Terry's TMG Tips

Refining Your Site

This page updated 2 May 2007

Version note: Applies to TMG 6 & 7, and Second Site 2
Second Site 2.1 or later required for TMG 7

This article provides a few tips on some basic functions to refine the site you create with Second Site. It's not intended as a step-by-step guide for using Second Site, but rather is a collection of some topics I thought might be helpful in getting started with the program. Other articles in this group cover some more advanced topics.

This article assumes the reader is familiar with the basic steps to creating a site with Second Site, as described in my Second Site Basics article. This article describes some common steps in refining your site once you have completed those basic steps.

Controlling the "Look" of Your Site - Themes, Layouts, Formats, and Options

Second Site has the capability to produce sites in a wide variety of styles, each with a quite different "look and feel." The user chooses how the generated site will appear by choosing a Theme, a Format, Layouts, and then making choices from a wide variety of other options in the Second Site user screens. They work together like this:

• The selected Theme controls the general "look" of the site - color schemes and graphics.

• Each page created by Second Site 2 may have up to five sections:

    Layouts control how the various sections are arranged on the page.

• Formats control a much more specific aspect - how the genealogy data are displayed on the person pages. Formats control whether the data extracted from the TMG files is displayed in the generated site as narratives, in columns, bullet items, or whatever. And within those styles, Formats control the flow of one data item to the next, that is, exactly how such items as each subject's name, life-span, parents, events, children, and source citations are displayed.

After the general look and layout of the pages are set by these three controls, details can be fine-tuned by use of the many options in the Second Site user interface. There are controls for modifying the default settings provided by these controls, including the ability to specify different settings to different types of pages, if desired.

The Theme is selected on the Stylesheets > Style screen:

In this screenshot the "Plain" Theme has been selected. Note the 'thumbnail" preview of the general appearance produced by this Theme. Other options on this screen control how menus appear on the site.

The selected Theme establishes many aspects of the site, including colors, fonts, and many other details. See my article on Controlling the Details for ways in which many of these aspects can customized.

The general Layout is selected on the Layouts Default Layout:

Here I have used the default "1 Col F Con Side-Xtra" layout (for an explanation of the meaning of the "coded" layout names, press F1 with this Second Site screen displayed to view the associated Help page). Again, a small thumbnail outlines the resulting layout of each page.

Under the thumbnail is the ability to choose Side by Side frames. I prefer his arrangement because it leaves the indexes always visible on the left as the reader navigates through the site - you can see this effect in my Sample webpages. Others prefer to use the "None" setting so the whole browser window is used to alternately display the indexes or other pages.

Note that we are here setting the "default layout" for all pages. The other subsections of the Layouts section allow the user to override these settings for specific types of pages, that is the main page, surname index, etc.

The Format is selected on the Pages > Format screen:

In this screenshot the "Narrative" format has been selected, which produces narrative text, similar to TMG's Journal or other narrative-style reports. Other available Formats display the data in bullet-point format, in grids, or in multiple columns. Other options on this screen include whether TMG's Sentences will be used, and whether a sentence stating each person's parents be produced. Still others allow you to choose whether a long list of items, such as the TMG ID#, last edited date, etc., will be displayed.

I suggest that users view some of the example sites listed on John's website to get an idea of the possibilities creative users have developed. Other examples are listed in the TMG Users' Genealogy Web Sites section of the Wholly Genes User Forum, and in my own Family History site and Sample webpages.

Then I suggest making trial sites with some Themes that seem interesting. With a Theme of interest, try some of the different Formats to see which ones appeal. After one or two desirable Themes Format and Layout combinations have been found start working through the various options screens to fine tune the result to one that seems best for your needs and preferences.

Choosing Who is to be Included

If your TMG Data Set if very large you probably won't want to include everyone in your Data Set in your webpages. Second Site offers a great tool to control who will be included. To use it, you need a Flag in your TMG Data Set which is set to mark those you want to include. Generally you would create a custom Flag for the purpose (use File > Flag Manager to access the Flag Manager in TMG). The Flag can have any number of possible values, one or more of which can be used to indicate the persons that are to be included in (or excluded from) the webpages.

Unless you will only include a very few people for whom you can set the flag manually, use the Secondary Output of the List of People report to set the Flag for the desired people. You can collect the people you want in the Focus Group, then use the List of People report to set the Flag based on the Focus Group. Or, you can use a filter directly in the List of People report. Often several passes with the List of People report and filters are required. See my article on Filters for some tips on collecting the people you want to include.

Once you have marked the desired individuals with a Flag, go to the Data > People screen in Second Site, and click on the Set Flag Filter button to specify the flag to be used:

On the Set Flag Value Filter screen, choose your Flag from the drop-down list (here I choose a custom Flag named "Site"). Then specify whether those marked by the Flag are to be included or excluded, then enter the Value of the Flag that Second Site is to use. Here I chose "Include" and typed in "Y," so everyone marked with a Y value in that Flag will be included in the site.

More details about controlling who is included are discussed on the Filters page of John's Website.

Adding Text to Your Main Page

Most users will want to add some text to the main page of their sites to describe and explain something their work. That text is entered on the Pages > Site screen, in the "Main Page Content" field. The field appears small, but you can click in it and press F7 to enlarge it to a convenient size for entering as much text you want.

What is entered is actually read by the program as HTML. This means you can enter plain text, but spaces and line breaks are ignored, and any formatting must be done in HTML. If you want more than a single paragraph, a few HTML commands that may be useful:

The same techniques can be used to add text in other locations on the various pages, such as headers, and footers. There are fields for adding "content" of various types for each individual type of page in various screens in Layouts section.

Adding Supplemental Pages & Controlling Menus - "User Items"

Second Site 2 has a new feature to manage a range of supplemental pages that can be added to a website, and at the same time manage the menus that help readers find those pages. The types of added pages available include:

• Various types of custom indexes. See my article on creating a Creating a Notable Ancestor Index for some discussion of some of the possibilities.

• Several kinds of charts to display how people included in the site are related to each other. See the following section for some discussion of charts.

• An exhibit gallery where readers can view in one place the exhibits you have attached to various people, sources, etc.

• Custom pages you may create to include any special material that you might want to include in your site.

You add supplemental pages from the Pages > User Items screen. Clicking the Add button at the bottom of that screen open the Choose User Item Type screen:

Here I've selected a Compressed Pedigree chart. The next section tells more about how to set up charts.

The User Items section does much more than allow you to add different kinds of pages to your site. One thing it does is to allow you to control how the Menus that readers use to access those pages will be arranged. The check boxes control whether or not the item will appear in the menus at all. You can control the order of those menu items with the Up and Down buttons at the bottom of the screen.

If you have a number of charts the Chart List item allows you to place all the links to those charts on a separate page, rather than having them all appear on the other pages. There are several other useful functions. Consult Help for this section for a full description.

Adding Charts to Your Site

As mentioned in the User Items section above, Second Site will create a number of different types of charts to enhance your site. Perhaps the most commonly used are Pedigree or Descendant Charts, starting with any person or persons you specify. The names appearing on the charts are links, which will take the reader to the person page entry for that person. There is an example on my Sample webpages – click the "Charts" link, then you can see the link to "Pedigree for Annie Eliza Alexander."

You create a chart from the Page > User Items screen, clicking the Add button to, which opens the Choose User Item Type screen, as shown in the screenshot above. After selecting the desired type of chart and clicking OK the edit screen for the selected chart type appears:

I have entered the chart title and the TMG ID# of the person who is to be the starting point of the chart. The remaining options on this screen allow you to control the number of generations, and to format the chart as you desire. When done click OK to return to the Pages > User Items screen.

If I wanted to include more than one chart of this type, starting with other people, I would click Add again and repeat the process. Or, if I had made a number changes in various options and want the other charts to have the same setting, select the chart just added and use the Duplicate button to make copies. Then Edit each copy to change the Title and ID# as appropriate.

Using Icons

Second Site includes a clever feature that allows people on the web pages to be marked with Icons based on Flags in your TMG Data set The Icons can be used much as one might use Accents within TMG. My favorite is based on my "related-by" Flag, to mark direct ancestors, siblings of ancestors, more distant cousins, and spouses. But they could also be used to visually mark sex, to mark residents of specific countries or places, participants in military events, or most anything else one might imagine.

An example of how Icons can be used to demonstrate the relationship of the people in a set of webpages to a focus person can be seen in my Example set of webpages.

Before you start to set up Icons, the Flags which will control them must be created in the TMG Data set They may be either standard TMG Flags, or custom Flags you create. My article on Creating a "Related-by" Flag describes one way you might create that sort of flag, which can be used both for Accents in TMG and Icons in a site created by Second Site.

Once the Flag is created in TMG you set up the Icons in Second site under Data > Icons:

On the main Data > Icons screen, click the Add... button to add an Icon. The Set Flag Icon screen, seen to the right above, appears. On it, select the Flag to be used from the drop-down list.

The Icons may appear either before or after the person's name in any or all of three locations:

• For each person's narrative in the Person pages, at the name of the focus person
• At the name of each child in the listings under the father and mother's narratives
• At each name in the Person Index

Choose the location in the next drop-down list, then choose before or after the name from the third drop-down. Finally, click the Add Icon... button to choose the actual Icon image to be used. The Select Graphic File screen appears; select your desired icon in that screen and click the Open button. The Add Icon screen appear (seen at the bottom above) appears. Enter the flag value you want the icon to represent, and click OK.

In the screen shot above, Icons are being set based on the Sex Flag. The female Icon has been selected, as appears in the list in center of the Set Flag Icon screen, and the Add Icon... button has been clicked again to add a male Icon, as can be seen with the open Add Icon screen.

The Set Icon screen can set a number of different Icons based on different values of the same flag, and positioned at the same location. If other Icons based on a different Flag, or placed at a different location, are desired, close the Set Icon screen, and open another by clicking the Add button (on the main Data > Icons screen) again.

A variety of Icon images are supplied, or you can use others you have or create. When you select an Icon image, a copy is placed in the "-i" (input) folder for your site, and is copied to the "-o" (output) folder when you make your site. Probably the easiest way to create a custom icon image is to copy an exiting one and edit it in a graphics program. Most any program will do, even the simple Paint program supplied with Windows.

Controlling the Place Preposition

TMG's narrative reports allow users to control the default preposition – "at" "in" or none – use with place names. This is done on the Places tab of the report Options. The default thus selected is used whenever a full place name is called for, unless the tag Sentence dictates something else.

Second Site allows the same control, but it's done quite differently. In Second Site the default preposition is "at" which can be changed to anything else in the "Place Preposition" field on the Strings > Place Strings screen:

Here the default "at" is entered. You could delete it to have no default preposition, or enter "in" or anything else, for that matter.

Publishing Your Webpages

Second Site creates webpages in a folder on your hard drive. You will probably need to make a number of trial sites to get all the options set just the way you want them. Once you have finished, they can be viewed with a web browser on your computer. To share them with others, you can either copy the appropriate files to a CD, and send that CD to others, or you can post them to a website.

When you create a site definition file (.sdf) in Second Site, the program creates two folders, each with the same name as the sdf file, but with "-o" or "-i" appended. The folder with the -o added contains all the files for the webpages, and it's those files you copy to a CD or upload to a website. If you plan to distribute you webpages on CD, choose the option under Page > Media to Add AutoRun Files. If you include this file, the webpages on it are automatically brought up on the user's browser when the CD is inserted in his or her computer.

Distributing your webpages on CD offers the greatest security if they contain information you do not want to release to the general public, since access is limited to those that receive the CD, or a copy of it. Pages posted to a website are generally available to the public, though various methods exist to make them private, offering varying degrees of security.

Creating Public Webpages

If you want to make your site public on the "Web" you must obtain a web host. Your ISP may offer free hosting for web pages, although the amount of storage space is often limited, and thus may limit the amount of information you can include in your site. There is free hosting available from a number of sources, although "free" really means that ads will be placed on your site.

In my view, if you have invested effort to develop a site you are proud of, it's worthwhile to pay for hosting services. A number of hosting services getting good comments from users are available for under $7 a month. I've used LunarPages for a number of years with good results, and other users have reported they are happy with other services. You might check the archives of the Second Site list on RootsWeb for their comments.

Once you have secured a hosting service, you need to copy, or "upload," the files in the "-o" folder to the host server. Unless your host gives different directions, you will need an FTP program to do that task. I've used CuteFTP for a number of years and been very happy with it, but other users have reported satisfaction with other FTP programs, some of which are free. Again, check the archives of the Second Site list on RootsWeb for their comments.

As described more fully in my article about Sharing, I do not post the majority of my data on publicly accessible sections of my website. Rather, I post only basic data for a selected group of people on public pages, as described in my article About Our Pages. I have found a way to customize the settings to produce a "minimalist" style that works for me, as described in my article on Minimalist Style Web Pages.

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