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** HTML, the language of webpages, uses tags like ''<span style="normalText">Example</span>''. Here the meta data describes the style of the text, ie: ''Example'' is ''normalText''
** EXIF ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchangeable_image_file_format Wikipedia's ''EXIF'' entry]) is a way of storing meta data in image files, like when the photo was taken and what type of camera was used.
* Database systems (GRAMPS Gramps is a database system for genealogy) can store a huge amount of data about data. They're are very efficient at this job and very powerful.
** Google Search uses a database to remember what web pages are about, and tells you when you ask
* EXIF is great, but only for some types of files (not supported in JPEG 2000, PNG, or GIF), there are lots of different systems for different types of files. People are working hard to improve this situation all the time.
* HTML is great if you can store all your information as HTML files, but HTML files cannot contain other files, they just point to them. So we'd basically end up making a website about our files.
* A database, well we already use this when we use GRAMPSGramps. The GRAMPS Gramps database stores lots of information about the files and records it records. But GRAMPS Gramps does not store the actual file inside the database. If the connection between GRAMPS Gramps and the data it is describing is broken, then the files are just files. They contain no more information than they did when you first ''imported'' them into GRAMPSGramps.
This system of ''meaningful filenames'' has the following aims:
* Preserving enough metadata to give the file's content context without GRAMPSGramps* Creating file names normal people can understand so they can see what the file is about without GRAMPSGramps
* Creating file names which a computer can process easily so files need to be batch processed and metadata can be read directly from the file name without possible confusion
* Creating a system simple enough to use all the time for every file
To be computer readable we need to seperate the parts in a way which a script can easily recognise and, more importantly, in a way which would never occur in real language. So it would be no good to mark a ''name'' section with the word ''name'' if we also can use the word name somewhere in the file where it is not meant to be a marker.
To be simple enough to remember the system should not be too complicated, after all GRAMPS Gramps is meant to store the real information, this is just a supplement.
== What's in a name? ==
But this meets only one of the criteria above, that of ''understandable filenames''. How can a computer know who got married? what their surnames are? and so on. And anyway because of the limitations of ''Portable Filenames'' we can't have file names like that. We have to drop the reliance on capitalisation, drop the spaces, drop the comma and drop the brackets. To be computer readable we need to separate the sections with a system of markers to indicate where the surname, event name etc are.
So what sections do we want to be able to identify? Here's a basic list that should be enough for most situation, remember that GRAMPS Gramps stores the more complex information, we're just trying to give a useful structure to our files.
* Surname
* Firstname
== Source events ==
The GEDCOM 5.5 standard defines so few events as to be useless. The GRAMPS Gramps XML schema defines no events as these can be made by the user. This all seems fair enough since events are highly culture based. The situations where I think a set of events should be defined are those which will be connected with source records. GEDCOM has a reasonable group of those but they are heavily based in western christian culture. The solution must be language and culture dependent. Here's my list:
'''marriage''' is for an actual marriage event and all the associated documentation, including possible divorce and separation documentation.
EVEN--marriage_SURN--jones_GIVN--mary-jean_SURN--williams_GIVN--matthew_DATE--1923-12-02_NOTE--william_angus_to_right_of_mary.jpg
This could be parsed (by GRAMPSGramps?) as the description:
'''Event:''' Marriage
SOUR--census_PLAC--uk__england__london_DATE--1840-03-21_SURN--jones_GIVN--mary-jean.pdf
This could be parsed (by GRAMPSGramps?) as the description:
'''Source:''' Census
== Record types ==
The record types tell us what the record is about. GRAMPS Gramps ID's use the first character to denote the type of item the ID refers to. Sticking to something already thought and taking the most relevant ones to stored records these can be used as the following tags for record types:
* I-- Individual
