Taurus FamilyTree v1.1.0

The following release notes are applicable to the above version of Taurus FamilyTree. The copyright notice is applicable to any version of FamilyTree unless stated otherwise.

Copyright notice
Taurus FamilyTree is (c) Copyright 2002, Taurus Software.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Taurus FamilyTree is a trademark of Taurus Software. Java is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other product names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

All references to Taurus Software directly refer to the non-profit freeware/shareware software development unit run from the UK by myself. Any conflict with names of companies inside or outside of the UK is unintentional and should be disregarded.

Platform Support
Taurus FamilyTree is provided in binary form as a set of platform independant Java class files, and as such should run on any platform with a Java compliant virtual machine. Swing 1.1 is used for the Graphical User Interface, and is therefore required for the application to run. You will therefore require one of of the following:
  • A JDK 1.1 compliant virtual machine + Swing 1.1
  • A JDK 1.2 (Java 2) or later virtual machine
Installation
Unpack the downloaded ZIP file containing FamilyTree into a suitable directory (e.g. C:\FamilyTree).

Download Xerces 1.x from xml.apache.org and copy it into your FamilyTree installation directory as xerces.jar.

Example Family Tree
FamilyTree is provided with an example FTML file, so you can get going right away. Simply double-click @run.bat and FamilyTree will start and load example.ftml.

You can display a the Birth Certificate for "Example Me" by right-clicking on Example Me in the tree-view and selecting Birth.

You can navigate back again by right-clicking in the document-view and selecting Back.

You can change the root of the tree from Example Me to Example Cousin by selecting View->Set Root.

You can show a conventional (downward) family tree by selecting View->Orientation->Normal. Example Great Grandad will now the root of the tree.

You can plot a conventional family tree diagram by selecting Tools->Draw Tree. You will now see another window containing the Example family tree.

You can plot a timeline graph by selecting Tools->Draw Timeline. Each persons life is represented by a bar. Those people have only their birth date recorded (i.e. those who are still alive) are shown as a small bar. The grey lines represent significant events, like censuses and the First and Second World Wars. If you place the mouse pointer over a line a tooltip will be displayed telling you what the line represents.

Your own Family Tree
To draw your own family tree you need to write your own FTML file or obtain a Gedcom file from somewhere else.

To help you with FTML there is an online reference on the Taurus Software website.

Last updated 30th April 2002
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