Gramps 3.4 Wiki Manual - What's new?

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This section gives an overview of changes since Gramps version 3.3. These changes are also detailed later in this manual. Users of Gramps version 3.3 are encouraged to review this section to be sure to take advantage of these new features.

Before you upgrade

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Warning

Creating an archive alone to safeguard your data might not be appropriate before upgrading. In the unlikely event that Gramps 3.4 corrupts your database, it could also corrupt the archive. An export as outlined in this section is recommended.

Before you upgrade, make sure your family tree data is secure. The best way to do this is:

  1. Start Gramps 3.3
  2. Open your family tree
  3. Export the family tree to the gramps xml format or the gramps xml package format (which includes your photographs and other media files associated with your family tree data). Export your tree via menu Family Trees->Backup....
  4. Close this family tree and repeat the above steps for any other family trees you have
  5. Keep the resulting file(s) in a safe place

For more information, please review Backing up a Family Tree.


After properly safeguarding your data, proceed to install Gramps 3.4. Use your operating system's regular installation process to do this. It is also best to uninstall Gramps 3.3 before installing Gramps 3.4, or make sure you install Gramps 3.4 in a different location.

After you install Gramps 3.4, you can open your existing family trees and continue working. In case of problems (e.g., after a complete system upgrade), use the backup file(s) created above to recreate your family tree(s).

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Warning

Once you open a family tree in a newer version of Gramps or using a newer operating system, you generally should not try to open that database using an older version again. As always, the gramps xml format is the format to use for the interchange of your data in such cases. There are tools to repair broken databases, but they are for expert users, so avoid needing them by following the steps above before you upgrade your OS or Gramps.

Visible changes to the core

Changes visible after the migration: interface, data.

Citations (formerly Source References)

The principal changes are that:

  • Citations can be shared and
  • Citations can have media object attached to them.

It is possible to use Gramps in the same way as at Gramps version 3.3, if you do not want or need to take advantage of the new features:

  • The Sources view looks almost the same as the old Sources view (but with the addition of a disclosure triangle for sources that have citations),
  • The buttons for adding sources to information like events are the same as before,
  • The selector for choosing an existing source looks the same (although with the addition of disclosure triangles to allow a citation to be chosen),
  • The new 'Citation' editor looks (and behaves) almost exactly the same as the old 'Source Reference Editor',

Only if a user particularly wants to share citations between objects do they need to be aware of the change. The change is also intended to be entirely compatible with GEDCOM.

See GEPS_023:_Storing_data_from_large_sources for an explanation of the rationale behind the new features.

If you have an existing Gramps database which you are upgrading to Gramps 3.4, after the upgrade process, Gramps will suggest that you might like to merge citations that are the same and refer to the same source. Unless you have specifically recorded different information (for example different notes) on old Source References that are the same, you should probably use the Tools->Family Tree Processing->Merge Citations... tool.

When you start using Gramps, if you want to share a citation, then you would click on the Add an existing citation or source and in the Select Source or Citation dialogue, you would select the appropriate source and then citation. Clicking OK would take you to the Citation editor, but you will probably just click OK, because the citation and source are both shared.

Editions

  • Citations support and sharing feature make citation edition consistent: adding citation now needs less dialogs.
  • Improvements on image selection feature.
  • New 'Default family relationship' option value (Preferences)
  • Add some accelerator keys on toogle buttons without labels. See also #Accessibility.

Gedcom data

More details and improvements on Gedcom file format importation. See Gedcom import.

Plugins changes

Everything about the plugins: import/export, gramplets, views, reports, tools.

Import/Export

  • Citations support on file formats
  • Improvements on Gedcom file format support

Reports

  • output file formats

Improvements : RTF, ODF, LaTeX, cairo (PDF, Print...)

  • support image sections on textual reports
  • Citation support and source review (NarrativeWeb report, etc ...)
  • Paper options

Consistency rules on paper values, orientation and file format (options set by user)

Book

  • Improvements
  • Alphabetical Index and Table Of Contents (TOC) features on book report

Detailed reports

  • Improvements, bug fix, consistency on age calculation, etc ...

NarrativeWeb

  • Media gallery, thumbnails
  • hyperlink menu for screen readers and braille writers

Views

  • New citation category
  • Add of a citation tree view into the Source category (like Persons, Places categories)
  • Size adjustments on Main, Navigation, Bottom and Side bars

Tools

  • A new tool for merging our citation records: MergeCitations.
  • Review on some Repair Family Tree tools

Under the hood changes

Technical stuff (gui/gen).

Accessibility

  • Better ATK support

Addons manager

  • Review, improvements

Command Line Interface

  • Arguments/flags

Improvements, consistency, optional translation

Gramps XML file format and database

  • Citations support
  • Gramps XML is now idempotent[1].

Exporter does not change records order, making easier to look at differences between versions/revisions.

User classes

Reports and tools have user classes. These classes provide a means to interact with the user in an abstract way. These classes should be overridden by each respective user interface to provide the appropriate interaction (eg. dialogs for GTK, promts for CLI).

Further info

More informations.

Roadmap

Changelog


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