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Text File | 1997-01-19 | 3.7 KB | 70 lines | [TEXT/ALFA] |
- GenKey is a utilitarian tool which expedites the creation of a family
- tree on the Wide World Web.
-
- GenKey is a standalone Java application. It is contained in the GenKey.zip
- file and the main method is in the GenKey class.
-
- In a nutshell, the user merely enters the relevant information about a
- person in appropriate fields and GenKey creates an html file which will
- display that information using any standard web browser.
-
- GenKey also saves the information in a separate data file which can be
- recalled later in order to revise the web page without having to do any
- hard coding.
-
- GenKey presently provides for the input of a person's name, parents,
- siblings (up to fifteen), spouses (up to three) and children (up to fifteen
- per spouse).
-
- *Start* by clicking on the -Show Personal Information- button in the
- floating GenKey palette. You will be presented with a window containing
- fields for the entry of basic personal information about the person who's
- page you are entering, including gender, name, maiden name, address, phone
- number, email address, home page url, location of a photograph to be
- displayed (if one is desired) and dates and places of birth and death. For
- most of these items, a checkbox is provided and the particular item is
- displayed only when the checkbox is checked. You can, if you wish, then
- hide that information from view by clicking on the -Hide Personal
- Information- button which replaced the -Show Personal Information- button.
-
- *Next*, click on the -Show Parents- button. You will be provided with a
- window containing fields for the entry of the person's parents' names as
- well as the locations of the files containing their information. Note that
- this is really a url. If you enter doejane.html, then it will be treated
- as a relative url, but if you enter
- http://www.anyplace.com/~myhomepage/~doejane.html, then it will be treated
- as an absolute url. *Siblings* Click on the -Show Siblings- button and
- you'll find a similar window enabling you to enter the same information
- about each sibling, along with whether the sibling is a brother or sister.
-
- *Marriages* are handled similarly, with the ability presently to enter
- information about three spouses and fifteen children per spouse.
-
- Finally, there's a -Show Comments- button where miscellaneous information
- can be entered. This provides tremendous flexibility, since even html code
- can be entered in this field, enabling virtually unlimited flexibility in
- the layout of much of the page, including, for example, the inclusion of
- additional GIF images.
-
- Clicking on -Write HTML File- brings up a file dialog so the user can enter
- a name for the html file to be viewed through a web browser. Remember that
- it's good practice to use .html as a suffix for any html file.
-
- Clicking on -Write Data File- brings up a similar file dialog, but this
- time the file saved is in GenKey's special format so that all the
- information, including that which is not to be displayed on the web page,
- will be saved and able to be retrieved.
-
- Clicking on -Read Data File- enables the user to choose a previously saved
- GenKey data file so that the contents of a web page can be changed without
- having to do any hand coding. Once a GenKey written html file has been
- saved, it can be viewed on your own computer, or uploaded to any home page
- area and made accessible globally. It is even possible for relatives
- crossing continents to collaborate on their family trees, storing the pages
- on different computers as long as the url's are all entered.
-
- GenKey is shareware. To register, send $18 to Alan H. Stein, 452
- Farmington Avenue, Waterbury, CT 06710. Please report bugs, requests for
- enhancements and any other comments to the author at
- <stein@math.uconn.edu>.
-