Address Book Format

This special-purpose format is for editing Residence information for all the people in your genealogy file. The display is like an address book. For each individual, you will see and can edit all parts of residence events, remove residences or add more residences. In addition, it will display all linked multimedia objects and notes. The options for using this format are:

• Editing Residences
• Adding and Editing Multimedia, URLs, E-Mail Addresses, and Notes
• Viewing Related Records
• Utilities
• Editing Multimedia Object Records
• Editing Notes Records
• Family Records
• Editing Other Types of Records
• Address Format Properties (or Preferences)
• Alternate Languages

Using the Address Book Format

Open any individual to see all known residences, notes, and multimedia objects. The editing options are:

Editing Residences

The main reason for using this format is to edit residences:

• Click the ⊕ or ⊖ icons to add a new residence or to remove a current residence.
• For each residence, you can click in the text fields and edit the data.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Place" to add information about the place hierarchy or the latitude and longitude for the place.
• You can enter multiple lines of text in the "Address" field. Alternatively, you can click the ⊕ icon in front of "Address" to add separate lines for each part of the address. You can control click on the address field and select menu command to try to find that address in Google maps.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Phone" to add additional phone numbers (immediately after that location). If phones number are present, you can click a ⊖ icon to delete it.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Multimedia" to add a new multimedia object. You can link to an existing object, or click "New Multimedia Object" to link to a new one. If any multimedia objects are attached, you can click the ⊖ icon to remove one. Click any image to open the multimedia object record.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "URLs & Emails" to add a link to a URL or add an email address. Enter any URL (beginning in "http://") or enter an email address (containing "@"). If URLs or Email addresses are linked, you can click the ⊖ icon to remove one. Click the hypertext to visit the web site or send an email. Click the ⓘ icon to open the multimedia object record for the link.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Notes" to add a new set of notes. You can link to existing notes, or click "New News" to create a new set of notes. If any notes are attached, you can click the ⊖ icon to remove one. The full text of the notes will display in the records, but cannot be edited. To edit the notes, click the "Edit" button.

Adding and Editing Multimedia, URLs, E-Mail Addresses, and Notes

Besides data specific to each residence, each individual will also show birth date and place, death date and place, all multimedia, URLs, e-mail addresses, and notes about the individual.

• You can edit the name or make changes to the birth and death dates and places. The main reason birth and death information is included is to help distinguish individuals with the same name.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Multimedia" to add a new multimedia object. You can link to an existing object, or click "New Multimedia Object" to link to a new object. If any multimedia objects are attached, you can click the ⊖ icon to remove one. Click any image to open the multimedia object record.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "URLs & Emails" to add a link to a URL or add a new email address. Enter any URL (beginning in "http://" or enter an email address (containing "@"). If URLs or Email addresses are linked, you can click the ⊖ icon to remove one. Click the hypertext to visit the web site or send and email. Click the ⓘ icon to open the multimedia object record for the link.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Notes" to add a new set of notes. You can link to existing notes, or click "New News" to create a new set of notes. If any notes are attached, you can click the ⊖ icon to remove one. The full text of the notes will display in the records, but cannot be edited. To edit the notes, click the "Edit" button.

Viewing Related Records

Unlike the "Default Format" the "Address Book" format does not have any links to related records such as parents, spouses, children, and relevant family records. You can navigate to all these types or records, however, by using the menu commands in the "View" menu or by clicking the icons in the window's tool bar.

Utilities

This section has buttons that perform various functions:

Find Individuals with Residences

Goes through all individuals in the current file and moves all that have one or more residence events to an album (named "Known Residences" in English). You can go through the records in that album to see all residences in the file. If you rerun the file, it will reuse the same album (as long as the name was not changed) and add an new individual found that now have residences to that album.

Export vCard

Exports the current individual to a vCard. Select a file name ending with extension .vcf (if you forget the extension, it will be added for you) and the file will be created. Such cards can be input into many applications such as Apple's Address Book application. The card will have the person's name, birthdate (if known), portrait (if available), and details for all known residences. In addition, the first note about the individual will be included. To export multiple individuals to a single vCard file, select the records in the index window and use the "Export vCards" script (you can download this script from geditcom.com, or get it using the "Download Script" menu command, if you do not have it).

Editing Multimedia Object Records

Multimedia objects will show the image (if possible) and list basic information about the object. To edit any object, click on the image in another record or click on the ⓘ icon next to a URL or email link. The editing options are:

• Click in the editing fields to change the title, location, date, or keywords.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Location" to add a field for mutlimedia object latitude and longitude.
• Click the "Change" button to change the file link to this multimedia object.
• Click the ⊕ icon in front of "Notes" to add a new set of notes. You can link to existing notes, or click "New News" to create a new set of notes. If any notes are attached, you can click the ⊖ icon to remove one. The full text of the notes will display in the records, but cannot be edited. To edit the notes, click the "Edit" button.
• Change the image scaling using the pop-up menu. If the scaled image is wider than the window, it will be scaled to fit the window. The text to the right of the menu indicates the maximum scaling that will fit the current window size. You can choose "fit" to always scale the image to the window width.
• You can click on the image itself to open the file in a helper application for additional editing. If the multimedia object is a URL or email address, you can click the Hypertext for the image to visit the web site of send an email.

Editing Notes Records

All notes are in separate note records. To edit any notes, click on the "Edit" button next to the notes. The records will open and the editing options are:

• Enter any amount of notes into the provided text-editing field.
• By starting the text with <div> and ending it with </div>, you can enter html code and the content will be rendered when viewed in the main records. See the GEDitCOM II help for details on using html content. For example, you can control click to get a pop-up menu with html editing options.
• If notes are already using html content, the editing field will initial render the content for display. To edit the raw html text, use the "Edit HTML Content" menu command in the "View" menu.
• The Hypertext links at the top of the record show the individual records linked to the notes. You can click the link to see those records.

Family Records

You can open any family record. The top of the record will list the father and mother (or husband and wife) for the family group and their names will be links to their records. The "Known Family Residences" will show all known residences for any member of the family. These residences are read only. To edit them go to the individual record by clicking the link to that record at the start of each residence. You can, however, edit multimedia objects by clicking on the image or edit URL and email address by clicking on their ⓘ icon.

Editing Other Types of Records

The Address Book format has only limited editing options focused on editing residences and individual records. You can view Family Records and edit Multimedia Object or Note Records. For all other types of records, however, nothing is shown and nothing can be edited. If you try to open such a record, you will get an message indicating it cannot be editing. YOu should switch to some other format, such as the "Default Format", to edit those records.

Address Book Properties (or Preferences)

• You can change the Address Book's fonts (and their colors) using the GEDitCOM II preferences. The available fonts are:
  • Section Label: Text used for major sections of the displayed data.
  • Name Font: The text used for displaying and editing the name field for each individual.
  • Static Text: The text used for all labels and other text that cannot be edited.
  • Editing Text: The text used in editing fields.
  • Button Text: The text for buttons.
  • Check Box Text: The text next to check boxes.
  • Popup Menu Text: The text used in pop-up menus.
  • Hyperlink Text: The text used for clickable links between records and for links to web sites or email addresses.
• You change the Address Book's colors using the GEDitCOM II preferences. The available colors are:
  • Lines Between Sections: Color for horizontal lines drawn between sections.
  • Box Lines: Color for border lines of the boxes drawn around residence information.
  • Window Background: Background color of the window (white is best for printing).
  • Editing Background: Background color of editing fields (matching the window background color is best for printing).
  • Font Colors: Each font described above can have it's own color and is set when editing the fonts.
• The custom Address Book settings in the "Editing" section of the GEDitCOM II preferences are:
  • Section Line Left Margin: Set the left margin of the section labels, and specifically the distance from left edge of the window to the start of the horizontal lines draw between sections.
  • Vertical Shift of Edit Field Labels: Extra shift added to all labels before text editing fields. If you change fonts and the labels and the text fields do not line up well, adjust this value to realign them; positive shifts the label down while negative shifts it up.
  • Vertical Shift of Button Labels: Extra shift added to all labels before buttons and popup menus. If you change fonts and the labels and buttons do not line up well, adjust this value to realign them; positive shifts the label down while negative shifts it up.
  • Thumbnails Per Row: Linked multimedia objects are displayed as thumbnails in the linking record. This option determines the number of thumbnails per row in the display and thus can be used to control the size of the thumbnail images.
        To speed up display of thumbnails, GEDitCOM II generates small thumbnails for each multimedia object containing an image. These thumbnails look fine when the links are small. If the links get large (e.g., when using one thumbnail per row), this format will use the full scale image rather than the internal thumbnails. The image quality will be good, but it might slow down access to records with lots of linked images. To maximize speed when opening such records, it is best to increase this setting to at least 2 and you may need 3 or more if using a large monitor with large record windows.
  • Label Width: The space reserved for text labels in front of editing fields (i.e., the distance from left edge of the window to the colons after the labels). If a needed label does not fit with the allocated space, in the space is enlarged to accommodate the label. Thus if the columns do not line up, you can enlarge this setting until all labels fit. The preferred setting may depend on the language in use.

Alternate Languages

The "Address Book" format supports English and French.