Testers wanted ... Fan Chart tweak

Question

I need some Fan Chart users and App lovers to test out the latest changes to the Fan Chart app.  I have recently tweaked the way the "Login to WikiTree" function works in my app, and, I'm pretty sure that FINALLY I have cracked the nut, and it will now give you the results you truly deserve.  What I mean by that is that if you login with your WikiTree ID, you should NOW see on your Fan Chart all the data that you would normally see when you are browsing through WikiTree while logged in.

For ME, for example, that means it now will show me my own Middle Name and actual birth date.  Both of those pieces of information are "private", so, if you're not logged in they are hidden - and - until now - they were hidden from my Fan Chart app.  

What is NOT changed is that if an individual (including a WikiTreer) has their privacy setting such that public viewing is not allowed, the Fan Chart will still not pierce that veil - which is exactly what we want.

Like many changes to an app - the developer can only test so many cases before he/she runs out of ideas or test cases to think of ... and... the YOU folks are the most diverse group of tire-kickers ever assembled, so, I would greatly appreciate if you could check out the Test version that I have uploaded.  There is at least one bug that I've discovered (not going to tell you what) - and - I suspect there may be more lurking.  PLEASE help me find and squash them all!

Go to:  https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/clarke11007/fanTest.php to try out this new improved (hopefully) version of the Fan Chart.

As an ADDED BONUS - and a thank you for testing this for me - I've added one new feature in this Test version to entice you ... when you click on the Print / Save to PDF button, there is now the option to choose the Font style for the cells of the Fan Chart in the PDF - you can have Courier (default), or Arial, or Times New Roman.  (Sorry - Comic Sans is not an option ..)

Thanks in advance!

 - Greg

Comments

Thank you to all of you beta testers!

I have now updated the Fan Chart with the new features I've been testing - and a few more I just slipped in because I have no self-control ...

You can read all about it on my latest G2G post:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1141280/november-2020-update-for-fan-chart-app

Thanks again for your help!

TWO Big Caveats:

* The PDF generator has not yet been updated to handle some of the new options - so - please be patient as I tackle that this week

* Safari has decided to act up on me, and does not like my new login algorithm.  I need to investigate that further. (Let me know if it works for you).  In the short term - consider using an alternative browser. (I also need someone to test it out on Edge)

Thanks!

 -Greg

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In case this is your first time checking out the Fan Chart app - you can get to it from your Family Tree & Tools page, or go to it directly from this link: https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/clarke11007/fan.php 

Answer 1

Testing things out (again). You just love having me as a beta tester don't you? Adding a gen on the tree seems a little sluggish. But, I am sure that can be tweaked. Or it might be my end.

So far so good. No love for Comics Sans, too, huh? Aww. Ah well. There's always Wingdings.

Comments

Thanks Chris!

It might be a bit slower (haven't actually timed it out) - so many things could be affecting it, so hard to tell really.  However, since I've changed the access protocols, it is now retrieving the full info available per person, so, there is more data now flowing - and that could slow things down exponentially as you get further and further out.  Retrieving past the 6th generation has never been what I'd call speedy - but - as long as it doesn't time out on you - it's still faster than drawing by hand!  That being said, I will look for efficiencies where possible.

 - Greg

Answer 2

Greg,

Nice to have more ways to show my family tree.  Thank you.

Some observations - sometimes hard to tell the difference between a bug and a feature.

When entering my grandson - privacy - Private with Public Family Tree - (I am on trusted but not manger) I get only his name in the chart - and no message.

Entering my son, Privacy - Unlisted, I am manager - it hangs "looking for parents"

Entering myself - chart good - then set to 6 generations the last ring is much to large - even Barbara (Neuschwander) Husser, does not need near that much space.  Same issue with 7 generations.

Ideas - show message if privacy prevents creation of chart, reduce size of generations 6, 7 ..

Comment on color - the colors are so bright that they take away from the value of the chart - if they could be less intense that would nice - OK how about an option on the color intensity?

Comments

Thanks Philip for those suggestions!  (and yes .. many a bug has been turned into a "feature" - either by virtue or by spin from its creator ....)

It's only now that I've been able to actually grab anything behind the Privacy veil - so - until this point, hadn't considered or been able to test the various "shades" of access that provides.  Your suggestions make a lot of sense - and - if I can at least implement the notice about the prevention of creation of charts - that would help clarify the blank screens some people get.  Good idea. (May not be as easy to do ... but I'll see )

As for the size of the rings - I've used a standard size that will fit "most people" that I've tested with, with a reasonable number of features.  If you play with the Fan Settings menu and turn on a bunch of options, it can get crowded.   Auto-sizing each ring would be possible, but would also create an extra calculation loop for each ring and thus slow down the page creation even more.   I'd like more feedback from other users about this option before I jump into adding it.  If I can do it, and it does slow things down, I might add it as an option, so if you intentionally choose this feature, you'll know in advance that it comes with a performance hit.  (But, I guess, either way - it's faster than drawing a fan chart by hand!)

Your final comment:  You want colour options - I've got LOTS of colour options Philip!  Check out the Colour Options menu and choose a different palette.  The pastel one is nice and muted - or - the shades of grey ... and if you don't like one of those, you can customize the entire palette if you wish - or - Turn off Colours completely if that's your ultimate preference.   

Thanks for taking the time to provide some good feedback - I really appreciate it!

Take care,

 -Greg

:-)

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Greg,

Colors - oops - user error.

Actually the color choices look GREAT - I had failed to look at all of the options.

Now that I see all of the options:

I entered all of the possible options and looked at generation 6 - I withdraw my comment, there is no need to make the size smaller for generation 6.

New topic - DNA confirmation.  Hilite mt, and Y, both seem OK, Hilite confirmed seems to be missing some.  My parents are confirmed for me but not hilited on chart, nothing is hilted on 5 generations or less, but at 6 generations several are hilited.  

Phil

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Ha - good one Phil - you found the bug that I had discovered just before publishing (but wouldn't disclose).  My new method must be putting the DNA confirmation data in the wrong field - I will fix that shortly.  Good eye - you win the prize for finding it first.  Anything else?

 - Greg

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Greg,

I guess I haven't lost it.  When working, (a very long time ago) I usually said if I could not break a new program in 15 minutes or so I was not doing my job.

I only found  one - I guess you are ready to go live.

Nice work.

Phil

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HI there Philip,

I've got the DNA Confirmation working again - if you could test it out to "confirm" my confirmation about the DNA confirmation - that'd be great!

:-)

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Greg,

A little late, but I have gone back through the fan and checked everything - looks good.

Perhaps an edit to the first question showing that the fan has moved to Family Tree and Tools page would be useful, clicking in the link in the original question gives some interesting, but not useful, results.

Answer 3

Looks great. Just a quick test, however.

I noticed that the default number of generations will show a bunch of empty blocks when there are no ancestors (see Boyles-7).

I really like the popup with name and birth/death dates and locations. A couple of things about that:

• if you move your mouse over a different box the popup is replaced with that person (really cool) but there might be a delay or you might need to wiggle the mouse around for the event to be detected
• you might want to remove the link to Private-### when the profile is private otherwise the link will return a 404

Comments

Thanks Kay!

You're right - those without an extensive tree will have a bare looking initial Fan Chart.  However, you can back it down to 3 generations, which I'm guessing is a minimum that most people start out with.  Leaving the blanks there initially may encourage some to continue their research (though - could be a sour note for those encountering brick walls, and being constantly reminded ... oh well .. can't foresee all possibilities!)

Glad you like the popup (I call it my Monopoly Card popup) with the person's details.  You're right, it was initially designed so that as you hover over top of someone's first name, their info gets put in the box - so you can use it to quickly scan lots of ancestors easily.   I keep meaning to (but get distracted) to make it so that the last name is also "live" but - it is in fact just the first name, so that might account for the delay you're noticing.

One thing I've done though, in case you want to focus on one ancestor, is that if you click on a person's name a second time, that ancestor's info becomes "pinned" - and you'll see an icon which is meant to represent a tack (capital T on a 45 degree angle) - then - when you move the mouse it doesn't replace the person in the info box.  Another click will "unpin" this behaviour - or - you an dismiss it in the popup box itself.

Good catch on the Private-#### - hadn't noticed that before!  Will add that to my list.

Also - I think I will add a link to your Bio-Check app for the primary person, at the number of generations currently being displayed, in the "OTHER VIEWS" menu.

 - Greg

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HI again Kay,

I've now removed the links to the Private--123 private profiles that didn't go anywhere anyways!  I've also extended the clickability to anywhere in the first 3 lines of text inside a fan chart cell (so that should cover your ancestors' full names. - not just their first name - so it should no longer seem hit and miss hopefully)

 - Greg

Answer 4

I love your app, Greg. It's awesome.

When you're done this round of tweaks, let us know so we have an excuse to mention it again in the newsletter.

Comments

Thanks Chris!

I think it's working again (after it was almost perfect, I then went and broke it completely .. now, we're back to shipshape, better than ever ..) - however - I did want to add one more tweak before copying the fanTest code over to the live version.   I'll let you know!

Answer 5

Hello, and thank you Greg!

This app is something I use a lot in the more “vanilla” form, and I love it! I decided to try a few of the snazzier features and give it a try today.  I’ve never seen any login related problems, other than getting an empty chart if I’m not logged in, which isn’t a problem, but might be more user friendly if there were a message that I’m not logged in. Another warning, or just a please wait message that might be helpful with the somewhat slower initial display would be a similar notice and/or some indication that things are going on. I’m using my iPad to test this, and I think it may be slower than my desktop computer, but from entering the I’d to seeing anything on the screen was long enough I was wondering if I had done something wrong. I didn’t notice any speed issues with adding more generations, either, by the way. If anything,  they were faster.

I also played around with the colors a little, having seen that I could have different colors for different locations. There I ran into somewhat of a disappointment. It has been my understanding that a location should always include the country to be complete, and all profiles I’ve entered myself (I hope) have followed that format. But when I did the display with location colors, many of my profiles were colored for United States, when I’ve never put  just United States as a location ever. Profile that were older, and used no country were displayed for the correct state or in the case of colonies, displayed properly, although when using the location format support on location fields, the convention appears to be just “Virginia” for pre 1776, instead of colony of Virginia. If using the apparently preferred form, it displays Virginia, but the colony of Virginia profiles, are not the same color. I understand this is a really big kettle of fish! But if this could be improved, could be an amazingly helpful tool for visually  following the trails of ancestors through the world. Since the location of Virginia is the same, whether colonial or not (other than it shrinking when kentucky and West Virginia were spun off) wouldn’t it be better to just color all Virginia locations one color!?   Perhaps this is something you’re already thinking about. As a former programmer, I do understand the issues involved. But as it stands now, it appears to penalize those who are using one of the best features of profile creation and editing.

Answer 6

Using internet on Android, it isn't showing any names, other than my own. Usually it worked, not this time. When I pressed an extra generation, it came up with a quarter of the tree. It evidently isn't using my log in, because it is showing my father as private. I thought, I should go back and check that the usual Fan Chart is working, and it is.

Comments

Hi there Ben,

There's no reason I can think of why this shouldn't work on Android.  I'm wondering if you just happened to catch the app while I was in the midst of breaking / testing something?  I do that without notice (sorry beta testers!).  Can you please try again - and - if it still doesn't work - any screen shots or diagnostics you can send me to help solve the mystery would be greatly appreciated!

 -Greg

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Yes, It is coming up now. Must have caught it while you were working on it. Thank you. Looks good. Still shows my living people as Private, but that isn't any great concern. Thank you.

Answer 7

I am new to wikitree but not new to ancestry.

Here is what happened when I tried to load my gedcom.

"manifest file is missing or unreadable"

What am I doing wrong

Comments

Hi Brenda,

I think you may have posted to this thread by mistake(?)  Is your problem related to the Fan Chart?  I think you want to search the help pages for Gedcom help or ask a new question on G2G by going to the 'Ask a Question' tab.

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Thank you for the help, everyone here is so helpful.

Answer 8

Really like this chart, will be printing it off :) only little issue I have with it is. When you have ancestors who repeat, the red background and to a lesser extent the dark purple make it hard to read the black words. You might want to future proof by adding a remove coloured background option. Though as there won't be that many people with repeating ancestors it's probably not a priority.

Comments

Thanks Paula!

That option already exists, it’s under Fan Settings —> Colourize Repeats. By default it is on, but clicking on it will toggle it off.

Also, this is an older post, and the most recent version of the app is at fan.php (just remove the word Test in the URL )

Greg

Answer 9

If you still need testers, I can do some beta testing. I know how important it is.

Kim

Answer 10

It is missing a bunch of my ancestors , not picking them all up