0. Table of contents: 1. Overview 2. Installation 2.0 Copy the distribution disk. 2.1 Operating from a diskette on drive B: 2.2 Operating from a diskette on a drive other than B: 2.3 Operating from a hard disk: 3. User's guide 3.1 Getting started: 3.2 Adding new people or editing existing people: 3.2.1 Advice on adding new families and assigning reference numbers: 3.3 Adding and editing the biographie for a person. 3.3.1 Adding or appending to a biographie. 3.3.2 Editing an existing biographie. 3.4 Exploring your genealogy: 4. Miscellaneous notes 4.1 Disk space requirements 4.2 Execution speed: 4.3 Known bugs: 4.3.1 Index problems: 4.3.2 Too many memory variables: 4.3.3 Errors when you (Q)uit: 5. Files 5.1 Command files: 5.2 Format files: 5.3 Data base files: 6. Copies of help screens 1. Overview: The genealogical data base program "EXPLORE" allows you to maintain a data base of people who are related to each other. You can add new people to the data base and then link them together by indicating the direct relationships between the people. By direct relationships I mean that you indicate for each person who his parents and spouses are (were). By following the links between children and parents, and between spouses, the system is able to determine the how any two people are related. Once you have loaded in your family tree you can "EXPLORE" or navigate the genealogy on the screen. You pick a person to start with. The system will then display his immediate family on the screen with him in the box. Using the commands availiable you can then position the star (*) to the person on the screen that you are interested in and via the (G)o command display his immediate family, or via the (B)iography command display his biograpy. By repetitivley moving the star (*) to the father of the family on the screen and using the (G)o command you will climb the family tree towards its source. If you do this in the direction of the children on the screen you will follow one of the paths of descendants of the original person. You can also explore horizontally by repetively moving to the spouse on the srceen. The data base on the distribution disk contains several generations of the family of William the conquerer. Try exploring it to get a feel for what you can do. Note that in the file William's last name is "of Normandie". You'll need his last name to get started. There are commands in the explore program that allow you to add and edit the people in your genealogy and their biographies. These commands use certain of the dbaseII functions (edit, browse, append) so you will need to know the control keys that are used in these comands ^Y,^Q,^W, etc. Otherwise the program is designed for a novice computer user. There are four help screens. When you first start up it is useful to page through the help screens as they contain information that is worth knowing right away. 2. Installation: 2.0 Copy the distribution disk and store the original in a safe place 2.1 Operating from a diskette on drive B: The systeme is pre-configured to operate from disk b:. So put the genealogy diskette in drive b:. Put your dbaseII diskette in drive A: and run dbaseII. At the dot (.) prompt type: "DO B:EXPLORE" and your on your way. 2.2 Operating from a diskette on a drive other than B: If you want to run from another drive, you must modify one line of the command file "EXPLORE.CMD". It's an obvious change so don't panic. At the very beginning of the command file (line 5 I think) is a line that says "SET DEFAULT TO B:" You must change the B: to C:, D: or whatever drive you are planning to run from. Use the N command in wordstar to make the modification. If you will not always run from the same drive. Put a star at the beginning of the "SET DEFAULT" line in EXPLORE.CMD to make it a comment so it will not execute. In this case each time you use the genealogy system you must type the command SET DEFAULT TO _: before you type the DO EXPLORE command. The _ being the drive you are using for the session. 2.3 Operating from a hard disk: Copy the distribution diskette to the logical drive of your choice on your hard disk. Then make the same modification described in paragraph 2.2 above. You'll find the delay time in executing commands is much reduced on a fast hard disk. 3. User's guide: 3.1 Getting started: Start dbaseII and type "DO _:EXPLORE" where _: is the drive where you put the genealogy system. You will be immediately prompted for a command. If you are novice user, type H to display the first help screen. From it you can display others. There are 4 in all. For reference they are included in section 6 of this manual. Read them carefully. 3.2 Adding new people or editing existing people: When you add or edit people via the A or E commandes, you must understand the significance of the fields in the person's record. The file structure that follows and the explanation after it should clarify this. FLD NAME TYPE WIDTH FORMAT COMMENT 001 REF:NO C 4 NNNN Unique code of person 002 FATHER:REF C 4 NNNN his father's ref:no 003 MOTHER:REF C 4 NNNN his mother's ref:no 004 FIRST:NAME C 15 TEXTE 005 MID:NAME C 15 TEXTE 006 LAST:NAME C 25 TEXTE 007 NICK:NAME C 15 TEXTE 008 BIRTH:DATE N 8 YYYYMMDD 009 DEATH:DATE N 8 YYYYMMDD put 0 if he's not dead 010 SEX C 1 F or M this is important 011 SPSE1:REF C 4 NNNN his 1st spouses ref:no 012 SPSE1:DATE N 8 YYYYMMDD marriage date 013 SPSE1:CHIL N 2 NN children by spouse No1 014 SPSE2:REF C 4 NNNN his 2nd spouses ref:no 015 SPSE2:DATE N 8 YYYYMMDD marriage date 016 SPSE2:CHIL N 2 NN children by spouse No2 017 SPSE3:REF C 4 NNNN his 3rd spouses ref:no 018 SPSE3:DATE N 8 YYYYMMDD marriage date 019 SPSE3:CHIL N 2 NN children by spouse No3 As you can see by the comments all the fields that contain a reference number are very important because they establish for the system who the person is related to. You may add or change any of the references numbers later. However you must never change the number in field 001. If you do, the people who are related to him will become orphans and widows!! It won't cause any problem if you leave fields blank or zero. (For example if he was only married once, the fields for spouse 2 and 3 should be left empty.) 3.2.1 Advice on adding new families and assigning reference numbers: Your only constraint in choosing a reference number for a new person is that it must be unique. Therefore keep a list starting at 1000 of the numbers you've already used. Your other problem when you add new people is to know the reference numbers of their parents and spouses. It is therefore in your interest to get organised before you start actually adding the people. Make a chart on paper and assign the reference numbers to the people before you start. That way you won't get confused and make mistakes. Remeber also that you can leave the spouse and parent references blank in a new persons record and fill them in later. You'll be forced to do this from time to time because of the chicken or the egg syndrome. To help you out the L command will print a list of all the people in the geneolgy in order by name with the reference number next to each name. Each time you add a family to the file it's worth it to print this out and keep it handy for your next update session. 3.3 Adding and editing the biographie for a person. First display the person's family on the screen and make sure you have moved the star (*) to his name on the screen. Then execute the (B)iographie command. If he already has a biographie you can modify or add to it. If not you can create one. Just follow the instructions on the screen. The biographies are all stored in the same file (stories.dbf). The records in this file have just two fields: 001 REF:CODE C 4 002 TEXT C 45 The REF:CODE field is indexed and thus allows the system to rapdily access the story of a person and to distinguish one person's story lines from another's. 3.3.1 Adding or appending to a biographie. The system will throw you into append mode on this stories file. But before doing so will tell you the REF:CODE of the person concerned. Be sure to use it for the first line of the biographie you create. For subsequent lines the "carry on" feature will repeat it automatically. Unfortunately when you're adding to a biographie you can only see one line at a time (not exactly full screen word processing). So you should have your thoughts organised in advance. However once entered you can edit the existing lines in full screen mode. (See the following paragraph 3.3.2). 3.3.2 Editing an existing biographie. The system will throw you into browse mode in the stories file with the story lines of the person concerned starting at the top of the screen. Using the browse commands documented in the dbaseII manuel you can modify the text in these lines or delete a line completely. You cannot however add a new line. Some rules: Don't change the first field on the left unless you want to delete the line from the story. It's the REF:CODE. To delete a line competely, change the REF:CODE to blanks. These blanks will disappear immediately from the story and browse will unfortunately jump to the beginning of the file. You'll have to advance forward to the story you're editing with the ^C command. My advice is to make all your other modifications before you delete lines. The lines of other peoples stories can be on the browse screen before and after the lines of the person you are editing. Be careful not to change them by mistake. When you're finished, be sure to exit via the ^W command so your changes are written to disk. 3.4 Exploring your genealogy: You always explore relative to a family displayed on the screen. Thus when you start up, you must get a family on the screen. Use the N or R commandes to do this. The family displayed always has a central person (he's in the box at left center). Above him are displayed his parents, to his right his spouses (3 maximum), and below his children (16 maximum). There is also always a star (*) next to one of the names on the screen. We call this person the star person. This star person is one who will be the subject of the various commands you can execute. B to display his biography, G to go display his immediate family, etc. You move the star to a new person on the screen via the four keys: 8 4 6 2 Each key moves the curser in the direction indicated. Note that when a new family is displayed the star is always put on the person in the box. As an example of climbing the genealogical tree, you would display a family, then press the 8 key to move the curser to the father of the family. Then press the G key to go display the family of the father. The new family displayed would have the father from the first family in the box and the person previously in the box as one of the children. By repeating these steps you can continue up through the generations stopping at any point to display the biography of any people who interest you. Note that there are four short cut commands that eliminate having to move the star to a person and then type G. These commands are: (F)ather (M)other (S)pouse - first only (C)hild - oldest only These commands display directly the family of the person indicated. 4. Notes 4.1 Disk space requirements CMD and FMT files: 32k DBF and NDX files: .5k per person Result: about 100 people on a 95K diskette, 320 people on a 195k diskette. These figures were calculated based on an average of 4 lines of biography per person. 4.2 Execution speed: When running on a diskette system response time is a little slow. This is because dbaseII does not even keep the entire command file in memory at one time. On a hard disk it runs 2 to 3 times faster. On a RAM disk it would probably be like lighting although I have not tried it. 4.3 Known bugs: 4.3.1 Index problems: If you make all your modifications to the genealogy via the explore program, you shouldn't have any problems with the index files. However I don't trust dbaseII 100% and you may want to make some changes directly from the dbase dot (.) prompt. In this case or if you have any strange problems, use the I command to rebuild all the indexes. It will also purge all records marked for deletion and eliminate records with blank REF:CODEs from the stories file. 4.3.2 Too many memory variables: dbaseII only allows the use of 64 memory variables at one time. If you have a family with more than 10 children displayed on the screen you may get this error. There's probably a way around it but I'm too lazy to fix it. It shouldn't happen often and it causes no problems when it does. 4.3.3 Errors when you (Q)uit: Sometimes if you start up and then quit right away without having done anything, you may get a systax error message. This because certain memory variables that are checked on exiting have not been initialised since you did nothing. Don't worry it won't cause any harm just hit escape. 5. Files: 5.1 Command files: NAME SIZE FUNCTION EXPLORE 6 Main program. Executes some functions. Calls sub programs for others. EXPLORE1 6 Displays a family on the screen. NEWINDEX 1 Packs files and rebuilds indexes. NS 4 Allows lookup of people by name. STORY 2 Displays biography of a person. 5.2 Format files: NAME SIZE FUNCTION HELPEXP 2 HELP SCREEN NO 1 HELPEXP2 2 HELP SCREEN NO 2 HELPEXP3 2 HELP SCREEN NO 3 HELPEXP4 2 HELP SCREEN NO 4 LIST 1 Used when listing people on printer. GHOST 2 ????? 5.3 Data base files: NAME SIZE FUNCTION PERSONS ?? CONTAINS THE PEOPLE. STORIES ?? CONTAINS THE BIOGRAPHIES. 5.4 Index files: NAME SIZE FUNCTION FATHER ?? to find all the children of a father. MOTHER ?? to find all the children of a mother. NAME ?? to find people by name. REF ?? to find people by reference number. STORYREF ?? to find the lines of a persons biography. 5.5 Miscellaneous files: NAME SIZE FUNCTION GEN.DOC 20 This manuel *.ZIP 12 ZIP work files for FMT files. *.ZPR 8 ZIP print files for FMT files. Note that these miscellaneous files are not needed on the execution disk. You should keep them on another diskette so you'll have more space to use on your execution diskette. 6. Help screens: The following are copies of the help screens availiable on the system. *** File B:HELPEXP.ZPR *** +-------------------------------------------------+ : E X P L O R E T H E G E N E A L O G Y. : : Valid responses to the ENTER COMMAND: : : : -- TO GET STARTED --- : : N to find someone via his (N)ame. : : R to find someone via his (R)eference No. : : : -- AFTER YOU HAVE A FAMILY DISPLAYED -- : : G (G)o display family of the * person. : : B display the (B)iography of the * person : : F display the family of the (F)ather, : : M or (M)other, : : S or first (S)pouse, : : C or first (C)hild. : : Q to (Q)uit. : : -- TO MOVE THE * TO A NEW PERSON ON SCREEN -- : : 8 these keys move the * in the : : 4 6 direction indicated. : : 2 : : -- YOU MAY NOW TYPE : : : -> one of the above commandes; OR : : -> ? to display next help screen; OR : : -> RETURN key to go back to your family. : : ENTER YOUR COMMAND #COMMAND : *** File B:HELPEXP2.ZPR *** +-------------------------------------------------+ : E X P L O R E T H E G E N E A L O G Y. : : HELP SCREEN No 2. : : -- COMMANDS TO MODIFY YOUR GENEALOGY -- : : E to (E)dit the person at screen center. : : A to (A)dd new people. : : I to rebuild the (I)ndexes after a problm : : L to print a List of people in the genlgy : : Z to communicate with the author's ghost! : : NOTE: It is better to execute these functions : : via the above commands while you are in the : : genealogy program than to do them directly : : from the dbaseII dot (.) prompt. : : This is because when you are in the : : genealogy program, the four indexes are : : always correctly SET and thus you won't : : foul them up. : : : : -- YOU MAY NOW TYPE : : : -> one of the above commands; OR : : -> ? to display the next help screen; OR : : -> RETURN key to go back to your family. : : ENTER YOUR COMMAND #COMMAND : *** File B:HELPEXP3.ZPR *** +-------------------------------------------------+ : E X P L O R E T H E G E N E A L O G Y. : : HELP SCREEN No 3. : : -- HINTS ABOUT LOADING YOUR GENEALOGY (part 1) : : : : Each person you add must have a unique : : REF:NO. This allows the system to uniquely : : identify each person. When you relate a person : : to others in the genealogy, you use his REF:NO : : to do it. : : For example if person 1000 is the father of : : person 1005, you must put 1000 in the field : : FATHER:REF of person 1005's record. : : To help you keep track of the reference : : numbers of the people in your geneology the L : : command will print a list of all the people and : : their reference numbers. : : : : -- YOU MAY NOW TYPE : : : -> one of the above commands; OR : : -> ? to display the next help screen; OR : : -> RETURN key to go back to your family. : : ENTER YOUR COMMAND #COMMAND : *** File B:HELPEXP4.ZPR *** +-------------------------------------------------+ : E X P L O R E T H E G E N E A L O G Y. : : HELP SCREEN No 4. : : -- HINTS ABOUT LOADING YOUR GENEALOGY (part 2) : : : : Since a person's REF:NO is used to relate : : other people to him, there are a few : : important rules to follow: : : 1. Make sure each person's REF:NO is unique. : : : : 2. Never change a person's REF:NO. : : : : 3. When you add a story for a person, be : : sure to put his REF:NO in the first field : : of each story line. : : : : 4. The format of all date fields is YYYYMMDD : : : : -- YOU MAY NOW TYPE : : : -> any valid command; OR : : -> H to display the first help screen OR : : -> RETURN key to go back to your family. : : ENTER YOUR COMMAND #COMMAND :