gramps/doc/gramps-manual/C/faq.xml

<appendix id="faq">

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	  User Manual for Gramps - a GTK+/GNOME based genealogy program

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      <title>Frequently Asked Questions</title>
      <para>This appendix contains the list of questions that frequently come 
      up in mailing list discussions and forums. This list is by no means 
      complete. If you would like to add questions/answers to this list, 
      please email your suggestions to <ulink url="mailto:gramps-devel@lists.sf.net"  
      type="mailto">gramps-devel@lists.sf.net</ulink>
      </para>
      
      <variablelist>


      <varlistentry><term>What is &app;?</term>
      <listitem><para> &app; is the Genealogical Research and Analysis 
      Management Program System. In other words, it is a personal genealogy 
      program letting you store, edit, and research genealogical data using 
      the powers of your computer. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Where do I get it and how much does it cost?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
&app; can be downloaded from <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/gramps" 
type="http">http://sf.net/projects/gramps</ulink> at no charge. 
&app; is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License. 
You have full access to the source code and are allowed to distribute the 
program and source code freely. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Does it work with Windows (tm)?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
No. &app; uses the GTK and GNOME libraries. While the GTK libraries 
have been ported to Windows, the GNOME libraries have not.
This, however, may change in the future. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Does it work with the Mac?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
The Fink project (<ulink url="http://fink.sf.net" 
type="http">http://fink.sf.net</ulink>) has ported an old version of 
&app; (0.8.0) to OSX. The Mac OSX port is not directly supported by 
the &app; project, primarily because none of the &app; developers 
have access to Mac OSX.</para>

<para>The GNOME 2 version of &app; (0.9.x) does not appear to have been 
ported by the Fink project. Please contact the Fink project for more
information.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Does it work with KDE?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
Yes, as long as the required GNOME libraries are installed.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Do I really have to have GNOME installed?</term>
      <listitem><para> Yes, but you do not have to be running the GNOME desktop.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>What version of GNOME do I need?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
The latest versions of gramps (0.9.0 and higher) require GNOME 2.0 or higher.
Previous versions required GNOME 1.X. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Is &app; compatible with 
      other genealogical software (GenApps)?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
&app; makes every effort to maintain compatibility with GEDCOM, the general
standard of recording genealogical information. We have import and export
filters that enable &app; to read and write GEDCOM files. </para>

<para>
It is important to understand that the GEDCOM standard is poorly implemented --
virtually every genealogical software has its own "flavor" of GEDCOM. As we
learn about new flavor, the import/export filters can be created very quickly.
However, finding out about the unknown flavors requires user feedback. 
Please feel free to inform us about any GEDCOM flavor not supported by &app;, 
and we will do our best to support it! 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Can &app; read files created by GenApp X?</term>
      <listitem><para> See above.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Can &app; write files readable by GenApp X?</term>
      <listitem><para> See above.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Can &app; print a genealogical tree for my family?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
Yes. Different people have different ideas of what a genealogical tree is. 
Some think of it as a chart going from the distant ancestor and listing 
all his/her descendants and their families. Others think it should be a 
chart going from the person back in time, listing the ancestors and their 
families. Yet other people think of a table, text report, etc. </para>

<para>
&app; can produce any of the above, and many more different charts and 
reports. Moreover, the plugin architechture enables users (you) to create 
their own plugins which could be new reports, charts, or research tools. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>In what formats can &app; output its reports?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
Text reports are available in HTML, PDF, AbiWord, KWord, LaTeX, RTF, and
OpenOffice formats. Graphical reports (charts and diagrams) are available in
PostScript, PDF, SVG, OpenOffice and GraphViz formats. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Is &app; compatible with the Internet?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
&app; can store web addresses and direct your browser to them. It can import
data that you download from the Internet. It can export data that you could 
send over the Internet. &app; is familiar with the standard file formats 
widely used on the Internet (e.g. JPEG, PNG, and GIF images, MP3, OGG, and 
WAV sound files, QuickTime, MPEG, and AVI movie files, etc). Other than that, 
there is little that a genealogical program can do with the Internet :-) 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Can I create custom reports/filters/whatever?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
Yes. There are many levels of customization. One is creating or modifying 
the templates used for the reports. This gives you some control over 
the fonts, colors, and some layout of the reports. You can also use &app; 
controls in the report dialogs to tell what contents should be used for a 
particular report. In addition to this, you have an ability to create your 
own filters -- this is useful in selecting people based on criteria set 
by you. You can combine these filters to create new, more complex filters. 
Finally, you have an option to create your own plugins. These may be new 
reports, research tools, import/export filters, etc. This assumes some 
knowledge of programming in Python. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>What standards does &app; support?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
The nice thing about the standards is that there never is a shortage of 
them :-). &app; is tested to support the following flavors of GEDCOM: 
GEDCOM5.5, Brother's Keeper, Family Origins, Familty Tree Maker, Ftree, 
GeneWeb, Legacy, Personal Ancestral File, Pro-Gen, Reunion, and 
Visual Genealogie. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>What is the maximum database 
      size (bytes) &app; can handle?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
&app; has no hard limits on the size of a database that it can handle. 
In reality, however, there are practical limits. Currently &app; loads all 
data into memory, so the limiting factor tends to be the available memory 
on the system. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>How many people can &app; database handle?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
We have found that on a typical system, &app; tends to bog down after the
database has around 15,000 people. Again, this is dependant on how much
memory you have. 
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Why is &app; running so slowly?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
If &app; seems too slow to you, it is most likely that you have a large
database. Currently, &app; loads all the database into memory, therefore 
large databases tend to be less than responsive. Specifically, the system 
can be virtually brought to its knees if swapping is needed for &app;' data.
</para> <para>
This will be addressed in the next stable release following version 1.0. 
Temporarily, adding more memory could make a huge difference, but we realize
that this is a poor way of treating the problem. If you would like to help 
with the implementation of the real database backend, please don't hesitate 
to email us at <ulink url="mailto:gramps-devel@lists.sf.net" 
type="mailto">gramps-devel@lists.sf.net</ulink>
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>My database is really big. 
      Is there a way around loading all the data into memory?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
Currently, there is no way around it. However, this is our biggest priority
after releasing  version 1.0. The real database backend will be incorporated 
in the next stable release (1.2) which will dramatically improve performance 
in both speed and memory usage.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>I want to rerun the Startup dialog (druid). 
      How do I do this?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
      &app; keeps a flag in the GNOME configuration database to indicate 
      that the startup dialog has been run. To cause &app; to rerun this, 
      the flag needs to be reset. This can be done with the following 
      command: </para>
      
      <para><command>gconftool-2 -u /apps/gramps/startup</command>
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Why are non-latin characters displayed 
      as garbage in PDF/PS reports?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
This is a known problem -- PS (and PDF) have builtin fonts which pretty much 
reflect the latin-1 charset. Any font in principle could be used with PS/PDF 
but then it would have to be embedded in the file. This is problematic since 
every system has different idea about fonts and their setup.</para>

<para>
This should be resolved as we move to gnome-print. In the meantime, a useable 
workaround is to generate reports in OpenOffice.org format and then export 
to PDF from the OpenOffice.org application.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>Why can I not add/remove/edit columns to the lists 
      in People View and Family View?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
This will be addressed after the TreeModelSort bug is fixed in pygtk,
see <ulink url="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125172" 
type="http">http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125172</ulink>
 for the details.
Once the patch is committed and incorporated into pygtk, we will add the 
ability to add/remove/edit sortable columns.
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>I would like to contribute to &app; by writing 
      my favorite report. How do I do that?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
The easiest way to contribute to reports, filters, tools, etc. is to copy 
an existing &app; report, filter, or tool. If you can create what you want 
by modifying existing code -- great! If your idea does not fit into the logic
of any existing &app; tool, the <ulink 
url="http://gramps.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/GrampsDevelopersPage" 
type="http">following page</ulink> may provide some help in writing your 
own plugin from scratch.

If you need more help or would like to discuss your idea with us, 
please do not hesitate to contact us at <ulink 
url="mailto:gramps-devel@lists.sf.net" 
type="mailto">gramps-devel@lists.sf.net</ulink>
</para>

<para>
To test your work in progress, you may save your plugin under
<replaceable>$HOME/.gramps/plugins</replaceable> directory and it should 
be found and imported on startup. 
The correctly written plugin will register itself with &app;, create menu 
item, and so on.</para>

<para>
If you are happy with your plugin and would like to contribute your code 
back to the &app; project, you are very welcome to do so by contacting us 
at <ulink url="mailto:gramps-devel@lists.sf.net" 
type="mailto">gramps-devel@lists.sf.net</ulink>
      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>


      <varlistentry><term>I found a bug and I want it fixed right now! 
      What do I do?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
The best thing you can do is to fix the bug and send the patch to
<ulink url="mailto:gramps-devel@lists.sf.net" 
type="mailto">gramps-devel@lists.sf.net</ulink> :-)</para>

<para>
The next best thing would be to submit a good bug report. This can be done in
one of the two ways: (1) send your report to 
<ulink url="mailto:gramps-bugs@lists.sf.net" 
type="mailto">gramps-bugs@lists.sf.net</ulink>
or (2) file your report with the bug tracker system at 
<ulink url="http://sf.net/tracker/?group_id=25770" type="http">
http://sf.net/tracker/?group_id=25770&amp;atid=385137</ulink>
(this function is also available by selecting 
<menuchoice><guisubmenu>Help</guisubmenu><guimenuitem>Report a 
bug</guimenuitem></menuchoice> from gramps main menu). </para>

<para>A good bug report would include: </para>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem><para>   
Version of gramps you were using when you encountered the bug 
(available through <menuchoice><guisubmenu>Help</guisubmenu>
<guimenuitem>About</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item).
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>
Language under which gramps was run
(available by executing </para>
   <para><command>echo $LANG</command></para>
<para>in your terminal).
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>
Symptoms indicating that this is indeed a bug.
</para></listitem>

<listitem><para>
Any Traceback messages, error messages, warnings, etc, 
that showed up in your terminal or a in separate traceback window.
</para></listitem>

</itemizedlist>

<para>Most problems can be fixed quickly provided there is enough information. 
To ensure this, please follow up on your bug reports. In particular, if you 
file a bug report with sf.net bug tracker, PLEASE log in to sf.net before 
filing 
(register your free account if you don't have one). Then we will have a way 
of contacting you should we need more information. If you choose to file your 
report anonymously, at least check every so often whether your report page 
has something new posted, as it probably would.</para>

<para>If the above explanations seem vague, please follow 
<ulink url="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html" 
type="http">this link.</ulink>

      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry><term>It is obvious that &app; absolutely needs to 
      become a (client-server/web-based/PHP/weblog/Javascript/C++/distributed/KDE/Motif/Tcl/Win32/C#/You-name-it) 
      application. When is this going to happen?</term>
      <listitem><para> 
The surest way to see it happen is to get it done by yourself. Since
&app; is free/open source, nobody prevents you from taking all of the
code and continuing its development in whatever direction you see fit.
In doing so, you may consider giving your new project another name to
avoid confusion with the continuing &app; development. If you would
like the &app; project to provide advice, expertise, filters, etc., 
we will gladly cooperate with your new project, to ensure compatibility 
or import/export options to your new format of a project.</para>

<para>                                                                                
If, however, you would like the &app; project to to adopt your strategy,
you would need to convince &app; developers that your strategy is good
for &app; and superior to the present development strategy.</para>

<para>                                                                                
HINT: if &app; developers are still not convinced after about three
messages sent to gramps-devel, maybe you are better off on your own
rather than with a company of retards who can't fully realize the
potential of your great idea :-)

      </para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      </variablelist>

</appendix>