Okay, so here’s what I wish I had available in a software package. Any mad coders out there feel like putting it together? ;) (This has been submitted to the LazyWeb.)
- A web-driven genealogy software package (PHP/Perl/Python with a database backend?).
- One page per family member, able to display (at minimum, though not all items would necessarily exist for every page):
- Links to immediate family members (one degree of seperation: parents, siblings, spouses, children).
- Vital statistics (birth, marriage, divorce, death). This could be expanded to include christening, baptism, etc. for situations where such dates are recorded.
- Biographical and/or historical information — stories, memories, etc.
- Pictures.
- Contact info for still-living members.
- User registration.
- Logged-in users would be able to easily edit any individual page on the tree to add memories, stories, information, etc. (Wiki-style ‘edit this page’ links?).
- Logged-in users should also be able to create new pages for family members not already in the tree. New pages should follow a template to ensure that a consistent look-and-feel is maintained as much as possible.
- Wiki-like ease in adding pages and linking pages together. IE, one of the things I really like about the Wiki concept is how easy it is to (in this concept) let the tree grow. When creating my page, all I had to do was add WikiWords for my relatives, and I could then jump to and create/edit their pages. Functionality such as this is far easier than having to log into a central database and create new records for each new entry and then have to go back and edit all pages that would link to the new entry.
- I’m still not sure how to best work around the issue with multiple family members with the same name.
- Administrators should be able to review and approve/disapprove new users, get a list of recent changes, possibly approve/disapprove page edits before incorporation (this is optional, I think).
- HTML output should be clean, standards-compliant, using CSS for styling, etc.
- RSS/XML/Atom feeds of recently changed/added pages (preferably with an option to subscribe to either ‘minimal’ feeds listing only changed pages, ‘short’ feeds listing the edited page and the changes, and ‘full’ feeds listing the edited pages and the full text with changes marked in some way).
- (This might be pipe dream territory) A dynamically-generated (Java? DHTML?) overview of the tree or branches of the tree. I’m visualizing being able to start with a simple tree of one nuclear family. Lines leading away from members would indicate further information along the branch. Clicking on a member (parent, spouse, child, etc.) would “slide” the display to that member’s nuclear family. “Zoom out” would allow more branches to be viewed (and would need a “Zoom in” control to return to a single-family view. “Detail” links on each member would lead to the individual member’s page (which would have a “View tree” link to switch to the dynamic tree view).
- Possibly more as I come up with it.
If I had the time, I’d start diving heavily into PHP (or Perl, or Python)/MySQL and start attempting to build this myself. However, I don’t have the time, and something tells me that this might be complex enough to be fairly overwhelming as a first project.
If this software existed, I’d gladly pay for it (hopefully it would be within my price range, of course). At the moment, if anyone feels up to attempting to code it together, I’d gladly beta test!
So how crazy am I? How does this feature wish list sound? Is there already something out there on the ‘net that might cover some or all of this (aside from Wiki, which I’m already exploring) that I haven’t found yet?
Questions, comments, and words of wisdom are, as always, appreciated.
Update: Hot damn — PhpGedView just might be it!