc.
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GRAMPS can produce any of the above, and many more different charts and
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reports. Moreover, the plugin architechture enables users (you) to create
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their own plugins which could be new reports, charts, or research tools.
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12. In what formats can GRAMPS output its reports?
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Text reports are available in HTML, PDF, AbiWord, KWord, LaTeX, RTF, and
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OpenOffice formats. Graphical reports (charts and diagrams) are available in
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PostScript, PDF, SVG, OpenOffice and GraphViz formats.
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13. Is GRAMPS compatible with the Internet?
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GRAMPS can store web addresses and direct your browser to them. It can import
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data that you download from the Internet. It can export data that you could
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send over the Internet. GRAMPS is familiar with the standard file formats
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widely used on the Internet (e.g. JPEG, PNG, and GIF images, MP3, OGG, and
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WAV sound files, QuickTime, MPEG, and AVI movie files, etc). Other than that,
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there is little that a genealogical program can do with the Internet :-)
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14. Can I create custom reports/filters/whatever?
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Yes. There are many levels of customization. One is creating or modifying
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the templates used for the reports. This gives you some control over
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the fonts, colors, and some layout of the reports. You can also use GRAMPS
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controls in the report dialogs to tell what contents should be used for a
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particular report. In addition to this, you have an ability to create your
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own filters -- this is useful in selecting people based on criteria set
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by you. You can combine these filters to create new, more complex filters.
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Finally, you have an option to create your own plugins. These may be new
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reports, research tools, import/export filters, etc. This assumes some
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knowledge of programming in Python.
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15. What standards does GRAMPS support?
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The nice thing about the standards is that there never is a shortage of
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them :-). GRAMPS is tested to support the following flavors of GEDCOM:
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GEDCOM5.5, Brother's Keeper, Family Origins, Familty Tree Maker, Ftree,
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GeneWeb, Legacy, Personal Ancestral File, Pro-Gen, Reunion, and
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Visual Genealogie.
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16. What is the maximum database size (bytes) GRAMPS can handle?
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GRAMPS has no hard limits on the size of a database that it can handle.
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In reality, however, there are practical limits. Currently GRAMPS loads all
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data into memory, so the limiting factor tends to be the available memory
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on the system.
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17. How many people can GRAMPS database handle?
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We have found that on a typical system, GRAMPS tends to bog down after the
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database has around 15,000 people. Again, this is dependant on how much
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memory you have.
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18. Why is GRAMPS running so slowly?
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If GRAMPS seems too slow to you, it is most likely that you have a large
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database. Currently, GRAMPS loads all the database into memory, therefore
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large databases tend to be less than responsive. Specifically, the system
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can be virtually brought to its knees if swapping is needed for GRAMPS' data.
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This will be addressed in the next stable release following version 1.0.
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Temporarily, adding more memory could make a huge difference, but we realize
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that this is a poor way of treating the problem. If you would like to help
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with the implementation of the real database backend, please don't hesitate
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to email us at gramps-devel@lists.sf.net
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19. My database is really big.
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Is there a way around loading all the data into memory?
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Currently, there is no way around it. However, this is our biggest priority
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after releasing version 1.0. The real database backend will be incorporated
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in the next stable release (1.2) which will dramatically improve performance
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in both speed and memory usage.
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20. Why are non-latin characters displayed as garbage in PDF/PS reports?
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This is a known problem -- PS (and PDF) have builtin fonts which pretty much
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reflect the latin-1 charset. Any font in principle could be used with PS/PDF
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but then it would have to be embedded in the file. This is problematic since
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every system has different idea about fonts and their setup.
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This should be resolved as we move to gnome-print. In the meantime, a useable
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workaround is to generate reports in OpenOffice.org format and then export
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to PDF from the OpenOffice.org application.
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21. Why can I not add/remove/edit columns to the lists in People View
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and Family View?
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This will be addressed after the TreeModelSort bug is fixed in pygtk,
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see http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125172 for the details.
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Once the patch is committed and incorporated into pygtk, we will add the
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ability to add/remove/edit sortable columns.
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22. I would like to contribute to GRAMPS by writing my favorite report.
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How do I do that?
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The easiest way to contribute to reports, filters, tools, etc. is to copy
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an existing GRAMPS report, filter, or tool. If you can create what you want
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by modifying existing code -- great! If your idea does not fit into the logic
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of any existing GRAMPS tool, the following page may provide some help in
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writing your own plugin from scratch:
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http://gramps.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/GrampsDevelopersPage
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If you need more help or would like to discuss your idea with us, please
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do not hesitate to contact us at gramps-devel@lists.sf.net
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To test your work in progress, you may save your plugin under
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$HOME/.gramps/plugins directory and it should be found and imported on startup.
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The correctly written plugin will register itself with GRAMPS, create menu
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item, and so on.
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If you are happy with your plugin and would like to contribute your code
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back to the GRAMPS project, you are very welcome to do so by contacting us
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at gramps-devel@lists.sf.net
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23. I found a bug and I want it fixed right now! What do I do?
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The best thing you can do is to fix the bug and send the patch to
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gramps-devel@lists.sf.net :-)
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The next best thing would be to submit a good bug report. This can be done in
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one of the two ways: (1) send your report to gramps-bugs@lists.sf.net
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or (2) file your report with the bug tracker system at
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http://sf.net/tracker/?group_id=25770&atid=385137 (this function is also
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available by selecting "Help->Report a bug" from gramps main menu).
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A good bug report would include:
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(1) Version of gramps you were using when you encountered the bug
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(available through Help->About menu item)
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(2) Language under which gramps was run
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(available by executing "echo $LANG" in your terminal)
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(3) Symptoms indicating that this is indeed a bug
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(4) Any Traceback messages, error messages, warnings, etc, that showed up
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in your terminal or a in separate traceback window
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Most problems can be fixed quickly provided there is enough information.
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To ensure this, please follow up on your bug reports. In particular, if you
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file a bug report with sf.net bug tracker, PLEASE log into sf.net before
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filing (register your free account if you don't have one). Then we will have
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a way of contacting you should we need more information. If you still choose
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to file your report anonymously, at least check every so often whether your
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report page has something new posted, as it probably would.
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If the above explanations seem vague, please follow this link:
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http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
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24. It is obvious that GRAMPS absolutely needs to become a (client-server/
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web-based/PHP/weblog/Javascript/C++/distributed/KDE/Motif/Tcl/Win32/
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C#/You-name-it) application.
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When is this going to happen?
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The surest way to see it happen is to get it done by yourself. Since
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GRAMPS is free/open source, nobody prevents you from taking all of the
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code and continuing its development in whatever direction you see fit.
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In doing so, you may consider giving your new project another name to
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avoid confusion with the continuing GRAMPS development. If you would
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like the GRAMPS project to provide advice, expertise, filters, etc.,
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we will gladly cooperate with your new project, to ensure compatability
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or import/export options to your new format of a project.
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If, however, you would like the GRAMPS project to to adopt your strategy,
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you would need to convince GRAMPS developers that your strategy is good
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for GRAMPS and superior to the present development strategy.
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HINT: if GRAMPS developers are still not convinced after about three
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messages sent to gramps-devel, maybe you are better off on your own
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rather than with a company of retards who can't fully realize the
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potential of your great idea :-)
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**** End of GRAMPS Frequently Asked Questions ****
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$Id$
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