Readme Version 4

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PhpGedView

This and other information can be found online at
http://www.PhpGedView.net

# $Id: readme.txt,v 1.109.2.21 2005/11/03 18:43:16 yalnifj Exp $

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CONTENTS
1. LICENSE
2. INTRODUCTION
3. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
4. QUICK INSTALL
5. INSTALLATION
6. UPGRADING
7. UPDATING GEDCOMS
8. THEMES
9. MULTIMEDIA OBJECTS
10. RSS FEED
11. DATABASE TABLE LAYOUT
12. MANUAL CONFIGURATION
13. SECURITY
14. LANGUAGES
15. NON-STANDARD GEDCOM CODES
16. LANGUAGE EXTENSION FILES
17. MIGRATING FROM SQL TO INDEX MODE AND VICE VERSA
18. POSTNUKE AND PHPNUKE INTEGRATION
19. BACKUP

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LICENSE

PhpGedView: Genealogy Viewer
Copyright (C) 2002 to 2004 John Finlay and Others

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

See the file GPL.txt included with this software for more
detailed licensing information.

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INTRODUCTION

PhpGedView is a revolutionary genealogy program which allows you to view
and edit your genealogy on your website. PhpGedView has full editing
capabilities, full privacy functions, and supports multimedia like photos
and document images. PhpGedView also simplifies the process of
collaborating with others working on your family lines. Your latest
information is always on your web site and available for others to see.
For more information and to see working demos, visit
http://www.PhpGedView.net/

PhpGedView is Open Source software that has been produced by people from
many countries freely donating their time and talents to the project. All
service, support, and future development is dependent on the time
developers are willing to donate to the project, often at the expense of
work, recreation, and family. Beyond the few donations received from
users, developers receive no compensation for the time they spend working
on the project. There is also no outside source of revenue to support the
project.

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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

PhpGedView requires a web server with at least PHP v4.3 and around 20MB of
web space. The default installations of PHP on most servers should provide
you with all of the PHP functionality you should need.

To use the reporting engine, PHP needs to be compiled with XML support.
This is compiled into PHP by default unless it is specifically disabled.
See http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.xml.php

Some features of PhpGedView require the GD library and that PHP be compiled
with GD support. Most precompiled versions of PHP include GD support. If
you are compiling PHP yourself you will need to configure it with the
--with-gd
option. See http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.image.php

The advanced calendar features of PhpGedView for converting Gregorian dates
to the Hebrew or Jewish calendars require that PHP be compiled with the
--enable-calendar
configuration option. See http://us2.php.net/manual/en/ref.calendar.php
for more information.

For GEDCOMs larger than 2MB, you will likely need to research different
hosting options and find one that will accept a request to modify the
default memory and time limits built into PHP. See the FAQ at
http://www.phpgedview.net/faq.php for more information about large GEDCOMs.

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QUICK INSTALLATION

Follow the instructions in this section to install PhpGedView if you are
already familiar with the program or are familiar with installing other PHP
web applications.

1. Upload the files to your web server.
2. Set Write permissions on config.php and the "index" directory. For
optimal security, you should move the "index" directory to a location
where it is not accessible from the Internet.
3. Point your browser to the directory where you uploaded your PhpGedView
files (for example, http://www.yourserver.com/PhpGedView/).
4. Enter your configuration settings. If you moved the index directory,
be sure to specify the correct location to it on this page. Save the
configuration parameters.
5. Enter the default administrator user.
6. Login as this user and upload your GEDCOM file.
7. Save the GEDCOM configuration settings.
8. Import the GEDCOM.

Optional Steps
9. If you want to use the language editing features you will need to set
Write permissions for all of the files in the ./languages folder.
10. If you want to upload media files using the Upload Media section of
the Admin menu then you need to set Write permissions for your ./media
and ./media/thumbs directories.
11. If you want to edit your GEDCOM file online, the GEDCOM file must have
Write permissions set for the PHP user.
12. If you want to use the Backup feature of the Upgrade utility in
PhpGedView you will need to either set Write permission on the
PhpGedView folder itself or create a folder named "backup" with Write
permissions. Write permissions for the PhpGedView folder can be
removed as soon as the backup folder is in place and has the
appropriate permissions.
13. For security you should set the permissions back to Read-only when you
are done editing or uploading files.

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INSTALLATION

Follow these instructions if you are not familiar with PhpGedView or
installing PHP applications.

*A. Upload Program Files:
To install PhpGedView, unzip the compressed package and upload the files to
a directory on your web server. If you have limited space on your server,
you can save space in the following ways:
1. Do not upload the "docs" folder.
2. Delete the themes from the themes folder that you do not plan to use.
3. Delete some of the language files that you do not want. English files
are named configure_help.en.php, countries.en.php, facts.en.php,
help_text.en.php and lang.en.php. French files, for example, are named
with ".fr." in place of ".en.". Hebrew files use ".he." in place of
".en.", and so on.
The English language files cannot be deleted. They are always loaded
before the files for the selected language are loaded. This ensures
that all language variables are defined, and that the English version
will be used when a given variable is missing in the new language.
4. Do not upload the "places" folder. This folder contains maps for some
countries. It also contains text files containing state, county, and
place names. Its purpose is to allow you to enter place names by
picking them from lists.

For optimal security, you may want to move the "index" directory to a
different location outside of your Internet accessible space. You will
specify the location of this directory during the online configuration.
See the SECURITY section for more information.

*B. Required File Permissions:
PhpGedView requires that Read permissions be set for all files in the
PhpGedView directory tree. Some hosts also require Execute permissions
(chmod 755). PhpGedView requires full Write permissions on the index
directory (chmod 777 under most hosting configurations). PhpGedView also
requires that Write permissions (chmod 777) be set temporarily for the
config.php file.

To help with the setting of permissions a file called setpermissions.php
has been included with the project. This file will attempt to set 777
permissions to the config.php, ./index, and all of the files inside the
./index directory. Because host settings vary on the ability of PHP
programs to set file permissions, you have to run this file manually.

If at any time you have trouble during configuration, check your
permissions again.

There are some advanced features that require more Write permissions to be
set. If you want to use the language editing features you will need to set
Write permissions for all of the files in the ./languages folder (chmod
777). If you want to upload media files using the Upload Media section of
the Admin menu then you need to set Write permissions (chmod 777) for your
./media and ./media/thumbs directories. If you want to edit your GEDCOM
file online, the GEDCOM file must have Write permissions set to the PHP
user (chmod 777).

*C. Configuration:
Next point your web browser to the PhpGedView folder
(for example, http://www.yourserver.com/PhpGedView/) to automatically
begin the online configuration process. Information about each of the
configuration options can be found online by clicking on the question mark
(?) near each label.

PhpGedView has support for importing your GEDCOMs into a PEAR:DB supported
database like MySQL or PostgreSQL. Currently, MySQL is the only fully tested
database. Using a database requires that an existing user, password, and database already
exist.

You may reconfigure PhpGedView at any time by going to PhpGedView/admin.php
and logging in as an administrator user and clicking on the "Configuration"
link.

*D. Create Admin User
After you click the Save button, you will be asked to create an
administrator user and login as this user. Then click on the link labelled
"Click here to continue" where you will be taken to the "Manage GEDCOMs"
area. In the "Manage GEDCOMs" area you can add GEDCOMs to your site, edit
the GEDCOM configuration, edit Privacy settings, and import the GEDCOM into
the data store.

*E. Add GEDCOM file
To add GEDCOM files to the system, you can upload your GEDCOM file using
the "Upload GEDCOM" option from the Admin menu. All files uploaded using
the "Upload GEDCOM" page are saved in your index directory. You can also
upload your GEDCOM manually using FTP or any other file upload method.
Most hosts limit the size of files that can be uploaded from a web form for
security reasons, so you may be forced to use a manual method. You may
also upload your GEDCOM in ZIP format, either manually or using the
"Upload GEDCOM" option. Make sure to enter the filename of the ZIP file.
PhpGedView will automatically unpack the ZIP file and use the GEDCOM file
inside it. Be sure to create the ZIP file to contain only one GEDCOM file.

*F. Set GEDCOM Configuration Settings
After uploading your GEDCOM, you will be asked to set the configuration
parameters for it. There are too many parameters to list all of their
options in this document. Please use the online Help documentation to
guide you through the configuration process.

*G. Validate GEDCOM
After you save the GEDCOM configuration PhpGedView will validate your
GEDCOM and automatically fix any errors that it can. If any errors found
in the GEDCOM require user input, you will be prompted to choose how to
proceed. Again use the online Help ? for more information.

*H. Import GEDCOM
You are almost done. This is the final step before you can begin viewing
your data. After validating the GEDCOM and fixing any errors, you will
need to import the GEDCOM into the data store. During the Import you will
see a lot of processing statistics printed on the screen. If the Import
completed successfully you will see a blue "Import Complete" message.
Everything is now set up and you can begin using PhpGedView with your
GEDCOM.

*I. Deleting GEDCOMs
You may delete GEDCOMs from your site from the "Manage GEDCOMs" area.
Deleting a GEDCOM from the site will remove it from the database but will
not delete the original GEDCOM file that you imported. It will also not
delete any of the cache or privacy files related to this GEDCOM. These
retained files, which are no longer required by PhpGedView, are all located
in the "index" directory.

*J. Reset config.php Permissions
For security you should set the permissions of config.php back to Read-only
(chmod 755) when you have finished configuring for the first time. Write
permissions will only need to be set for config.php when you use the
Admin->Configuration link. Everything else will be stored in the index
directory.

*K. Custom Themes
You can customize the look and feel of PhpGedView by modifying one of the
provided themes. See the THEMES section of this readme file for more
information.

*L. HTTP Compression
Pages generated by PhpGedView can be large and use up a lot of bandwidth.
Compression of the data between the server and browser using GZip
compression can compress the bandwidth by up to 90% (usually 80% - 90% for
PhpGedView that were tested) If your web server is Apache, configuring this
is very easy. Add the following 2 lines to your php.ini file:
php_flag zlib.output_compression On
php_value zlib.output_compression_level 5

If you have no access to the php.ini file, create a blank file named
.htaccess (including the dot) and add the lines to that file (or add them
to an existing .htaccess file and upload the file to your PhpGedView
directory.

Note: If your host is using mod_gzip or an other compression method, using
this technique can cause problems. Compression will have no effect on
browsers that do not support it. You can test the compression at
http://leknor.com/code/gziped.php

If you need help or support visit http://www.PhpGedView.net/support.php

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UPGRADING

Use the following steps to upgrade to v4.0. These steps assume that you
are familiar with PhpGedView and have successfully installed it before.

Version 4.0 no longer includes support for index files. If you do not have
PHP 5 with built-in SQLite support or a database account then you should not
upgrade to PhpGedView 4.0. Maintenance releases will continue for the 3.3.x
version.

**Note to SQLite users: Unfortunately SQLite does not support the ALTER TABLE
SQL command. This means that we must first drop the tables and recrate
them. It is highly reccomended that you run the backup before upgrading.

1. Upload the new 4.0 files to your server replacing the old files with the
new files. Do not replace the config.php file or the index directory.
2. Go to upgrade33-40.php in your browser.
3. SQLite users will need to reimport their GEDCOM files.
4. You can now use your upgraded site. One change with this version splits
user's full names into first and last name fields. If you have users
who only entered a single name then their first and last name will be the
same and it will appear doubled on some screens. You may want to review
your user list and check your user's names.
5. If you are using a customized theme you will need to update your theme
with new stylesheets and variables. An excellent tool that can help
you to merge themes is the WinMerge project
http://winmerge.sourceforge.net/

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UPDATING GEDCOMS

When you change your genealogy data outside of PhpGedView, it is not
necessary to delete your GEDCOMs from PhpGedView and start over. Follow
these steps to update a GEDCOM that has already been imported:

1. The first step is to replace your old GEDCOM on the site with your new
GEDCOM. You can do this using FTP, or by going to the "Upload GEDCOM"
page and uploading a new GEDCOM with the same filename as the old one.
Please remember that file names are case sensitive.
2. Re-import the GEDCOM file by going to
Admin->Manage GEDCOMs->Import GEDCOM. The GEDCOM will be validated
again before importing.
3. The Import script will detect that the GEDCOM has already been imported
and will ask if you want to replace the old data. Click the "Yes"
button.
4. You will again see the Import statistics and the Import Complete
message at the bottom of the page when the Import is complete.

If you use a ZIP file to upload the GEDCOM, the only way to do it is by
either using the "Upload GEDCOM" option, or the "Add GEDCOM" option. The
GEDCOM file in the zipped file has to have exactly the same name as the
already existing GEDCOM. This way existing GEDCOM settings will be
preserved.

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THEMES

PhpGedView uses a theme based architecture allowing you to have greater
flexibility over the appearance of the site. The "themes" directory
contains the standard themes that come packaged with PhpGedView. You may
customize any of these themes to your liking or create your own theme by
copying any of the standard themes to a new folder and modifying it. When
you configure PhpGedView, you should tell it to look in your new theme
directory.

A theme directory must contain at least the following 6 files:
footer.html # PHP/HTML for the bottom of every page
header.html # PHP/HTML for the top of every page
print_footer.html # PHP/HTML for the bottom of every print preview page
print_header.html # PHP/HTML for the top of every print preview page
style.css # A CSS stylesheet containing all styles
sublinks.html # PHP/HTML to print the links to other places
theme.php # The PHP design variables that you may customize
toplinks.html # PHP/HTML that appears just below the header.html

For a guide to building your own custom PhpGedView theme, go to:
http://www.PhpGedView.net/styleguide.php

If you really like a theme that you have done and would like it included
with the project, you should send your theme files to the developers at
yalnifj@users.sourceforge.net.

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MULTIMEDIA OBJECTS

The GEDCOM 5.5 standard supports multimedia files of all types. Currently
PhpGedView supports multimedia objects only as external files. Multimedia
embedded in the GEDCOM file itself will be ignored. To use the multimedia
support in PhpGedView you must copy the multimedia files external to your
GEDCOM to the "media" directory in the folder where you installed
PhpGedView.

In choosing which picture to show on charts, PhpGedView will choose the
first one with the _PRIM Y marker. If there are no _PRIM tags in your
media object records then the first object found will be used. You can
disable all photos on charts for a particular person by setting _PRIM N on
all media objects. Most genealogy programs will do this for you
automatically.

You can find all of the images referenced in your file by opening your
GEDCOM in a text editor and looking for the OBJE or FILE tags.

PhpGedView includes a "media/thumbs" directory where you can place
thumbnails of your media files for display in lists and on other pages.
PhpGedView allows you to create your own thumbnails so that you can
maintain artistic control over your media and to avoid the installation of
other server side software. Make a copy your images and reduce them to an
appropriate thumbnail size somewhere around 100px width and upload them to
the "media/thumbs" directory. Keep the filename the same as the original.
Thumbnails can be created for non-image media files as well. To do this
create a thumbnail image in either gif, jpeg, png or bmp formats and name
them the same name as the media file including the file extension (even if
the media is a non image such as a PDF or an AVI file, name the thumbnail
IMAGE with the PDF or AVI file extension).

You can configure PhpGedView to recognize subdirectories in your media
folder. The subdirectories must be the same names as the subdirectories in
your media file paths pointed to in your GEDCOM file. For example, if you
have the following media references in your GEDCOM file:
C:\Pictures\Genealogy\photo.jpg
C:\Pictures\Scans\scan1.jpg
scan2.jpg

With the media depth set to 1 you need to set up your directory structure
like this:
media/Genealogy/photo.jpg
media/Scans/scan1.jpg
media/scan2.jpg
media/thumbs/Genealogy/photo.jpg
media/thumbs/Scans/scan1.jpg
media/thumbs/scan2.jpg

With the media depth set to 2 you need to set up your directory structure
like this:
media/Pictures/Genealogy/photo.jpg
media/Pictures/Scans/scan1.jpg
media/scan2.jpg
media/thumbs/Pictures/Genealogy/photo.jpg
media/thumbs/Pictures/Scans/scan1.jpg
media/thumbs/scan2.jpg

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RSS FEED

PGV now includes an RSS feed. RSS is an XML format that allows other sites
to get news and other data from your site. The language used is the
default language of the site. The language of the feed can be set to any
language supported by PGV by changing the URL that your RSS aggregator uses
from the default /phpGedView/rss.php to /phpGedView/rss.php?lang=english
(or any language supported by PGV such as rss.php?lang=french).

Currently only the default site GEDCOM is supported for the feed info.
Other options available in the RSS feed are the ability to specify the feed
type via the rssStyle parameter. The PGV default is "RSS1.0". Passing any
supported type including "PIE0.1", "mbox","RSS0.91", "RSS1.0", "RSS2.0",
"OPML", "ATOM0.3", "HTML", "JS" will change the feed type.

For example, calling /phpGedView/rss.php?rssStyle=HTML will create HTML
output suitable for inclusion in an other page via an iFrame. The JS
option will output JavaScript that can be included in an other page without
using an iFrame.

You can also specify a module that you want to output (only 1) so that only
that module will be output. This is done via the module parameter. For
example, /phpGedView/rss.php?module=GEDCOMStats will only output the GEDCOM
Stats block.

These parameters can be chained so that
/phpGedView/rss.php?lang=hebrew&module=GEDCOMStats&rssStyle=HTML
will output the GEDCOM Stats module in Hebrew in HTML.

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DATABASE TABLE LAYOUT

PhpGedView uses a very simple database table layout because it operates
primarily on the GEDCOM data and only needs the database for search and
retrieval. There are only a few tables in the database:
pgv_blocks # Description of each user's Portal page
pgv_dates # Stores decoded date information from GEDCOM records
pgv_families # All the families in the GEDCOM
pgv_favorites # Stores users favorites
pgv_individuals # All the individuals in the GEDCOM
pgv_messages # Messages to and from users
pgv_names # Stores decoded name information from GEDCOM records
pgv_news # Stores news items for the Index and Portal pages
pgv_other # All other level 0 GEDCOM records (i.e., repositories,
# media objects, notes, etc.)
pgv_placelinks # Cross-reference between places and individuals and
# families
pgv_places # Place hierarchy
pgv_sources # All the sources in the GEDCOM
pgv_users # Table for user data (only exists if using default
# mysql authentication module)

The tables are all very similar. They each have a field for the GEDCOM ID,
a field to tell which GEDCOM file the record was imported from, a few
fields for things like quick retrieval of name information, and a field for
the raw GEDCOM record data.

Following is a more detailed description of each table:
pgv_individuals:
i_id VARCHAR(255) # GEDCOM individual ID
i_file INT # ID number of the GEDCOM file the record is from
i_rin VARCHAR(30) # Individual's RIN number
i_name VARCHAR(255) # Person's primary name taken from the first
# 1 NAME line stored in GEDCOM name format
i_isdead int(1) # Alive/dead status of individual
# -1 = not calculated yet 0 = alive 1 = dead
i_GEDCOM TEXT # Raw GEDCOM record for this individual
i_letter VARCHAR(5) # First letter of the individual's surname
i_surname VARCHAR(100) # Person's surname

pgv_families:
f_id VARCHAR(255) # GEDCOM family ID
f_file INT # ID number of the GEDCOM file the record is from
f_husb VARCHAR(255) # ID of the husband
f_wife VARCHAR(255) # ID of the wife
f_chil TEXT # List of children IDs, semi-colon (;) delimited
f_GEDCOM TEXT # Raw GEDCOM record for this family
f_numchil INT # Number of children in this family

pgv_sources:
s_id VARCHAR(255) # GEDCOM source ID
s_file INT # ID number of the GEDCOM file the record is from
s_name VARCHAR(255) # Abbreviated title of the source
s_GEDCOM TEXT # Raw GEDCOM record for this source

pgv_other:
o_id VARCHAR(255) # GEDCOM record ID
o_file INT # ID number of the GEDCOM file the record is from
o_type VARCHAR(20) # Type of GEDCOM record
# (REPO, ADDR, NOTE, OBJE, etc)
o_GEDCOM TEXT # Raw GEDCOM record for this item

pgv_names:
n_gid VARCHAR(255) # Individual ID that this name corresponds to
n_file INT # ID number of the GEDCOM file the record is from
n_name VARCHAR(255) # Name in GEDCOM format,
# with / / around the surname
n_letter VARCHAR(5) # First letter of the surname
n_surname VARCHAR(100) # Surname for this name record
n_type VARCHAR(10) # Type of name,
# P = primary, A = additional, C=calculated

pgv_blocks:
b_id INT(11) # Record ID
b_username VARCHAR(100) # User name whom block belongs to
b_location VARCHAR(30) # Location of the block.
# Main column or right column
b_order INT(11) # Position of the block within the column
b_name VARCHAR(255) # Name of the block
b_config TEXT # Configuration settings for this block

pgv_favorites:
fv_id INT(11) # Record ID
fv_username VARCHAR(30) # User name whom the favorite belongs to
fv_gid VARCHAR(10) # ID of the favorite
fv_type VARCHAR(10) # Type of favorite (currently only INDI)
fv_file VARCHAR(100) # File that this favorite belongs to
fv_url VARCHAR(255) # The URL for this favorite if it is not one of
# the basic types
fv_title VARCHAR(255) # A title for URL based favorites
fv_note TEXT # Optional descriptive information about this favorite

pgv_messages:
m_id INT(11) # Record ID
m_from VARCHAR(255) # Name or email address of the sender
m_to VARCHAR(30) # Destination user name
m_subject VARCHAR(255) # Subject of the message
m_body TEXT # Body text of the message
m_created VARCHAR(255) # Time stamp when the message was created

pgv_news:
n_id INT(11) # Unique identifier
n_username VARCHAR(100) # User name or GEDCOM the News item belongs to
n_date INT(11) # Time stamp of last update
n_title VARCHAR(255) # Title of the article
n_text TEXT # Body text of the article

pgv_places:
p_id INT(11) # Unique identifier
p_place VARCHAR(150) # Place name
p_level INT(11) # Level of the place in the hierarchy,
# 0 is the country or state
p_parent_id INT(11) # ID of this item's parent place in the
# hierarchy. A city's parent would be the
# county it is in, a county's parent would be
# a state or province, and a state or province
# would have a country as parent.
p_file INT # ID number of the GEDCOM file the record is from

pgv_placelinks:
pl_p_id INT(11) # Unique identifier
pl_gid VARCHAR(30) # Family or individual ID referencing this place
pl_file INT # ID number of the GEDCOM file the record is from

pgv_users:
u_username VARCHAR(30) # User name
u_password VARCHAR(255) # Encrypted password
u_fullname VARCHAR(255) # User's full name
u_GEDCOMid TEXT # Serialized array representing the GEDCOM IDs
# for this user
u_rootid TEXT # Serialized array representing the root IDs
# for this user
u_canadmin ENUM('Y','N') # Is the user an admin or not
u_canedit TEXT # Serialized array indicating the editing
# privileges a user has for each GEDCOM
u_email TEXT # Email addres
u_verified VARCHAR(20) # User self verified
u_verified_by_admin VARCHAR(20) # User has been verified by the admin
u_language VARCHAR(50) # User's preferred language
u_pwrequested VARCHAR(20) # User requested a new password
u_reg_timestamp VARCHAR(50) # Registration timestamp
u_reg_hashcode VARCHAR(255) # Self-registration hash key
u_theme VARCHAR(50) # User's preferred theme
u_loggedin ENUM('Y','N') # User's login status
u_sessiontime INT(14) # User's last login time stamp
u_contactmethod VARCHAR(20) # User's preferred method of contact
u_visibleonline ENUM('Y','N') # Whether or not the user is visible in
# the logged on users block
u_editaccount ENUM('Y', 'N') # Whether or not the user can edit his
# own account information
u_defaulttab INT(10) # Default tab on the individual page
# for this user
u_comment VARCHAR(255) # Admin's comments on this user
u_comment_exp VARCHAR(20) # Alert date for the admin, for instance
# for temporary accounts.
u_sync_gedcom VARCHAR(2) # If the user has a GEDCOM record ID, then
# should some of the data for the user (name,
# email) be synchronized with the GEDCOM data.
u_relationship_privacy VARCHAR(2) # Should this user use relationship privacy
u_max_relation_length INT # The maximum path that the user is allowed to see
u_auto_accept VARCHAR(2) # Are changes made by this user automatically
# accepted into the database

This table layout has received criticism from some for its simplicity,
size, and because it does not follow a genealogy model like GENTECH.
We admit that these tables can be hard to interface to because the code has
to understand GEDCOM in order to get information out of them. We also
admit that storing the raw GEDCOM data could make the tables very large.

Fortunately the GEDCOM standard is not a very complex or large format; it
only requires 6 characters per line, which is very good compared to
something like XML. However, there are some very compelling reasons why
this table structure was chosen:
1. Simpler tables mean fewer and simpler database queries. This takes a
large load off the database and makes the program run faster.
2. Nothing is lost in the Import. Even though GEDCOM is a standard, each
genealogy program interprets the standard a bit differently and adds
its own tags. Creating a database model that conforms to all the
GEDCOM outputs of different genealogy software programs would be very
difficult.

-------------------------------------------------------
MANUAL CONFIGURATION

Advanced users who understand PHP may want to configure manually by editing
the configuration file config.php When you have finished editing
config.php make sure that the variable $CONFIGURED=true; so that the
program does not try to forward you to the configuration.php script when
you launch it for the first time.

You can manually add GEDCOMS to the system by adding them to the $GEDCOMS
array in the index/GEDCOMs.php file. The GEDCOM array looks like this:
$gedarray = array();
$gedarray["GEDCOM"] = "surname.ged";
$gedarray["config"] = "./index/surname.ged_conf.php";
$gedarray["privacy"] = "./index/surname.ged_priv.php";
$gedarray["title"] = "Surname Genealogy";
$gedarray["path"] = "./surname.ged";
$GEDCOMS["surname.ged"] = $gedarray;
"surname" above could be anything, for example, "johnson" or "private".
You must pay attention to the case of what you enter. PhpGedView is case
sensitive.

Each GEDCOM will need a configuration file. You can copy the
config_GEDCOM.php file which has all of the default values for each GEDCOM
you add manually. Then set the "config" item of the GEDCOMS array to point
to the file you copied.

Each GEDCOM also needs a Privacy file. Make a copy the privacy.php file
for each GEDCOM and set the "privacy" item of the GEDCOMS array to the
location of the new privacy.php file.

-------------------------------------------------------
SECURITY

Even though PhpGedView gives you the ability to hide the details of living
individuals, whenever you post the personal details of living individuals
on the Internet, you should first obtain the permission of EACH living
person you plan to include. There are many people who would not even want
their name linked with their family history made public on the Internet and
their wishes should be respected and honored. Most family history programs
allow you to choose the people who are exported when you create your GEDCOM
file. The most secure option is to deselect all living people in your
genealogy program when you export your genealogical data to a GEDCOM file.

If you wish to protect your GEDCOM file itself from being downloaded over
the Internet you should place it outside the root directory of your web
server or virtual host and set the value of the $GEDCOM variable to point
to that location. For example, if your home directory is something like
"/home/username" and if the root directory for your web site is
"/home/username/public_html" and you have installed PhpGedView in the
"public_html/PhpGedView" directory then you would place your GEDCOM file in
your home directory at the same level as your "public_html" directory. You
would then set the file path to "/home/username/GEDCOM.ged" by editing the
GEDCOM configuration.

You can also manually set the location by changing the "path" line in
index/GEDCOMs.php:
$gedarray["path"] = "../../GEDCOM.ged";
or
$gedarray["path"] = "/home/username/GEDCOM.ged";

Since your GEDCOM file resides in a directory outside of your web server's
root directory, your web server will not be able to fullfill requests to
download it. However, PhpGedView will still be able to read and display
its contents.

In the end it is YOUR responsibility to guarantee that there has been no
violation of an individual's privacy and YOU could be held liable should
private information be made public on the web sites that you administer.

For more privacy options visit:
http://www.PhpGedView.net/privacy.php

-------------------------------------------------------
LANGUAGES

PhpGedView has built-in support for multiple languages. PHP does not
support unicode (UTF-16). It does support UTF-8 and that is the
recommended character encoding for GEDCOMs with PhpGedView. If you have
characters in your GEDCOM outside the standard ASCII alphabet, you should
probably use the UTF-8 encoding. There are many differences between UTF-8
and UTF-16, but anything that you can encode in UTF-16 you should be able
to encode in UTF-8. It is also quite easy to convert from Unicode to
UTF-8. Simply open your Unicode GEDCOM file in Windows Notepad and select
"File->Save As.." from the menu and choose UTF-8 as the encoding option.
You shouldn't lose any of the characters in the translation.

You should check the Patches section of
http://sourceforge.net/projects/PhpGedView to get the latest language
files.

Discussion and questions about the multiple language features of PhpGedView
including translations, should be posted in the Translations forum
available from the PhpGedView project page here:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=294245

To translate PhpGedView into another language that is not currently
supported you must first login to PhpGedView as an administrator and go to
the Language Edit Utility by clicking on "Admin-> Translator Tools". At
the bottom of that page is an option to Add a new language. Choose your l
anguage from the dropdown list and click on the "Add new Language" button.
A popup window will appear that allows you to edit the default settings for
your language. Each of the settings has online help available by clicking
on the "?". You might want to look at the settings for some of the other
languages on the edit language page to see how they are set up. When you
have finished editing the settings, click the Save button. This will
create a new lang_settings.php file in the index directory. You will
notice that your language now appears in the supported languages list.

Next create a copy of the "configure_help.en.php", "facts.en.php",
"help_text.en.php", and "lang.en.php" files located in the "./languages/"
and change the "en" part to match the two letter language code of your
language.

The "facts" file contains all of the translations for the various GEDCOM
tags such as BIRT = Birth. The "lang" file contains all of the language
variables used throughout the site. The "configure_help.en.php" and
"help_text.en.php" provide configuration and help instructions.

You can translate these files using the online Language File Edit utility.
Just select your language from the drop-down list and then select the file
you want to edit and click the Edit button. Your file will be compared to
the English language file so that you can easily translate the files
online.

You can also translate these files manually by opening them in any text
editor. If you manually edit the files, you must be sure to save them in
the UTF-8 character set. Some text editors like Windows Notepad add a
3-byte Byte-Order-Mark (BOM) to files they save in UTF-8. PHP does not
like the BOM and it should be removed before testing the files in
PhpGedView. PhpGedView's Translator Tools section has a utility program
for removing these BOMs.

You should obtain a flag file from http://w3f.com/gifs/index.html and size
it to match the other flags in the images/flags directory.

To help maintain languages, a language change log is provided in the
languages directory. This change log is named LANG_CHANGELOG.txt. All
changes to the English language files are recorded here.

If you make a new translation of PhpGedView or update another translation,
and would like to contribute it to the community please post your language
files and your index/lang_settings.php file to the Patches section of the
SourceForge project site at http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/phpgedview

-------------------------------------------------------
NON-STANDARD GEDCOM CODES

The GEDCOM 5.5 standard has a defined set of codes. You can read the
specification online at http://www.PhpGedView.net/ged551-5.pdf Part of the
standard allows for genealogy software to define their own codes, and
requests that they begin with an "_" underscore.

When PhpGedView comes across a tag that is not defined it will display an
error message. You can disable these error messages by setting
$HIDE_GEDCOM_ERRORS=true; in the config.php file. PhpGedView can also be
customized to work with these codes by adding them to the facts array in a
new language file named facts.en.extra.php. If you add it to the English
facts file you should also add it to the other facts language files you are
using on your site if you want other languages to translate the tag
correctly.

The format of the facts file is a PHP associative array. Each tag requires
one line in the array. The following line defines the label "Abbreviation"
for the ABBR GEDCOM tag.
$factarray["ABBR"] = "Abbreviation";

As an example, if you use a genealogy program that generates the tag
"_ZZZZ" you can customize PhpGedView to accept this code by adding the
following lines to the facts.en.extra.php file:
<?php
$factarray["_ZZZZ"] = "Tag Label goes here";
?>

-------------------------------------------------------
LANGUAGE EXTENSION FILES

Language extension files are custom PHP files that you can use to make your
own language specific extensions to PhpGedView. To add a language file
extension, create a new PHP file called lang.xx.extra.php replacing the
"xx" with the code for the language you want to extend. These files are
not automatically included with the package so that when you upgrade, your
extensions are not overwritten.

If this file exists for the language that is chosen, it is the very last
thing that is loaded before the display starts. These files were designed
to be language file extensions, but you could easily use them to make
settings changes based on the chosen language.

What sort of things can you do with language extensions?
- Customize any of the text that appears on the site,
- Change configuration options based on language,
- Change to a different GEDCOM when someone views your site in a different
language.

The only settings that you should not override in this file are the Privacy
settings.

If, for example, you wanted to change the GEDCOM title when you changed the
language, you could change the title for each language by adding the
following line to your lang.xx.extra.php:
$GEDCOMS["surname.ged"]["title"] = "Title in Chinese";

In this file you could also change the text on the buttons:
$pgv_lang["view"]="Show";

With this file you could also change the GEDCOM that is displayed when the
language is selected. Suppose you had a GEDCOM that was in German and one
that was in English. In the lang.de.extra.php file you could add the
following lines:
if ($GEDCOM=="english.ged") {
header("Location: $SCRIPT_NAME?$QUERY_STRING&ged=german.ged");
exit;
}

These lines say that if we are using the German language files, but are
using the English GEDCOM, then we need to reload the page with the German
GEDCOM. You need to reload the page so that the configuration settings for
the GEDCOM get loaded. This assumes that you have both "english.ged" and
"german.ged" imported into the database and that the english.ged and the
german.ged have the same people in them, just in a different language.
Thus I0001 in english.ged should refer to the same I0001 in german.ged.

-------------------------------------------------------
MIGRATING FROM DATABASE TO INDEX MODE AND VICE VERSA

Basically it's possible to switch a PhpGedView installation from Index to
DATABASE mode or vice-versa without losing any settings. The following
steps have to be made:

DATABASE to Index
--------------
1. Make sure you have all rights in the ./index/ folder on your web site
and on the file ./config.php
2. Copy the file config.php to configsql.php (or any other name) to
backup the old configuration. You may also use the Backup function
from the Admin menu to backup all vital files before switching mode.
3. DO NOT remove any files from your index directory, as some of them
(Privacy and GEDCOM settings) will also be used in Index mode.
4. In DATABASE mode, log in to PhpGedView with Admin rights.
5. Go to the Administration page and select the User Information
Migration tool.
6. Choose the Export function.
7. User Migrate will try to create the following files:
- authenticate.php - user accounts and settings
- favorites.dat - user and GEDCOM favorites
- blocks.dat - block layout of Welcome and MyGedView pages
- news.dat - User and GEDCOM news
- messages.dat - User messages
If any of the files already exist in your index directory, you will be
prompted to overwrite them. If there are problems creating the files,
when, for instance, you don't have sufficient rights, you can always
correct the problem and run the Export function again, as nothing
irreversible has happened.
8. Check that the above files exist in your index directory.
9. Go to Admin, Configuration, change mode to Index and save the
configuration.
10. As all Index mode related files are already present, you should be
able to use your web site in Index mode immediately.
10. Import your GEDCOM files again to build the Index database. You don't
need to change any GEDCOM settings, as they still exist in the index
directory and will be used again.
11. Test all settings and functions thoroughly before you remove your SQL
database from your web site.

Index to DATABASE
--------------
1. Make sure you have all rights in the ./index/ folder on your web site
and on the file ./config.php
2. Copy the file config.php to configindex.php (or any other name) to
backup the old configuration. You can also use the Backup function
from the Admin menu to backup all vital files before switching mode.
3. DO NOT remove any files from your index directory, as all of them
(Privacy and GEDCOM settings) will also be used in DATABASE mode, or
will be used to migrate the information to DATABASE mode.
4. Connect to your SQL DBMS with your regular administration tool, and
define a database, without any tables.
5. Create a user in your SQL-DBMS with the following rights on the
database:
SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER.
6. In PhpGedView, go to Admin, Configuration, and change mode to
DATABASE, fill in the appropriate SQL-DBMS and database name, user and
user password and save the configuration.
7. PhpGedView will ask you to create an admin user. Create one. This
user will be overwritten later with the migrated information.
8. From the admin menu, choose the User Information Migration tool, then
choose Import.
9. PhpGedview will now import all settings from Index mode to DATABASE
mode.
10. Go to Admin, Manage GEDCOMs and Edit Privacy, and then import all your
GEDCOM files again. There is no need to change GEDCOM settings and
Privacy settings, as all settings made in Index mode will be used.
11. Test all settings and functions thoroughly before you remove Index
related files (.\index\*.dat and .\index\authenticate.php) from your
web site.

-------------------------------------------------------
POSTNUKE AND PHPNUKE INTEGRATION

PhpGedView can integrate with PostNuke and phpNuke so that your users do
not have to login twice.

After you have PhpGedView up and running, you should follow the
instructions in the readme.txt file in the pgvnuke folder.

The files that make the integration magic happen were donated by Jim Carey.

===========================================================
BACKUP

With the Backup function in the administration menu, you can make a simple
backup of all important PhpGedview files. With this backup, it's possible
to rebuild your PhpGedView site to the situation at backup time.

The backup can contain the following files, as selected on the Backup page:
- config.php with all configuration settings of your installation
- all GEDCOM files that were present in your installation
- all GEDCOM options and privacy settings for the above files
- counters, PhpGedView- and search-logfiles
- user definitions and options (block definitions, favorites, messages
and news)

The files will be gathered into a ZIP file, which can be downloaded by
clicking the link on the page.

Note: The database itself will not be included in the backup, since it can
be rebuilt using the files in the backup.

Note: All pending changes (not approved or rejected yet by the
administrator) will be present in the GEDCOM files but can no longer be
identified as changes. If the database is rebuilt using the GEDCOMs, these
changes therefore can no longer be rejected.

The Backup function uses the PclZip library, which is written by Vincent
Blavet and can be found at http://www.phpconcept.net/pclzip.

Readme Version 4

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