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I was intrigued by a “new feature request” on the webtrees forum, raised by a fellow New Zealander “chiefchimp”.

https://www.webtrees.net/index.php/en/forum/help-for-2-0/34175-wish-list#75578

It is something I had considered briefly myself on a few occasions. So I was tempted to try and solve the request, which, in kiwitrees at least, is not particularly hard to do.

I have it working, but I would like to have it tested in a wider range of place names, particularly in countries not represented in my own test data.

In brief, it is to extend the “autocomplete” feature for place names to allow a new locality to be autocompleted with the appropriate region and country parts if they already exist.

So, if I am adding, for the first time, the (fictitious) town of “Fred” in the county of Kent, in England, United Kingdom, this happens:

1. I start typing ‘Fre’, and as usual, autocomplete offers a list of places that contain that string, but none are what I need.
2. I continue with “Fred” and now nothing is offered, as that is a completely new place string.
3. So I extend it further to “Fred, Kent”. The new code takes over, triggered by the “, ” (comma plus space) I added, and autocomplete now offers “Fred, Kent, England, United Kingdom” which I select

(Note: The “comma plus space” is essential, as it avoids the possibility the single comma might form part of a legitimate place name, somewhere in the world. I think/hope that having comma plus space is less likely.)

If you are able to help, all you need to do is:

1. Copy the file “kiwitrees/autocomplete.php from your webserver to your local machine and store somewhere safe, so you can revert to the published version if you want to after the test.
2. Take the same file from the zip folder attached to this topic, and upload it, replacing the existing version.
3. If you use “Geonames” as a source of place names (Administration>Family trees>your family tree>Edit options>Use GeoNames database for autocomplete on places) disable it for the test, otherwise it might confuse the results. Re-enable it later if you wish.
4. Start adding places, where the first part (or parts) do not already exist using autocomplete.
5. Let me know here how you find it, if it works and if you see any issues, etc.

(Note: kiwitrees hosted clients, if you want to test this, just drop me an email and I’ll copy the autocomplete file to your installation.)

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

I can test it with danish records

Regards, Jamie Jaconelli

admin and owner of a user customized version of kiwitrees (contains 3 family trees)

1 user thanked author for this post.

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