FAQ:PhpGedView

Questions about PhpGedView

What is PhpGedView?

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 website and available for others to see.

See About for more information.

Why should I use PhpGedView?

• It's free!!
• You don't have to generate thousands of extra html files. Simply upload your GEDCOM file and you've updated your entire site.
• It's fully compliant with GEDCOM 5.5
• Powerful searching features let you find the people you are looking for.
• Pedigree, Descendancy, and Timeline charts just like in your regular genealogy program.
• With customizable theme templates, your site will look the way you want it to.
• Share your genealogy with your family, friends, and the world over the Internet.
• Edit your genealogy online
• Allow your family members to login and view and/or edit genealogy online
• Collaborate better with your family members by working together on the same data set

We feel that PhpGedView is the best online genealogy application.

Where can I see PhpGedView "in action"?

There is a list of websites that use PhpGedView here.

What is GEDCOM?

Please see the Wikipedia page for GEDCOM.

Can I run PhpGedView on my home computer?

PhpGedView was designed for the purpose of easily putting your genealogy on the internet, however it is possible to run it on your home computer for local access. To do this you will either need to download the PHPLauncher application or set up your computer as if it were a webserver.

Follow these steps to turn your computer into a webserver:

• Download and install a webserver. I recommend Apache. You might be able to get windows personal web server to work with PHP. See the PHP documentation for more information on trying this route. If you are successful, pointing your web browser to http://localhost will give a web page welcoming you to your new webserver. If not you will get a file not found or host not found error.
• Download and install PHP.
• Follow the directions in the readme.txt file for installing PhpGedView.

An alternative would be an all-in-one distributions that make it easy for the home computer user. One example is http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp . As well as the necessary components (Apache, MySQL and PHP) and a nifty control panel to manage them centrally, it also deals with some of the security issues that a novice user might trip up on. For more details, see [1]

Can I run PhpGedView from a CD?

• NOTE: These instructions are for v3 only.

Follow these steps to run PhpGedView from a CD:

Before you start, make sure you read how to install and use phpLaunch.

• First download the PHPLauncher
• Download a v3.x.x copy of PhpGedView
• Run PhpLaunch
• Setup and configure PhpGedView to use Index files.
• Edit your configuration and set the session save path to be the c:\TEMP folder on your harddrive.
• Burn it to a CD!