Kiwitrees 3.2.0 about to be released.

All being well 3.2.0 will be available from March 1st. for those who need to download it. For kiwitrees hosted clients your site will be upgraded as usual within a couple of days of that date. You will be notified when your site has been done.

I’m notifying you in advance as there are a couple of exciting new features that you should be aware of before you start using the new version. These are described briefly below, with links to FAQ pages with greater detail.

Details of these and all the other changes and enhancements can be seen on the Change lists.

Pop-up edit forms replaced

All the pop-up edit forms kiwitrees, and it’s predecessors webtrees and PhpGedView have used for over 10 years have been replaced with browser tabs that use the full space provided by your browser.

I’m the first to admit this major change can take a bit of getting used to, but my large band of family members at Our Families, as well as a number of other kiwitrees users have been testing these for a few months. The general consensus has been extremely positive, especially for those using the larger, complex popups such as the Census Assistant ones.

The new solution reduces scrolling; has less cluttered screens; all options are immediately visible; and it works better on small devices.

Read more about it on this blog post.

New main menu item “Resources”

For years now the “Reports” available in kiwitrees (and it’s successors) have been one of it’s weakest points. A group of under performing, and, if I’m honest, not very attractive pages.

But, at last, this new “Resources” menu group is the start of replacing those report pages. The name may well be temporary though. I just needed omething where as each report is re-written it can be placed separate from the old reports. There were also a couple of other pages that needed a new or better home. So, in this release, there are two replaced reports (Changes and Individual report), two new reports (a full page Research Tasks listing, and a UK 1939 Register Check) and the existing UK Census Check page previously put under Lists.

The design principles behind new reports are:

• Remove internal code dependence for creating pdf files

• Eliminate the use of the XML coding used in all the old reports

• Re-design the display for on-screen use and to use the same for printing

• Improve and re-think  the configuration options for each report

Read more about it at the Resource menu FAQ page

What else is new?

• The FAQ page, if you use it, has been redesigned

• In all themes the site footer is now positioned at the base of the screen, or below the content – whichever is greatest. Never half-way up the screen.

• Search will now include content added through the “Stories” module.

• New options in the list of “Research links”

• An additional check in the “Sanity check” tool

• Where possible birth year is now included in Research links to external sites

These and many other changes are listed on the Change lists.

Upgrading

The upgrade process for this version  from version 3.1.1 involves no special requirement.

See Upgrading for more detail.

However there are a couple of things to be aware of:

• The changes effect a lot of files, and all the themes, So it is even more important this time that you clear your browser cache before trying to use your site after the upgrade. If you see anything that doesn’t “look right”, it will almost always mean you need to clear that cache 🙂 This applies to ALL sites, whether self-hosted or kiwitrees hosted. 

• Like most new modules on existing sites, the Resources menu described above is not enabled automatically. Details for setting it up are on  the Resource menu FAQ page, in the paragraph titled “Configuration”.

I hope you enjoy these changes, but of course, don’t hesitate to suggest any improvements you think would help make kiwitrees better still.