Comments on: Related Work That Got Lost In the Cracks http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/ Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:54:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1 By: John Finlay http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-7 John Finlay Mon, 06 Nov 2006 23:10:56 +0000 http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-7 Many of your ideas for the Distributed Family Tree have already been implemented in the PhpGedView Open Source genealogy project. In PhpGedView you can link up people across remote websites using web services. Data is automatically and seemlessly transferred between sites effectively joining the trees without duplicating the data. The idea for this was first introduced at the 2005 FHT conference. You can read the paper here: http://www.fht.byu.edu/prev_workshops/workshop05/FHTCD/session4/s4-JohnFinlay_GedcomCGIProtocol.pdf and view the slide presentation here: http://www.fht.byu.edu/prev_workshops/workshop05/FHTCD/session4/s4-FinlayGedcomCGIGDBI.ppt Since presenting this at the FHT conference we have implemented the idea in PhpGedView v4.0. You can read about how we implemented it here: http://wiki.phpgedview.net/en/index.php/How_Remote_Linking_Works -John Many of your ideas for the Distributed Family Tree have already been implemented in the PhpGedView Open Source genealogy project. In PhpGedView you can link up people across remote websites using web services. Data is automatically and seemlessly transferred between sites effectively joining the trees without duplicating the data.

The idea for this was first introduced at the 2005 FHT conference. You can read the paper here:
http://www.fht.byu.edu/prev_workshops/workshop05/FHTCD/session4/s4-JohnFinlay_GedcomCGIProtocol.pdf

and view the slide presentation here:
http://www.fht.byu.edu/prev_workshops/workshop05/FHTCD/session4/s4-FinlayGedcomCGIGDBI.ppt

Since presenting this at the FHT conference we have implemented the idea in PhpGedView v4.0. You can read about how we implemented it here: http://wiki.phpgedview.net/en/index.php/How_Remote_Linking_Works

-John

]]> By: Hilton http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-9 Hilton Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:23:59 +0000 http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-9 Wow John, this is really excellent! Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It was previously my understanding that PhpGedView was only a way to publish GEDCOM files on the Internet so that they could be interactively browsed and edited. I was unaware that installations of PhpGedView can remotely link to each other. I would really like to use this protocol for my thesis. I will need to make a few extensions to accomodate the data model that I'm proposing, but I think the two can interoperate quite nicely. It would be quite silly to create a distinct genealogy network when a satisfactory one already exists. Wow John, this is really excellent! Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

It was previously my understanding that PhpGedView was only a way to publish GEDCOM files on the Internet so that they could be interactively browsed and edited. I was unaware that installations of PhpGedView can remotely link to each other.

I would really like to use this protocol for my thesis. I will need to make a few extensions to accomodate the data model that I’m proposing, but I think the two can interoperate quite nicely. It would be quite silly to create a distinct genealogy network when a satisfactory one already exists.

]]> By: John Finlay http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-11 John Finlay Tue, 07 Nov 2006 23:31:38 +0000 http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-11 The remote linking feature was just added with the release of PhpGedView version 4.0 earlier this summer. So it hasn't been in production for a long time, but it has been under development since spring 2005. It took a while to get it out because we had to also develop the web services, etc. to handle the connections. You are welcome to use as much of our work as you want in your thesis. The protocol should be fairly extensible to meet your needs. Just let us know about any changes you make so that we can keep compatibility. The Genealogy Web, or Distributed Family Tree, will only work if things remain compatible. I am looking forward to seeing the web service APIs released by the LDS church that there has been so much talk about to see if it would be possible to remote link to them. Still waiting for the APIs to be released though. The next phase that I would like to start is a global search. Right now you can search across multiple sites from another search page in PhpGedView, but you have to manually enter in all of the sites. Unfortunately PHP is not multi-threaded so it takes quite a bit of time for all of the web-services to search all of the remote sites. There are all sorts of considerations for actually implementing the global search such as caching and playing nice with everyone elses websites. The remote linking feature was just added with the release of PhpGedView version 4.0 earlier this summer. So it hasn’t been in production for a long time, but it has been under development since spring 2005. It took a while to get it out because we had to also develop the web services, etc. to handle the connections.

You are welcome to use as much of our work as you want in your thesis. The protocol should be fairly extensible to meet your needs. Just let us know about any changes you make so that we can keep compatibility. The Genealogy Web, or Distributed Family Tree, will only work if things remain compatible.

I am looking forward to seeing the web service APIs released by the LDS church that there has been so much talk about to see if it would be possible to remote link to them. Still waiting for the APIs to be released though.

The next phase that I would like to start is a global search. Right now you can search across multiple sites from another search page in PhpGedView, but you have to manually enter in all of the sites. Unfortunately PHP is not multi-threaded so it takes quite a bit of time for all of the web-services to search all of the remote sites. There are all sorts of considerations for actually implementing the global search such as caching and playing nice with everyone elses websites.

]]> By: Hilton http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-12 Hilton Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:24:21 +0000 http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-12 I see that there is a directory of PhpGedView sites at <a href="http://phpgedview.sourceforge.net/registry.php" rel="nofollow">http://phpgedview.sourceforge.net/registry.php</a>. Is there any way to access an XML version of this directory? I'm thinking that a good place to start development on <em>Genesis</em> is to write a simple client that can navigate the Genealogy Web. A machine-understandable directory of PhpGedView sites would really facilitate that. I see that there is a directory of PhpGedView sites at http://phpgedview.sourceforge.net/registry.php. Is there any way to access an XML version of this directory? I’m thinking that a good place to start development on Genesis is to write a simple client that can navigate the Genealogy Web. A machine-understandable directory of PhpGedView sites would really facilitate that.

]]> By: Enabling the Distributed Family Tree » Blog Archive » Baby Steps http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-14 Enabling the Distributed Family Tree » Blog Archive » Baby Steps Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:23:16 +0000 http://www.dftproject.org/blog/2006/11/06/related-work-that-got-lost-in-the-cracks/#comment-14 [...] Just because I’ve chosen not to start development until after tomorrow’s proposal, doesn’t mean my mind isn’t racing at a thousand miles a minute in anticipation! I’m especially excited to get something up and running that will immediately be of use to others. For my first trick, I will write a simple client program that allows the user to navigate the Genealogy Web created by existing PhpGedView sites (which, as I learned only recently, can remotely link together). [...] […] Just because I’ve chosen not to start development until after tomorrow’s proposal, doesn’t mean my mind isn’t racing at a thousand miles a minute in anticipation! I’m especially excited to get something up and running that will immediately be of use to others. For my first trick, I will write a simple client program that allows the user to navigate the Genealogy Web created by existing PhpGedView sites (which, as I learned only recently, can remotely link together). […]

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