Gramplets

I looked into the Gramplet code Doug wrote for 3.0 for the first time. Some really complicated stuff is in there, but it does have some elegance. Mutual referral (A points to B points to A) is something I like to avoid myself, but we must all agree the Gramplet system is a wonderful pluggable addition to GRAMPS.

My foray into this code was due to requests on the user mailing list for better navigation on the pedigree view, later turned into a feature request. We often get requests to change the main views, but this is a very difficult balance. Too much information and many users are put off and want a simpler design, too little and many users complain they don’t see what they want easily.

Hence my idea to see if the issue could not be solved with a floating gramplet, and two hours of hacking and trying to understand the code brought up a functional design. Things can be improved, but I like the result. An analogue idea can be used for other viewing purposes, giving more power to the user, without having tens of options to change a standard view. Eg a person gramplet, with an overview of information about the active person, visible on screen without opening the person editor and without the need to add a new view to achieve it. The user who wants the extra info just places an appropriate gramplet on his screen.

It was fun coding this, now back to reality and encoding bugs, database bugs and relative path problems…

Benny

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