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I have some ideas for future changes and additions to kiwitrees. I have listed them at http://kiwitrees.net/?p=2156

Please read them, and add your thoughts and ideas here for further discussion.

I am very open to any other ideas you have, though I must warn that I have limited time and abilities 🙂

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

Nigel:

Thanks for your efforts at improving this software. It is most appreciated. Here are my initial thoughts about yur proposed road map.

Short term
Stories Module – proposed changes would make the module more useful, especially linking a story to more than one individual – great idea!
CKEditor – sounds good to me.
Redesign family page layout – I would need to see an example before rendering an opinion.
Move more add-ons into core code – makes sense to me. Simplifies updating installations.
Album tab – Not a big need for me, but I can see that it would be a good idea.

Medium term
Import / upload option to append GEDCOM file to existing. – Might covert many webtrees users to kiwitrees. It would make my life easier. Would have to rethink how I do things and will be most happy to adapt!
Remove My Page and instead go direct to the user’s individual page on login. – Not too sure about this one. When I moved to webtrees the Home Page / My Page had both my registered users and I confused. Today, there is no more confusion. I use the My Page to force feed some info to the registered users that I wouldn’t want on the Home Page. If this happens there are some blocks that could go with it; Messages, Journal, and some others. I have no idea how I would put them to use otherwise. I guess if after log in the Home Page could reconfigure, they would still be useful. The more I think about it, the more I would retain My Page but add some administration options at the expense of registered users options. Removing My Page makes sense for a public website but not so such for a restricted researchers website.
Remove media tab (keep album tab only) – OK with me, I only use the album tab.

Long term
Start replacing all “Reports” with better versions that are designed first………. – Reports need updating and if this change becomes the vehicle, I endorse it. For my users and I, any change has to include the ability to print. If the produced report format is suitable for normal printing, browser or pdf, it will pose no problem for us.

These are just one guy’s thoughts. Thanks again

Roy Evans

Roy

Apache 2.4.27  PHP 7.19 MariaDB 10.2.8

Thanks Roy. Just to address two items for now:

Redesign family page layout
Attached is very roughly what I had in mind. Children would be in rows, of 4 or five. The top half could either scroll to show more rows, or expand. Not sure whether to retain the detailed boxes for each person, or switch to the smaller “compact” style available as an option on most charts.

I feel that horizontal is a more natural layout, and the bottom half lends itself to perhaps better media and source displays.
The various options to add other facts could probably be tidied up as well. Perhaps a single drop down for “Add more information”.

Remove My Page
Still in the early thinking stages. But I wondered about a left or right column, visible to logged in users on all pages, to hold some of those small blocks like messages, journal etc. Wider screens are much more common now, so we could start making use of that fact. They would be like the “widgets” used in WordPress sites such as this one.
The problem with relying on users visiting their “My page” is that they often won’t, and if they do, them might remove the block you want them to see.

I might actually regard removing My Page as a first step to removing other user-config options. Things like theme changing for example could IMHO be taken out. Just leave it for the manager / admin to set the design of the display. I’ve always believed, at least from my own site(s) that users rarely bother with block configurations, theme changing etc, so why waste the code having it there?

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

I use “my page” for many things. So I would really be sad if you removed it! I have some home made html blogs. Made some archieve lists I use when I go to the government arhieves. So removing that page will destroy my complete “to do page”. And NO I do not want it in side bars or anything. I have it all in one page and only for my view to work with!

Most of your suggesstions – I agree – specially the reports need some “love” Perhabs ability to make a book version – where to decide to include stories – images – a bit complex yes – I know!

P.S. I still have not upgraded to vers. 2.0 since I have personal problems with the image bar! But that is another story!

Regards, Jamie Jaconelli

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

P.S. I still have not upgraded to vers. 2.0 since I have personal problems with the image bar! But that is another story!

Thats a strange statement. The image bar is included as part of standard code but that doesn’t mean you have to use it!

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

Nigel:

Thanks for the Family page JPG. Initially it might be a bit jolting switching from the vertical orientation of the other pages to the horizontal orientation of the Family page. The benefits should quickly overcome that initial impression.

Moving some bocks to another column would work for me in lieu of a My Page. I think I may even prefer that. Simplifying the user experience, including configuration, would be very welcome by me.

Will be back home late tomorrow and can upgrade to 2.0 the day after. Once I see how the new image bar works, I may change the way I present my default Home Page. I am hoping that it is possible to change the overall color and tone to match the overall color scheme of the default Home Page. Thanks for providing the edit that relocates the bar to the top. I don’t think that I will use it but want to compare the two effects.

Thanks again. Great job!

Roy

Apache 2.4.27  PHP 7.19 MariaDB 10.2.8

Jacoline said:

I use “my page” for many things. So I would really be sad if you removed it!

That’s good to know about. I will keep that in mind and try to ensure you don’t completely lose that facility.

Just thinking out loud here, but perhaps we can retain the page, only just keep it as a Menu item (for those that want it). Its really the action of being sent to that page automatically on login that confuses people.
We could probably also have an option to set your own page to land on when logging in from Home.

My comment about Menu items here has also reminded me of another “road map: item I must add: the ability to configure (set access level) ALL menu items. The top (main) menu items will be easy. Not so sure about the sub (and sub-sub) menus though. Must look into that.

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

Well it could also be a solution to have the ability to decide the blogs having aceess level. Then I could just put it all at homepage and decide which of them should be only for me and which for visitors.

I like the idea to have the ability to have access level too for menu. Will that go for the menuline too? Ex: the menu, favorites ect.? I know you allready have the ability about favorites. But I wanted to show them without having the link in the menu and I wish to have the ability to remove the login in the top!

Before upgrade 2.0 I have done a //COMMENT at the login and favorites so I could remove those 2 menu lines.
And why?

Because everytime I have my login at the top I have people who try to access. About 5-10 tries each month! So I putted it down in a html blog in the bottom instead. And that helps!

About the favorites – I can not see the point having the link there!

Regards, Jamie Jaconelli

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

Btw in the long term.
The Census Assistent has been useless for danes all the time! Need the ability to put in the danish census!

So why not just change the core code to add/design the census and in the language users wanted (at admin/managerlevel)? Instead of having pre-defined census?

That could give all users no matter which country to use it and you dont have to add any census in the code!

Regards, Jamie Jaconelli

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

Greg has changed how notes are showned in his vers. 1.5.2 – Where you can not see the notes first line – Please do not copy that!

For color themes:
Could the thumbs at the indi page been showned as in your dias/the F.A.B. theme (you know with round cornes ect) It is really nice view. It removes this box-view (boxes-boxes and boxes with sharp edges)

Regards, Jamie Jaconelli

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