ed4becky.net

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the live feeds from RootsTech 2012, tweeting at the same time.

Up until then I had not payed much attention to HTML5 attributes. Not that I wasn’t looking forward to a world without Flash, I just didn’t have time. But after RootsTech, I found an incentive.

Microdata is a new feature within HTML5 that allows data ABOUT the data to be embedded in the HTML. Search engines can then use the ‘microdata’ to maximize matches.

So as of version 2.4.0 (deployed this evening) rootspersona includes microdata!

The schema is defined at historical-data.org. Microdata has been added to the following panels:

• Header
• Ancestor
• Descendancy
• Group Sheets

Search engines can now tell that a name is a name, a birth date is not only a date, but a date of birth, and that ‘Attleboro, MA’ is a place of birth; or death.

OK, after working with many folks on how to debug rootspersona, I have added a debug flag to the options menu in version 2.3.1. If you are having a problem, please:

1) check the debug box on the rootspersona options screen
2) execute the problematic code
3) send me the output from http://yoursite/wp-content/debug.log
4) you can uncheck the debug box if you wish

This will help immensely in me helping you.

A user was utilizing a theme that overwrote the style for pictures, making the bordered (I like to think ‘framed’) portraits looking as little odd, so I added a Custom Style option to the rootspersona Options page. Any CSS provided in the text box will be added the the HTML header, giving the user more flexibility in site design.

I added an option to eliminate the extra silhouettes in the picture panel if you don’t add the six images it currently supports. In the future I will remove the six image limitation.

Speaking of which, some people don’t realize that you can add additional content to any persona page, either above or below the persona shortcode – you can even use other shortcodes to display the panels in custom order if you like. I need to update the instructions, but here is a list of shortcodes you are free to use.

So if, for example, you want to use a picture gallery, just turn off the picture panel and add the appropriate content (I don’t know what that is, I’m just sayin’…)

Now that I have a chance to breathe (I have mostly finished cemeteriat, a new cemetery management plugin for www.JeffreyCemetery.com) I am paying more attention to rootspersona on my own site.

One of the enhancement requests I have received is for a descendancy chart, and I think I can do it now, based on the version 2.x code base. I will model it after what I see on RootsWeb. Anyway, I am going to look into it for the next release.

Let me know if you have other ideas!

OK, there is a flaw in the plugin.

Well, not actually, just a flaw in my assumptions. The premise that you can upload a GEDCOM anytime to update your data was based on an assumption: every time you export a GEDCOM from your ‘system of record’ (the program you use to maintain the data), it assigns the same ids. That way the plugin knows what data to update, even if a name changes ever so slightly.

Having finished a couple of projects, I started paying attention to my own site today. The focus was on sources and citations – and I noticed that an id got reused!

I won’t bore you with the details (those of you still with me) but bottom line, if I copy a partial tree from one file to another in RootsMagic, the ids get reassigned; I MUST export from the same file every time, otherwise the ids get screwed up, and I will change data I didn’t mean to when I upload into rootspersona.

Close call, and something watch for. Open to suggestions regarding what to do if a name changes for an id

I wasn’t going to start working on batch ids until Nov, but I jumped the gun and might have it by the end of the week.

Well, each time you upload a GEDCOM file, you get to assign it to a ‘batch’. Most of us (myself included) will just use the default, batch of 1. We’ll load multiple GEDCOMS from the same source system, reload GEDCOMS, etc….

But some of you have noticed that if you load GEDCOMS from different sources, and those sources reuse the same ID’s, data is getting overwritten – I’ve known that since the beginning of rootspersona, and included a warning on the instruction page.

BUT… we also discovered that if you use only one source, and that source happens to be ancestry.com, each time you export a GEDCOM file it uses the same ID’s (P1, P2, P3…), regardless of whom you choose to export. So much for my one source is safe theory.

But with the next release (2.1) if you assign each file to different batches, they will stay unique even if they use the same ids.

OR maybe you just want to maintain multiple family trees you can use separate batches.

OR maybe you want people to maintain different sets of data: you can use batches.

Now of course there is one catch: individuals and families in different batches cannot be linked.

So for example, load your mother in one batch and your father in another? Can’t connect those dots. Sorry, its just a limitation. They can be in different files (well, maybe not from ancestry.com) but they MUST be in the same batch. Else how am I to know that the woman married to your father: [Mary Jones, person id P25 in batch 7], is your REAL mother and not [Michelle Pfeiffer, person id P25 in batch 16]?

(If Michelle IS your mother by the way, ask her to call me…)

Fact is rootspersona was never intended for maintaining your family tree, just displaying it in WordPress. I don’t have the know how to merge files, guess at name equivalences, or even to do half the stuff I’ve already done…wait…what?…ok…

ANY way, many of you having been waiting for this, so I am trying to squeeze it in with all my other projects. Shooting for middle of next week.

Hey someday I may even get to USE rootspersona, not just code it!

And I already have ideas for 2.1! (though I need a break after 4 steady months of 2.0 development! Maybe in October?)

1. filters on the index pages (‘give me only names xyz, or only ages older than 111′)
2. index shortcode enhanced so people can create surname specific indices

   For example [rootsPersonaIndexPage surname='Thompson' /]

   This would allow people to create multiple indices without much effort.

   done

3. map integration?
4. pictures on the evidence pages can be done by adding pictures under or above the [rootsPersonaIndexPage/] shortcode through normal WordPress edit tools
5. implementation of ‘batch’ concept to allow multiple trees with overlapping person and family ids
6. video tutorials

What would YOU put on the list?

OK, not being one to leave well enough alone…

(You’re gonna like this)

I added a new index feature. If you create a page and put the index shortcode in:

[rootsPersonaIndexPage batchId="1"/]

but add a surname:

[rootsPersonaIndexPage surname='Thompson' batchId="1"/]

It will create an index with ONLY surnames that match ‘Thompson’. You can use a % sign as a wild card, so
[rootsPersonaIndexPage surname='T%' batchId="1"/] would index all surnames starting with ‘T’

Put the index pages under a master index page, and you can have a nice dropdown menu of surnames of interest! Add as many indexes as you wish?