GEDCOM-Views Collection

A collection of simple webpages to display GEDCOM data. This is not an editor (yet)!

The Site is designed as PWA and will store no data on server side. Your GEDCOM file is stored in yours browsers local storage.

gedcom.js

The main structure of a GEDCOM file is defined in the v5.5.1 standard by the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". A download link can be found on the german "genealoby.net"-wiki. This site does not support any other format.

Each line in a GEDCOM file is a record. By defining a specific "level" the records form a tree-like structure. This tree is represented by the Record class in gedcom.js. Some special versions of Record are Family and Individual to easier handle cross references between these types of record. See gedcom.js for details and available methods.

Plugins

All views are "Plug-ins". Each folder contains a gedview.json file with some meta data for the view. The folders are registers in the plugins.json file. The order in the array will be the same as in the applications' menu.

geview.json:

{
  "target":"index.html",
  "caption":"Menutitle",
  "resources":[
    "some.css",
    "main.js",
    "picture.jpg"
  ]
}

Entry point

Each plugin should create a "gedviewPage" instance with a printGedviewFamily(fam, ged) method. This is called as soon as all data from the stored GEDCOM file is loaded and ready. This may be called more than once.

The fam Parameter is the current selected Family record. If the id of this family is -1, no family is selected and the plugin should display an "empty" view.

The ged parameter is a link to the current Gedcom instance.

basic scripts

Every plugin must include at least two script files.

<script src="../gedcomjs/gedcom.js"></script>
<script src="../gedviewer.js"></script>

The gedviewer.js file will handle the stored GEDCOM file and the call to the entry point.

Switching the current family

A plugin can switch the "current" Family. That Family is displayed with its parents names right beneath the app title and used as initial family for all subsequent sub-page calls.

To change the family a plugin must call itself (or another plugin page) with the families ID as query string. The ID muss be stripped of the @-characters.

window.location.href = "./myplugin.html?" + famRec.id.replace(/@/g, "");

This will also result in a page reload, so the plugin itself will be reinitialized. The entry point is called with the "new" family. Do not replace() your windows location with the new location as this will break the "back" button in most browsers and mobile devices.

Another method is to use the function switchFamily() from gedview-base.js. You can use a Family record, a HTMLElement with famid dataset entry or a string as a parameter. The method will create the correct new location.