Gramps 4.0 Wiki Manual - Main Window

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Elements of Gramps main window.

Main Window

When you open a Family Tree database (either existing or new), the main Gramps window is displayed (Fig. 3.1):

Fig. 3.1 Gramps Main Window


The main Gramps window contains the following elements:

Menubar

  • Menubar: The menubar (Main Menu) is located at the very top of the window (right below the window title) and provides access to all the features of Gramps.

Toolbar

  • Toolbar: The toolbar is located right below the menubar. It gives you access to the most frequently used functions of Gramps. You can set options that control how it appears by going to the menu Edit ->Preferences . You can also hide the toolbar entirely by going to the menu View ->Toolbar.

Navigator

  • Navigator: The navigator is located at the left of the window and allows selection of the different categories.

See Categories of the Navigator

Display area

  • Display area: The area in the center of the Gramps window is the display area. What it displays depends on the currently selected View. We will discuss Views in detail below.

Bottombar and Sidebar

  • Bottombar: The bottombar is located below the display area.
  • Sidebar: The sidebar is located to the right of the display area.

The Bottombar and the Sidebar allow gramplets to be displayed alongside a view. (Details to be provided, based e.g. on GEPS 019 and Gramps bar, with references to Filters, Filters and Sidebar and bottombar)

Status Bar and Progress Bar

  • Status Bar and Progress Bar: These are located at the very bottom of the Gramps window.
    • The Progress Bar is located in the lower left corner of the Gramps window. It displays the progress of time consuming operations, such as opening and saving large Family Tree databases, importing and exporting to other formats, generating web sites, etc. When you are not doing these types of operations, the Progress Bar is not shown.
    • The Status Bar is located to the right of the Progress Bar. It displays information about current Gramps activity and contextual information about the selected items.

The Navigator, Toolbar, Sidebar and Bottombar can be individually turned on or off by options in menu View. If the Sidebar is not displayed, then the Search bar is displayed instead.

Fig. 3.2 Gramps Main Window showing Search Bar


When something goes wrong

Sometimes something goes wrong, either because you have asked to do something that Gramps doesn't know how to do, or because something has happened that the developers of Gramps did not anticipate, or because there is a mistake in the coding of Gramps.

This section explains what to do when something unexpected happens.

Alerts

An alert is a dialog that appears when Gramps needs to give you an important message about an error condition or warn you about potentially hazardous situations or consequences.

Most alerts are self explanatory, and the same type of alerts that you might get with any application. These are not discussed further here.

However, some alerts require more complicated actions, so they are described below.


Fig. 3.3 Dialogue showing DB Upgrade Required Error

This dialogue appears if you try to open a Family Tree created with a previous version of Gramps with a newer version of Gramps. If you still have the older version of Gramps available, then you should:

  • cancel this dialogue,
  • open the Family Tree with the previous version of Gramps,
  • export your family tree in Gramps XML database export format or Gramps package export format (see Export into Gramps formats),
  • open the Family Tree in the new version of Gramps and click Upgrade now in this dialogue



Fig. 3.4 Dialogue showing DB Environment Error

As explained in the dialogue, the Family Tree was probably created with an old version of the Berkeley database program. This is not quite the same thing as an old version of the Gramps program, because the version of the Gramps program and the version of the Berkeley database are independent. However, the effect is somewhat the same. As suggested in the dialogue, if you have the old version of Gramps and its support software, then you should:

  • cancel this dialogue,
  • open the Family Tree with the previous version of Gramps,
  • export your family tree in Gramps XML database export format or Gramps package export format (see Export into Gramps formats),
  • start the new version of Gramps,
  • open the 'Manage Family Tree' dialogue,
  • click on new and create a new Family Tree,
  • load the new Family Tree
  • Import the Gramps XML or Gramps package.

Alternatively, it may be possible to use the recovery tools. See 'obtain the bsddb recovery tools' under Recover corrupted family tree


Fig. 3.5 Dialogue showing DB Error Dialogue

This dialogue appears when a problem is detected with the underlying database that supports Family Trees.

  • close the dialogue,
  • click on the Family Tree Manager,
  • select the Family Tree you were trying to open,
  • the Repair button should be available; click on it,
  • once the Family Tree has been repaired it should be possible to open it in the normal way.

If this does not work, try 'obtain the bsddb recovery tools' under Recover corrupted family tree


Fig. 3.6 Dialogue showing DB Downgrade Error

Carry out suggested action.


Fig. 3.7 Dialogue showing DB Version Error

Carry out suggested action.


Fig. 3.8 Dialogue showing Run Database Repair

Carry out suggested action.

Warnings

If Gramps detects a minor error, or wishes to notify you about an occurrence within the program, then Gramps may display a warning button, as shown below. This button is only displayed for 180 seconds, so if you see it you should immediately click on it if you want to see the messages.

Fig. 3.9 Gramps Main Window showing Warning button


If you click the warning button, then a dialogue box appears showing the last 20 messages received. More details

Fig. 3.10 Gramps Main Window showing Warning messages


Some of the warnings that may appear are described below:

  • "Date parser for ... not available, using default", "Date displayer for ... not available, using default", "WARNING: Setting locale failed... ": all these mean that the language that you are trying to use for running Gramps is not supported. See languages

Errors

More serious problems cause an error dialogue to appear which will describe the actions you should take. tbd. give example of the program error dialogue. Also explain what to do if Gramps suddenly quits, or if Gramps just won't start.

Fig. 3.11 Dialogue showing Unexpected error

This dialogue appears whenever something has happened in the Gramps application that the programmers did not expect.

Have a look at How to create a good bug report. If you think you know how the Gramps developers might reproduce the bug, then by all means click on the 'Report' button. This will take you to the 'Report a bug' dialogue, and you can then follow the instructions.

Fig. 3.12 Dialogue showing reporting wizard




Sometimes, not all the information needed to understand what has gone wrong will appear on the screen, or Gramps just doesn't start and nothing appears on the screen, or Gramps suddenly quits so you don't see anything on the screen. In this case you may need to do something special to see all the errors.

Linux

You can start Gramps from the Command Line, as described in the note here. You will then see all the diagnostic information on the terminal.

MS Windows

tbd

Mac OS X

You can look at the messages shown by the Console application, and select Gramps.

For example, one of the early alpha releases of Gramps 4.0.0 just would not start and displayed nothing on the screen. However by opening the Console application, and typing Gramps in the filter at the top right hand corner some diagnostic information appeared. (Actually we typed "gramps[" because there were some other messages that were not relevant, but it wouldn't matter if they were included as well).

Fig. 3.13 Console output


By shift clicking to select all the relevant messages and copying them we get:

01/03/2013 00:08:02 [0x0-0x88088].org.gramps-project.gramps[1867] 2939: ERROR: importer.py: line 51: Could not find any typelib for Gtk 
01/03/2013 00:08:05 [0x0-0x88088].org.gramps-project.gramps[1867] Gtk typelib not installed. Install Gnome  Introspection, and pygobject version 3.3.2 or later. 
01/03/2013 00:08:05 [0x0-0x88088].org.gramps-project.gramps[1867] Gramps will terminate now. 

In this particular case, this was enough to help the developer discover the problem.



Switching Viewing modes

Gramps-notes.png This page's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help improve the Gramps Wiki as a useful resource by updating it.
Fig. 3.14 Sidebar view mode

There are two different Viewing Modes. You can tell at a glance which Viewing Mode you are in: If you see icons listed vertically in a sidebar at the left of the window, you are in the Sidebar Viewing Mode (see Fig 3.14).

Switching Categories

Gramps comes with number of different Categories as standard. The built-in categories are described in Categories. New Categories may be made with plugins you download.

The way you change the category depends on the viewing mode. Normally (for most viewing modes) you can select the Category you want by clicking one of the sidebar icons.

Or you can also use the keyboard shortcuts CTRL+P and CTRL+N go to the previous or next category respectively.

Switching Views

A category can contain different ways of presenting the data, called a View. If there are several views, you can switch between the views. The way you change between the views depends on the viewing mode. In some viewing modes, there is an icon button on the toolbar to switch to a different view. You can also switch via the menu View, or by pressing CTRL+<number>, where <number> is the view you want in this category.

Configuration

Column Editor

Gramps-notes.png
Column Editor

The Column Editor is available in all Views and works the same way in each.

Fig. 3.15 Column Editor Dialog

By default, the View List, displays several columns of information about the repective category. You can add or remove columns to and from the display by calling up the Column Editor dialog from the menu View -> Configure View... or click on toolbar Configure View... button and then checking or unchecking the boxes listed. You can also change the position of a column in People View by clicking and dragging it to a new position in the Editor (drag and drop). Once you have made the changes you want, click OK to exit the Editor and see your changes in the View.


Filters

Fig. 3.16 Filter Controls Displayed

Genealogical databases can contain information on many people, families, places, and objects. It is therefore possible for a View to contain a long list of data that is difficult to work with. Gramps gives you two different means for controlling this condition by allowing you to filter a list to a more manageable size.

These methods are Search and Filtering.

A search will search the text displayed in list, whereas filters display people whose data match the criteria of the filter. Search is a simple but fast method of searching the columns displayed on the screen. Typing the characters into the Search box and clicking the Find button will display only lines that match the text.

Alternatively, you can enable the Filter sidebar, which will be displayed on the right hand side of the display. When the filter sidebar is displayed, the Search bar is not displayed. The Filter side bar allows you to interactively build a set of filter rules that can be applied to the display. The filter is applied based on the rules and the data, not on the screen display.


Tango-Dialog-information.png
Searching vs. Filtering

Searching only searches for exact text matches. If the date displayed is "Jan 1, 2000", a search of "1/1/2000" will fail, but a filter of "1/1/2000" will match.


When Gramps opens a database, no filtering is in effect. In People View, for example, all people in the database are listed by default.

Sorting columns

Fig. 3.17 Sort Column

Clicking once sorts in ascending order, clicking again sorts in descending order. The Column Editor dialog can be used to add, remove and rearrange the displayed columns.


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