11–20 of 53 posts
It struck me that a simple directory structure with info about each person in each directory, text files with info in, and then tar'd up would be about the most future-proof format you could get.
Anyone else thought about this?
This is reasonably easy to use and build out a simple tree. Here are two opportunities:
1) There are some UI areas that aren't totally intuitive (e.g., double click to add name), and generally it feels to "clicky" (e.g., too many clicks to get to the action I want). I think your goal is super-simple and "delightful" vs. full-featured.
2) The 1:1 relationship lines get complex, as every parent is linked to every child (so you end up with 2n lines that all overlap).
Coincidentally, I was talking to my father about getting his family tree work 'stored' in some digital format for future generations. It struck me that a simple directory structure with info about each person in each directory, text files with info in, and then tar'd up would be about the most future-proof format you could get. Anyone else thought about this?
I hate to recommend them, but ancestry.com has one of the best interfaces in a SaaS product, with a ton of data on the back-end if you are doing research. An actual application (Family Tree Maker comes to mind, but don't quote me or take that as a recommendation) might be better for just "documenting" research.
I love family trees: they're interesting, complex, data-driven, and beautiful. There are some very challenging decisions you need to make to make a tree readable, like whose ancestors to show, whose children, and how far back. To give you a sense, I have ~3,500 people in my family tree. I want different trees to show, say: a) all descendants of a root ancestor, or b) all of my ancestors. This is reasonably easy to us…
Then I've come up with this: https://github.com/fiatjaf/rel, which is a simple way to create triples, then render dot graphs, or any template actually, with them. The database is actually a bunch of YAML files representing each node in the graph (the relationships are stored in the nodes' files also).
Coincidentally, I was talking to my father about getting his family tree work 'stored' in some digital format for future generations. It struck me that a simple directory structure with info about each person in each directory, text files with info in, and then tar'd up would be about the most future-proof format you could get. Anyone else thought about this?
I should have read your comment before posting my shameless self-promotion, but here am I posting my super simple, customizable and future-proof tool again: https://github.com/fiatjaf/rel
(read about it on my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849823)
The standard way for family trees to link children with parents is through the relationship of the parents. Did you avoid doing that on purpose?
The problem with having a separate parent/child link for every parent/child relationship is that it gets very crowded if the parents have several children.
Rather than clicking the plus to add a person, I think a more intuitive action would be to double-click empty space. Whether or not you change that, the 'click + to add a person' doesn't work - when you put the word 'click' on a page, people will click that and not pay attention to the rest of the directions. Even if they did, it's a little confusing because 'click + to add a person' isn't clear. You need to be more…
Thanks, that makes sense. I'll see how I can make it more intuitive