Terry's Second Site Tips

Creating Virtual Sub-Sites

This page updated 5 May 20089

Version note: Applies to Second Site 2 & 3

As described in my article on Sharing, I like to use a narrative style presentation for the "completed" family history information I post on my public website. I want to organize the information by family line, with an overview page providing background information for each family, as well as indexes, charts, and maps that help the reader better understand what is known about the family. To do that, I have created the site in a style I call "virtual sub-sites." This article describes the methods I use to produce that style. Other articles in this group cover related topics.

Virtual or Actual Sub-Sites?

There are a number of reasons you might want to create separate "sub-sites" to display your family history information. For example, you might want to keep each family line separate to make it easier for readers interested in that line to find the people they care about. You may want to provide background information, photos, charts, maps, or other aids that relate to specific families. Or, you might want to use different formats, and provide different levels of information about various people in your Project.

For example, I provide quite different information, in a different format, about people in my "in progress" research stage than those that are more or less "finished." See my Outline Section which contains people in the former group, and my Narrative Section which contains people in the latter one. When you want to use different formats for the two sections or include different sets of Tag Types in sites you create with Second Site, you must create the two sections separately. If you join the two sections by use of a common "master" page, such as I have at my main page, you have created what I call "actual sub-sites." That is, you create two or more separate sites, place them in separate sub-folders, and connect them with a master page. The master page can be created outside of Second Site, as I have done, or as an independent site created by Second Site, which has only a Main Page and contains no people, but has links to the sub-sites.

If you want all the sub-sites to be in the same format, and contain the same types of information, another method may work better. That is especially true if there are many people who would appear in two or more sub-sites or if you want to depict people in separate families that are connected by marriage or by other common events. I call this method the "virtual sub-site" method. It not only allows readers to browse from one family to another by the interconnecting links, but means you have only one site to maintain and upload. That is the method I used within my Narrative Section to sub-divide it into sections for each family line.

The following sections of this article describe what such a site might contain and how I have created mine.

Components of a Site Using the Virtual Sub-Site Method

A site created using the virtual sub-site method, as I define that term, typically would include the following components;

• Main Page for the entire site – provides general information about the site, and links to each of the family sections (the "virtual sub-sites"). For example, see my Narrative Site Main Page.

• Global Site Index – provides direct access to every person in the site, regardless of the family or families in which they have been placed. In my side-by-side layout, that is visible to the left of the Main Page.

• Family Introduction pages for each family line – provide general information about the whole family, including discussion about what is known about the ancestors of the earliest people included. They also provide links to various people in the family and to charts and other supplemental pages about the family. For example, see my Gapsch Family introduction page.

• Family Index for each line – provides direct access to each person in the family group, allowing a reader to navigate easily to anyone in the family. In my side-by-side layout, this index appears automatically on the left when a reader opens a Family Introduction page.

• Supplemented Pages for each family line – may include charts with clickable links to each person in the chart, maps showing where the family lived, migration routes or other items best depicted on a map, etc. For an example of such a chart, see the Gapsch Descendant Chart. For an example of a map see the Linah Mims Migration map.

• Cross References to the Family Pages – from the individual sections of the Person Pages. I think these are essential if your site is posted publicly and accessible by a search engine like Google since a reader may "land" directly on a Person Page instead of accessing the site through the Main Page.. They are also useful if the various lines inter-connect and the reader my navigate into a different family line by use of links to other people in the Person Pages.

• Person Pages – with detailed information about each person in the family. That page may include links to supplemental pages related to that person.

The net result is that once a reader clicks on a family section, it will look like a separate site for that family. But, if that family has connections with another family - the reader will be able to move seamlessly between the family lines. And, since it's actually only one site, updates are simple - the whole site is updated at once.

The following sections discuss some general issues to be considered in using this method, and then specific points related to each of the items listed above.

Some General Considerations

Perhaps the first point to be addressed when designing a site using the virtual sub-site method is just how a sub-site is to be defined. That is, who is to be included in each section. I have called each section a "family," which I define as the descendants of a particular person or couple. Others may choose to define a family as the ancestors of a particular person, perhaps the parents or grandparents of themselves and their spouses. My primary reason for defining a family as the descendants of a starting person was because I wanted to be able to include for each family comments about what is known, and unknown, about the ancestors of that family. That seemed to me to be easier to do when you defined the family as the descendants of the earliest well-documented ancestors of the line.

In my case I tried to include only people I have something interesting to say about because I thought that makes the site more interesting to readers. That tends to limit the site to ancestors of me or my wife, their siblings, spouses of those siblings, and their parents. Others may have different objectives and thus use different selection criteria.

I think the illusion of each family being a separate sub-site is best maintained if the site uses one person per Person Page. If more than one person is on a page, I do not see an effective way to have only people from the same family on any one page, especially when any given person may be part of more than one family. As a result a reader browsing the site may easily encounter people who are not part of the family he or she thought they were looking at.

I find the one person per page arrangement works well in any case, especially if there is a significant amount of material for each person. However, for users with a very large number of people in their sites this will produce a large number of files to upload, which may become an problem. A solution that works well for me is to "Zip" all the files to be uploaded into a single file, upload that, then un-Zip it on the host computer. This method requires that your web host allow you to un-Zip files on the host system, which I understand not all hosts allow.

Site Main Page

The Main Page of a site constructed with the virtual sub-site method is simply the Main Page created by Second Site. Generally it would include some general comments and a means for readers to access the individual family sections. There are at least two ways to allow readers to access the individual Family Introduction pages. You can arrange those pages so that they appear on the site menu, and instruct readers to access them that way. Or, you can embed links to the individual Family Introduction pages within the body of the Main Page. Or, you can do both.

If you choose to have the individual Family Pages appear on the site menu you would place the Custom Page User Items at the left-most position in the list of User Items in the Pages > User Items screen. For details on managing User Items and Menus, see myMenus and Links article. One downside of this approach is that the menu bars can get quite large if you have many family sections. You could address that by placing the links to all the individual Family Introductions in a subpage, and place only that page on the site menu.

I prefer to see the links to the Family Introduction pages within the body of the Main Page text, as they appear on my Narrative Section Main Page. My article on Adding Page Content describes how to do that. As that article describes, there are two methods. One can use the "building block" approach and use a combination of Text Content Items and Link-Link Items to create the desired effect.

Those willing to venture into using a little HTML code can enter both the text and links into the Main Content field of the Main Page. The HTML code required it isn't that difficult, and is illustrated by the example. The essential part of the "Main Page Content" from my site would be something like the following:

The key point in this illustration is the use of the link codes, which are shown in red above. Here is one of them:

<a href="gapsch-intro.htm">Gapsch family</A>

It contains two important parts, the filename of the target page – gapsch-intro.htm – which is enclosed in quote marks, and the text that the reader will see as the link – Gapsch family. The other elements are simply entered as they appear here.

No matter which method you use, the key is to provide a enough description for readers to understand how to use the site, and some means for them to find the Family Introductions.

Global Person Index

The Global Person Index is composed of the Master Surname Index and the Master Index (the index of individual names) that are automatically created by Second Site. It seemed useful to me to have a single index available for the whole site, but if you prefer to not have one you can hide them from view by un-checking their boxes where they appear on the Pages > User Items screen. I re-named that index as "Master Index" to better distinguish from the Family Indexes described below. You can change the name of this index from the Pages > User Items by editing the Title field of the Surname Index link item.

Family Introduction Pages

The Family Introduction pages serve as the gateway to the family's sub-site, providing any text you might want to include as well as links to the supplemental pages about the family. If you like, it can also include links to the Person Pages sections for key people in the family. I chose to include background on the family's history, so far as it is known, and a brief overview of the family members' migration and occupations. There are also links to the chart and map pages created for the family, and links to people in the family to whom I wanted to call attention.

For examples, see my Narrative Family History site and click on any of the links to the family lines in the middle of the page. Compare several to see how these pages can be tailored to suit the information available for each family. In the case of the Gapsch family I had a great group photo of the immigrant couple and their sons, which I mapped to create links to the Person Page of each person in the photo. In the case of the Mims family, there is a considerable amount of information circulating about the family's history, much of it questioned and even established as incorrect. I was not comfortable publishing individual entries for these earlier generations because I regard the information I have on them as suspect. So instead of including those people in the site I discussed what is known about them in general terms on the family page.

The Family Introduction pages are created as Custom Pages in Second Site. Creation of Custom Pages is described in my Second Site Overview article. As with the Main Page discussed above, the text, any images, and link can be added using any of the methods described in article on Adding Page Content.

Because my family background discussion included real genealogical data, I wanted to add citations to that part of the discussion. See, for example, my Mims Introduction page. Adding citations to the text in a SubPage (or the Main Page) is pretty simple with Second Site's citation tools (version 2.2 and later). See my Useful Tricks article for details.

Readers can navigate to the Person Pages by use of the Index, but I thought it was useful to provide direct links within the text to members of the family I though were of particular interest. Creating links to the Person Page sections of specific people is described in my Useful Tricks article.

Family Indexes

I think having a dedicated index for each family helps with the illusion that each family is a separate site, and is useful for a reader trying to locate members of the desired family out of a larger number of people in the combined site. It is created by use of an Index - Custom Index User Item, using the option to create an Index based on a Flag created in TMG.

The first task is to create a custom Flag in TMG, and set that Flag to the correct value for each person you consider to be part of the family whose sub-site you are creating. Typically, one would create a flag with values N,Y for no and yes. But I have found it helpful to add a third value to use for people who I want to temporarily exclude from the family for some reason but do not want to lose track of. Once you have created a flag you can set it manually for each person in the family if there are only a few members, or by use of the Secondary Output of the List of People report. Either Filters or the Focus Group can be used to specify people to be included in the List of People report. My article on using People Filters may be helpful in collecting the desired people. If, during editing, you decide individual people should be added or removed you can change their Flags manually.

Once the family Flag is created, the index is defined by adding an Index - Custom Index User Item from the Pages > User Items screen. More on creating and managing User Items can be found in my Second Site Overview article.

If you want a link to the index to appear in the Family Introduction page, either place this User Item as a sub-item under that page if you are using the "building block" method to create that page, or include the necessary HTML codes for the link if you entering the content of that page manually. If you are using the Side-by-Side layout, you may prefer to do neither, but instead display the Family Index as described in the Using the Side-by-Side Layout section below.

Supplemental Pages

It is possible to add many types of Supplemental Pages that can provide more information about the family. There are examples of two of them on my site: charts and maps. Other possibilities include pages with photographs or additional text about the family. Adding charts and other supplemental pages is described in my Second Site Overview article. There is additional information about Maps (Second Site 2.2 and later) in my article on Adding Maps to Your Site.

Cross-References

One issue that should be considered if your site is publicly available is how your site will appear to readers who "land" directly on a Person Page by finding it with a search engine. They will bypass the introductory material you place on the Main Page and on the Family Introduction pages. A similar issue exists when your site contains family lines that interconnect, so that readers following one family line may follow a link in a marriage or other shared event, and find themselves in a different family group, not having seen the introductory material for that family.

You can refer such readers back to your Main Page with "person notes" – text added after each person's section. To do add these notes, from the Layouts > Person Pages screen, enter the desired text in the "Extra Person Bottom" field. Like most fields intended for text entry in Second Site, pressing F7 opens a larger screen for easy entry of a larger amount of text.

Similarly, you could add a note at the bottom of each page using the "Extra Footer" section of the Layouts > Person Pages screen.

Both of these types of notes apply to the whole site; they can be used to direct the reader to the Main Page, but they cannot direct the reader to the correct Family Introduction page for a particular person in your site. That can be done with the Group function, a part of the Custom Index User Item (Second Site 2.2 and later). With this feature, a sub-header is created in the Person Page section of each person which provides a link to any specified page. In this case, the links would direct the reader to the appropriate Family Introduction page or pages for that person. For details on the use of the Group function, see my Creating Custom Indexes article.

To see an example of the use of Group Link feature, see one of the Person Pages in my Narrative Family History site. Notice the Family Group label and link just under the Father and Mother entries at the top of the page.

If your cross-reference links are to appear for the same people you are already including in a Custom Index you can simply enable Group feature in the definition of that Index. But if you do not intend to have a Custom Index for the same group of people, you must create a separate Index, but there is no need to display the Index to your readers. To keep the Index from being visible, set the Menu option on the Edit Custom Index screen to None. Make sure the Custom Index User Item is set to the left-most position in the box on the Pages > User Items screen, and is not set as subtending another SubPage. The index, while it will be generated, will not be visible to your readers.

Person Pages

The Person Pages can use any of the standard Second Site formats and features. Because the purpose of my site is to share the considerable amount of information I have located on some family members, the Narrative Format seemed to me a good choice.

Using the Side-by-Side Layout

I really like the Side-by-Side Layout offered by Second Site, mainly because it allows the index to remain accessible while the reader displays the various pages of people. I find it particularly attractive for a site using the virtual sub-site method because it can place the Family Index next to the Family Introduction page, and leave that index open as readers navigate to the various supplemental pages and to the Person Pages of the family members.

Using that layout, especially in site using a virtual sub-site arrangement, creates a number of issues and opportunities, which I discuss below. The most important ones are discussed first, moving to more obscure ideas that only the most dedicated user might want to consider.

Search Engine Issue – If you place your pages on a public website that will be indexed by search sites like Google, readers are likely to find a persons of interest in your site in a web search. When they click on the link to your page, they may see just the person page by itself, not in the side-by-side layout you intended. My experience suggests many of my visitors find me through search sites, so this is an issue to be addressed.

The good news it that Second Site (version 2.2 and later) offers a very good solution to this issue. On the Layouts > Default Layout screen, under the Frames drop-down where you select the side-by-side layout, is a new checkbox to Use Frame Script. When you check this box, Second Site includes in your site a special script that automatically moves the page a reader finds by a search engine into its proper side-by-side arrangement.

Coordinating Family Index with Family Introduction – To me the virtual sub-site idea works best if, when a reader clicks a link or menu button to go to one of the family sections, the appropriate Family Index automatically appears in the left side of the screen. This can be accomplished in several ways, perhaps the simplest being a second application of the Frame Script just described. This script not only accomplishes the function described above, but also allows a link to specify both page that are to appear in the side-by-side frame.

In the Site Main Page section above I described how to create a link code in the body of the Main page to take readers to the introduction pages for each family. The link looks something like this if embedded in the main page content:

That link code works perfectly if you are not using a side-by-side layout. But if you are, it causes the Family Introduction page to appear on the right side of the screen, but leaves the Global Index on the left side. This behavior can be refined so that using the link causes both sides of the screen by changing the link code to something like this:

A little background may make it easier to understand how this link works. In a site with Side-by-Side layout, what a user sees in his or her browser is actually created by three files:

• A master "frame page" with a filename of index.htm. That page simply defines the size and positions of the frames, and specifies the initial files in the two framed areas. The frame on the left side is called "ssindex" and the one on the right is called "ssmain."

• A file for the larger frame on the right side of the screen, the area called "ssmain." The file placed there when a reader opens the site is the one with the filename main.htm, which contains whatever content you place on the Main Page. As the reader navigates around the site other pages are placed in this frame.

• A file for the smaller frame on the left side of the screen, the area called "ssindex." When the reader opens your site the Master Surname Index is placed in that frame. Other indexes are placed there as the reader navigates your site with the indexes.

Now, if we examine the link code in red above piece-by-piece, we can see how these files are controlled. First, we consider the TARGET="_top" section. This tells the reader's browser to ignore the existing frame and create a new one. Without this, the entire new frame called by the following terms will be placed inside the existing right pane - not the result we want.

Next, we consider the index.htm? part. This tells the reader's browser to load the index.htm file - the master "frame page" again. But the question mark at the end signals special instructions that will be interpreted by the Frame Script. Those instructions are the following two segments.

The ssindex=gapsch-index.htm segment tells the script to place the file named gapsch-index.htm in the left side frame – the section called ssindex. You would change "gapsch-index" to the name of your Family Index. After the "&" is the second instruction, the ssmain=gapsch-intro.htm segment. This tells the script to place the file named gapsch-intro in the right frame, called ssmain. You would substitute the file name of your Family Introduction page for "gapsch-intro."

Writing the link code this way is a bit more complex, but it pays a reward of creating a bit more seamless experience for the reader. It's not necessary; just a little extra "polish" for your site.

Simplified Links to Family Sections – If you have occasion to send links in emails to family members to direct them to specific family section of your site, you can do that in two ways. One is to use the format described above: send them a link like http://reigelridge.com/roots/index.htm?ssindex=gapsch-index.htm&ssmain=gapsch-intro.htm. It works, but is difficult to type correctly, and may not work correctly, depending on the reader's email system.

With a bit of preparation you can simplify that link to something like http://tmg.reigelridge.com/roots/gapsch.htm. That can be accomplished by creating a special "frame page" that causes both the Family Index and Family Introduction pages to be used instead of the default Global Index and Main Page. Creating the special "frame page" which is fairly simple to do. Here is the procedure:

1. Make your site normally, with the Side-by-Side layout checked.

2. Find the index.htm file in the "-o" folder where it was placed when the site was made, and copy it into the "-i" folder for the site.

3. Change the filename to something simple but suggestive of the family it applies to. I used gapsch.htm and mims.htm, for example.

4. Edit the newly renamed file with a text editor, like Notepad that comes with Windows. When you open it you see something like this:

5. Edit only the two filenames shown in red above. The first one, surname_index.htm, is the page that appears in the left frame. Change it to the family index filename. I would change it to gapsch-index.htm, for example. The second one is the page that appears in the right frame. Change it to the Family Introduction page. I would change it to gapsch-intro.htm for my case.

5. Save the edited file.

6. Repeat this process for each family line.

7. Change the links on your Main Page that refer to the Family Introduction pages so they refer to the files you just created. This requires that you either embed the links in the Main page content, or that you use Links-Link user items to create the menu bar button. You cannot change the linked filename if you use the subpage to create a menu bar button directly.

Now when you make the site again the special family "frame pages" will be included. They are ignored in normal use, but available when you want to provide relatives an easy link to the family section they are interested in.

Conclusion

Dividing your site into sections is a good way to focus attention on specific family lines, and makes it easier to present background information and supporting pages for each family line. This can be done by creating separate sub-sites and joining them with a master page, or by creating a single site that is divided into virtual sub-sites. Each method has is advantages and disadvantages. Users should consider the merits of each method when undertaking the development of such a website.

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