The Program Ahn presents gedcom files with ancestor trees and familiy trees within the internet and on your local PC. Furthermore the program is suitable very well to write it with the genealocical data to a CD and to start the program.
new functions of the version 4.0:
| - | Dynamic Allocation of the Window |
| - | New Menustructur |
| - | Support of the Wheelmouse |
| - | Realationship of Two Persons |
| - | Extended Note Tags |
| - | Extended Data Protection |
| - | Improved Helpsystem |
| - | Passwordwindow |
| - | Localization |
Both charts can be shown in two formats, the
The list format can be used to get all the information of a person, which is stored in the records of the gedcom file. The graph format gives a good overview between several generations.
Several possibilities exist to surf within the actual output. Additional to the actual format an index of all persons guarantees a quick finding of a special person. A detailed description of the program is offered at the start and can be got every time.
You can use the program local on your box or you transfer the program together with your gedcom files to your internet server, so that everyone can get access to your genealogical data at the internet. It is very simple to copy the program with your data to a CD which you can send to relatives or researchers of genealogy. They can start the program direct from the CD without any installation.
Gedcom files often contains very personal data which may be abused by some persons. The program Ahn offers a double protection although your entire data are available in the internet. Now you can encode your gedcom files, so that only the program Ahn can interpret them. Your data are protected against a simple download of your gedcom file or reading with a wordprocessor.
Furthermore you can determine, to which data general internet users may have access. The program offers six levels of security. Nevertheless by appropriate password protection entitled users can access all data. No modifications at your gedcom files are necessary.
Because the program Ahn is a java program, you must adjust your browser so that starting of java programs is allowed.
The version Ahn 4 presupposes Java version 1.4 or newer. Using modern browser as Internet Explorer 6, Netscape 6, Mozilla 1 or Opera 7 the Java version can be installed independently of the browser. If you use an older version of Java please replace this version by an actual one.
The version Ahn 4 contains additionally still the previous version Ahn 3 which can be started with every Java version. Therefor also the browser Internet Explorer 4 or 5 and Netscape 4.7x can be used. A special start of Ahn 3 is possible or the tool ahnSwitch will choose the correct version of Ahn.
The start of the example is carried out via this link. If you look at the source of this htm file with your browser, you recognize the easy way to integrate the program Ahn into a web page.
The ancestor tree is a part of the ancestor tree of the family Braess, beginning with the progenitor Peter Braess and his sons Peter and Elias. If you like you can look at the complete ancestor tree. Because this part doesn't contain any living persons the gedcom file Braess_a.ged isn't encoded so that you can look at this file with your browser.
It is recommended to maximize the browserwindow so that it takes the complete display. To scroll around within the complete list the horizontal scrollbar of the browser has to be moved so that the vertical scrollbar of the list gets visible.
In the help window and also in the section program operation you find the description how to surf in the data. I would particularly like to point to the '<->' symbol which opens a menu with which you can activate most functions of the program.
The list format may have links to images, Internet sites and
references to genealogical resources. If you click on these
links a new window is opened.
Because one or more images can be assigned to one person the
titles of the images are shown with the link.
References to the genealogical sources are included in the
text at the position at which they are assigned. Source references
use the blue link color and have the format [n].
The ancestor tree may also have links to images, internet sites and genealogical resources of the descendent tree.
The width of the index area can be enlarged or can be made smaller by moving the divider. With a narrow index area the names are presented in a short version within the area, which may prevent unambiguous identificaiton of an individual. The whole name with all first names can be displayed by increasing the width of the index area.
With the program menu 'View' and the option 'Index on | off' the index area can be toggled off and on.
GEDCOM Info
The genealogical information is read from the file which
has the format of the GEDCOM standard. In a seperated window general
information about the GEDCOM file is presented. The main
information may include the submitter of the file, the name of the
program which produced the gedcom file and the date of creation.
Password
A part of the data may be protected by a password. If you obtained the
password from the owner, you can open the password window with this menu item.
You can enter the password at any time the programm is running in order to view
all the information including the protected data.
If the password is already given at startup time, or there are no
protected data within the genealogical data this menu item cannot
be activated.
Close
If the program is started directly with Java the program can be
finished by this menu item. This item is not present when the program is started
from a browser.
Graph | List
A change between the graph and list format occurs.
At the moment following languages can be choosen:
english
german
french
Info
The actual version of the program, the internet site and the email address
is shown.
This submenu is only offerred in the graph format.
This submenu is only offered in the graph format.
The relations are created and controlled by three submenus:
Start Chain
The first person is to be defined.
End Chain
The second person will be defined. Afterwards all persons are marked
who belong to the chain.
Delete Chain
The marking of all persons will be removed.
This menu item can only be activated, if the the program was started by a browser.
I recommend the following steps to start a local test at your PC box:
After the first start of the program or after modifications at the gedcom file you should look at the java console for tags or lines of the gedcom file which couldn't be interpreted because of the format. Most reports are provided with the line number of the gedcom file. Only the first appearence of an unrecognized gedcom tag is reported.
To get the messages you have to activate the Java console. This depends of the browser you are using, e.g. MS Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator/Communicator and also of the used version.
I wish you success and pleasure surfing your data.
To remove the program from your system you only have to delete the directory of the program. No files are created and used within this or other directories. Also the registry isn't changed.
Two versions of the menu exist:
Using the 'html code' button shows the code which is needed for internet presentation. The applet code can be copied with 'cut and paste' direct to the html file.
To allow the internet access you need a special modul 'AhnCode.class' for your URLs. Please send me your URL or a list of URLs, if your server can be reached by several URLs or if you want to use more than one server. I will create this modul for you free of charge. Without this modul the network users become the error message 'no registry for internet use'.
If you want to present more than one gedcom file or many images within your data a structured directory is recommended. Please consider that the gedcom file and the images must be placed in the directory of the Java moduls or in a subdirectory of the moduls.
The easiest way to check which Java version your local browser supports use the 'Java Version' button of the html version of the ahnStart menu. Several browsers may support different versions of Java.
The start of Ahn 3 differs only in the code parameter of the applet tag within the html file - see Parameter of the Program -. AhnApplet.class has to be changed to Ahn3Applet.class . An example you will find in the file ahn3.htm.
The program ahnSwitch which will be started as Java applet within a html file will help you to start the right version of Ahn. In the two parameters of this program the both html files are defined which shall be started in the two cases. If the gedcom file contains the extended note tags, the version Ahn 3 can't be started so that the ahn3-html-file may report an error message. The start of ahnSwitch without parameters will show the actual java version.
Example:
<APPLET code=ahnSwitch.class width=400 height=500>
<PARAM name=ahn4 value='ahn.htm'>
<PARAM name=ahn3 value='ahn3.htm'>
</APPLET>
The file ahn.htm starts the program Ahn 4 and the file ahn3.htm the program Ahn 3.
Sometimes personal data are stored in the gedcom file and not every user of the internet shall have full access to the file. Therefor a double data protection with encoding of the gedcom file and password access is offered.
Every user of the internet can read your gedcom file and download it from your server provider. After the start of the program the actual html file can be shown by your browser. Within the applet call he will find the name of the gedcom file. When he will fill this name into the URL field of the browser, the gedcom file will be shown and the user can save the gedcom file into a private file. To prevent this the file can be encoded.
Additional you decide at the encoding process the scope which data shall be diplayed to every internet user and which password shall be used to get all data.
The file Ahn.zip contains the program AhnCrypt.exe - only for Windows 95/98/NT/2000 - to encode gedcom files, which are stored as .cgd files. The program Ahn uses a intern decode routine, if you assign a .cgd file as gedcom file within the applet tag of the htm file. Only who knows the key, which was used encoding the file, can decode the gedcom file again.
A call of the program AhnCrypt with the parameter -help gives a description of the program to encode/decode the gedcom file and to define the scope and the password.
The call from a DOS Shell:
AhnCrypt -hilfe|-help
or
AhnCrypt key file [scope password]
| -hilfe -help |
The description of the command is displayed for starting the program. |
| key: | Key to encode or decode of the gedcom file
|
| file: | Name of the gedcom file without index which shall be encoded or decoded
|
| scope: | The scope defines which information of the gedcom-file will be displayed as standard output. The following scope modes are possible: ALL| LIVING_NODATA| LIVING_NONOTES| ALL_NODATA| ALL_NONOTES| PRIVATE |
| password: | Password to get the complete gedcom information. |
Modes of the scope:
| ALL: | All users can see all data of your gedcom file without password protection. This version is recommended, if the gedcom file contains only ancestors of you. |
| LIVING_NODATA: | The users without password identifier will get all data of your gedcom file excluded from living persons - born after 1900 and there are no dying data -. Their birth and wedding data (place and date), their addresses and images will be suppressed. This version is very well suitable, if relatives of the current generation are contained in the gedcom file. |
| LIVING_NONOTES: | In contrast to LIVING_NODATA only the names of living persons are the output. Complete information to the persons - NOTE tags of the gedcom file - is available like the birth and wedding data only over password access. |
| ALL_NODATA: | The births -, dying, wedding data and addresses of all persons of the gedcom file are available only with the knowledge of the password. Also the links to images are suppressed. |
| ALL_NONOTES: | The standard output without password knowledge contains only the names of the persons. As genealogic researcher you would like that interested persons contact to you, to receive the personal data, for instance by password assignment. |
| PRIVATE: | Your gedcom data are only accessible to network users, e.g. relatives, friends and special ancestor researchers, to who you indicated the password. Your gedcom file contains many very personal information, which should be accessible only by the family, which may be located far away each other. |
The applet tag of the program Ahn in the htm file has the following syntax:
<APPLET [codebase=directory] archive=AhnClass.jar code=AhnApplet.class height=height width=width MAYSCRIPT>
<PARAM name=gedfile value='gedcom-file'>
[<PARAM name=base value='basenumber'>]
[<PARAM name=lang value='language'>]
[<PARAM name=help value='off'>]
[<PARAM name=index value='off'>]
[<PARAM name=password value='off'>]
[<PARAM name=date value='date format'>]
[<PARAM name=logo value='logo-file'>]
[<PARAM name=background value='color'>]
</APPLET>
Only the parameter gedfile must exist, the other parameters are optional. Of course the htm file can contain any other htm tags.
The gedcom file should be in the same directory as the modules of the program Ahn. If you choose another data file directory, you must use relative file names e.g. 'data/ahn.ged'.
The file index of gedcom files is .ged. These files can be provided without any modifications. However for data protection reasons an encoding is preferred with password protection. In this case the index must be .cgd .
Warning:
The name of the gedcom file may not contain blanks or other special national
characters such as german Umlaut. In these cases the gedcom file may not
be found at internet use by some browsers.
The base person decides whether the first output is an ancestor tree or a descendent tree. If the base person is the youngest generation and therefore has only ancestors or the base person has ancestors and descendants an ancestor tree is chosen. With a base person with only descendants the descendent tree of this person is chosen as first representation .
The default value as base person is the first person in your gedcom file.
With the <-> symbol and the following menu you can switch between the ancestor tree and descendent tree at any time and in addition you can choose another person as base person.
The texts are issued in the german, english or french language . This value can be changed by the program menu 'Localization' at runtime.
The default value at missing parameter is the default language, which can be defined by localization.
If the help parameter is put on off, no HELP menu is distributed at the
start of the program.
Also the old parameter start with the value nohelp is still supported.
If the index parameter is set to off, no indexlist is presented at start time. Therefor the whole window can be used by the list or graph mode.
If this parameter is set to off, no password menu will be opened at starttime when the program is started with coded gedcom files. No protected data will be shown. You can enter the password at any time the programm is running in order to view all the information including the protected data by using the program menu 'File' and the menuitem 'Password'.
This parameter defines another date format than the default one. For german and french localization the default format is ddmmyyyy and for english mmddyyyy.
ddmmyyyy : The date format is day, month and year with a dot as seperator, e.g. 30.01.1950
mmddyyyy : The date format is month, day and year with a hyphen as seperator, e.g. 01-30-1950
ddmmmyyyy1: The monthname will be a short form with three characters with a dot after the day, e.g. 30. Jan 1950.
ddmmmyyyy2: This date differs in relation to the preceding date by a hyphen, e.g. 30-Jan-1950.
With this parameter the logo at the top of the indexlist can be specified. Three possibilities exist:
no information (missing parameter): The logo of the program will be added to the indexlist. At a small indexlist only the character 'A' of the logo will be used as output.
Name of a logo file: The logo file, e.g. as .gif or .jpg file, must contain the logo. Therefor it is possible that the user can add his personal logo to the program output, e.g. heraldic figures, a picture of a person of the family, .... . The logo must be smaller than the indexlist, which can be controlled by the width parameter. The pathname must be defined relativ to the Java moduls. The logo file must be in the directory or in a subdirectory of the Java moduls.
- : The indexlist shall contain no logo.
With this parameter the background color of the lists and graphics of the program can be defined. Therefor it is possible to adapt the color to the background of the internet browser. There are two ways to define the color:
Hexadecimal definition of the color: The definition is the same as within
internet sites and contains 7 characters: #rrggbb. The specifications of the
three colors red, green and blue consists of two characters between 0 and F.
Example: #F0C090
A decimal list of the three colors red, green and blue with the syntax 'red,green,blue'.
The values of the colors must range between 0 and 255.
Example: 240,192,144
The examples of encoding are coded with different background colors.
The program can run on all systems, which support files with long names and lower and upper cases and for which browser with java exist.
Because Java exspects correct filenames, you must use a suitable zip program. With Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP winzip can be used. Linux distributions often include unzip.
If no suitable zip program exists, e.g Linux, OS/2, ..., you can download it:
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/tex/ctan/tools/zip/info-zip/Info-ZIP.html
Because of the short filenames the program can't be started with Window 3.1/3.11.
Modern processors with frequncies more than 1 GHz and the newest browser generations, which uses Java 1.4, allow to surf with the program Ahn in large gedcom files. At my local box I have looked at a gedcom file with 5.8 MB, 25000 persons and 10000 family tags. For internet use such large gedcom files are not recommended, because it will take several minutes to read the gedcom file, even if you use a quick DSL connection.
At the moment the limits of gedcom files is set to 30000 person tags and 12000 family tags. The list must not exceed 120000 lines.
Using large gedcom files with more than 100K byte the start of the program will take some time depending on the processor speed, data connection and the version of Java, which is used by the browser, until the first list will be displayed. Also some time is needed for a change between descendent tree and ancestor tree which is reduced since Java 1.3. The reaction time within a descendent tree or ancestor tree is always excellent even with large files, even if you change between the list and graphic mode,.
Please consider that not all users of the internet have ordered most modern equipment. Processors with 300 MHz, connections with 28.8 KBaud and browsers with Java 1.1 (e.g. Netscape 4.x and Internet Explorer 4.0) are quite common. Bad reaction time in consequence of too large gedcom files will annoy the visitor of your sites.
Large gedcom files should be divided in several files, e.g. the descedants or ancestors of one person in a separate file - look at my site, I have divided my data in 14 files -. Now I offer my whole genealogical data of 850 KB as one file but I have added a warning statement to this call of the program.
The output of the program can be adjusted to the size of the monitor, so that the right scollbar is visible if the browser uses the complete display size. At the time of the first version of the program the normal size was 14" with 640 x 480 pixels. Nowadays the normal size is 17" with 1024 x 768 pixels and even some larger monitors exist with 1680 pixels and more.
The width parameter of the applet statement determine the size of list or graphic area. The number of generations which are shown in the graphic mode are also dertermined by the width parameter. You can increase the number of generations at least by one when the index is suppressed. The number of generations may also change when you enlarge or made smaller the index area.
With an index area at starttime the table shows the number of generations depending of the width parameter.
| Width | Number of Generations |
| 600 - 740 | 3 |
| 750 - 890 | 4 |
| 900 - 1040 | 5 |
| 1050 - 1190 | 6 |
| 1200 - 1340 | 7 |
| 1350 - 1490 | 8 |
| 1500 - 1640 | 9 |
| 1650 - 1790 | 10 |
Version 3:
A small index area, which can't be increased, is created when the lower
values of width are used. In this case only a short name is listed. If
you use the upper value a larger index area is created so that normally
all first names and the whole surname is listed. If the the name is too
long for the area the name is shortened. The size of the index area is
fix and can't be made smaller or increased.
For internet access a width for 4 to 6 generations is recommended within the htm file, because you don't know the monitor size of the internet user. If you integrate the program within a large internet site with more information you may choose smaller values.
The program Ahn uses the object definition of the gedcom standard, which is also used by several programs to create gedcom files.
| 1 OBJE | ||
| 2 TYPE | #optional | |
| 2 TITL | #optional | |
| 2 FILE | ||
| 2 NOTE | #optional |
| TYPE: | Describes the type of the object. This tag isn't analysed yet, but it is recommended to use the value 'Image' for further evaluation. |
| TITL: | Title of the picture. The title is also used within the list to identify several links. |
| FILE: | Name of the file or URL of the internet site.
The name of the file with gif or jpg format. If you choose a different directory for the file you have to specify the relative pathname. The directory of the picture must be a subdirectory of the directory of the Java moduls. It is allowed that the filename contains blanks. If the filename contains other special national characters, such as german umlaut, it may happen, that the file with the picture isn't found at internet access. The URLs of internet sites can be specified as world wide addresses, starting with http:, or as local htm/html files, which have to be adressed relativ to the directory of the Java moduls. |
| NOTE: | A subline to the picture. A long text will be presented in several lines. With internet sites this tag will be ignored. |
The owner of the gedcom file decides, wether the possibilty shall be offered to
the client to create excerpt lists, so that these lists can be processed with the browser,
e.g. print or save.
If the MAYSCRIPT specification - in upper cases - is added to the applet tag, e.g.
<APPLET archive=AhnClass.jar code=AhnApplet.class width=900 height=600 MAYSCRIPT>
the additional subject 'excerpt list' will be offered at the pulldownmenu for each person.
In a second step the client can chosse the number of generations which shall be tranferred
to the list. The list will be of the same kind as the actual presentation - descendent tree or
ancestor tree - and will be presented in a new window. The new list contains the same
information as the original list of the Java program, so that the hidden information of
the encryption will not be shown. Images will not be transferred to the excerpt list.
The client has to enable Javascript with the browser.
If you start the program Ahn as Java application -direct by using the command 'java -cp AhnClass.jar AhnApplic ....' or by using the program ahnStart in the Java version - no excerptlists can be offered in the menu.
Three localization files exist, one for german (AhnLocalde.lcl), one for english (AhnLocalen.lcl and another for french(AhnLocalfr.lcl). Additonally an default localization file (AhnLocal.txt) exist, which is identical with the language file of the default language. The change of the default language will also adapt the local htm menuprogram 'ahnStart'.
An adaption to further languages can be achived by adding new localization files AhnLocalxx.lcl, e.g. for danish, hungarian, spanish, ..... or by replacing the default lcalisation file. These files can be used by the parameter 'lang' in the applet statement.
If you want to create a new localization file by translating an existing one, please mail me, that I can give you some hints. The new language will appear as new menuitem in the localization menu.
If you named the directory of the program Ahn and your gedcom file 'ahn', create the following index.htm file. The call of this file will immediately step to your html file ahn.htm in the directory ahn.
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL=ahn/ahn.htm">
</head>
</html>
Copy the directory ahn and the file index.htm to the CD. You only need to copy the files which are needed for the internet server. If you add a personal readme file your relatives will have no problems with the program and will enjoy surfing in the genealogical data.
If your gedcom file is not too large and if you addedonly a few images you even can use a 3.5" disk, because the program needs only about 270 KB. So for your gedcom file and images still 11 MB is available.
Not all gedcom tags are supported. A complete list will be published here soon.
Gedcom tags which are not supported, are reported to the Java console.
The Java console has to be activated depending of the browser which is used.
The easiest way is the start with the batch file 'ahnStart.bat' and using the startmenu.
The program can be started in a DOS-shell:
java -cp AhnClass.jar AhnApplic [-lang=de | en | fr] [-help=off] [-logo=datei | -] [-password=off] [-date=ddmmyyyy | mmddyyyy | ddmmmyyyy1 | ddmmmyyyy2] [-background=#......] [-index=off] gedcom-File [Baseperson]
The parameters are explained in the section Parameters of the Program.
If the program is not started from the directory of the Java moduls, gedcom files and images, it is recommended to use fully qualified pathname, e.g. c:\temp\data\gedcom\ahn.ged.
Munich, Germany, August 2006