IDEA: pop-up genogram maker

[whitstabubble]

I run a team of workers supporting families.  We have to draw genograms (family trees) and there's hundreds of fancy programs out there that will do database-dense stuff.  But my staff just type and want a simple tool that can draw a simple family tree. 

I was pleased to see a free 'simple family tree builder' on this site: http://jdmcox.com/  but interestingly, although it's very good for amateur geneaologists, it's no good for family workers.  For a start there's only squares to use and the relationships are automatically generated -which is fantastic-brilliant-except we deal with incest sometimes and that throws the automatic logic loopy!  To be honest, a pop-up that could link squares, circles and triangles with a combination of dotted and continuous linked lines would be just fine.  So long as you could write in the shapes, that'd be fine too.  So I guess a very simple flow-charter that worked on the fly and pasted image file into main program would do the job wonderfully.  I know there's a variety of flow-chart programs too, but believe me, they are all a bit clumsy for our use. Come to think of it -a lot of team leaders would like an on-the-fly f.charter anyway. Anyone interested might like to look at the proper rules at http://faculty-web.a...ram%20Components.htm  but we don't need that level of sophistication.

thanks for thinking about it.

hh

[mouser]

can you explain more why the emphasis on "pop up" ?
do i take it that you mean that you need to be able to quickly bring it up, draw a diagram, and then paste it into another program as an image?  you dont ever need to edit it after you paste it into another program?

do you have any non-free examples of good programs that you've found that might serve as good examples to base a new program on?

i think your idea of using an existing flowchart program with some custom symbols is not a bad idea - this is surely outside the range of a little coding snack - it sounds like a fairly involved project i'm afraid.

[whitstabubble]

"do i take it that you mean that you need to be able to quickly bring it up, draw a diagram, and then paste it into another program as an image?  you dont ever need to edit it after you paste it into another program?"

Yup -that's about the size of it.  Something simple and accessible.  Once it's pasted it's fine as an image as more sophisticated stuff might lose editable relationships.  Smartdraw has a polished genogram module -but the nifty 'add-on' I remember in one old version of Word was 'org chart' that did a similar job, but again, not flexible enough to just join up shapes you choose, how you want.

Sorry if it's too ambitious a rquest!  Just one of those things you just wished you had -and to be honest, wished I had for years.

[JennyB]

"do i take it that you mean that you need to be able to quickly bring it up, draw a diagram, and then paste it into another program as an image?  you dont ever need to edit it after you paste it into another program?"

Yup -that's about the size of it.  Something simple and accessible.  Once it's pasted it's fine as an image as more sophisticated stuff might lose editable relationships.  Smartdraw has a polished genogram module -but the nifty 'add-on' I remember in one old version of Word was 'org chart' that did a similar job, but again, not flexible enough to just join up shapes you choose, how you want.

Sorry if it's too ambitious a rquest!  Just one of those things you just wished you had -and to be honest, wished I had for years.

-whitstabubble (January 06, 2007, 04:14 PM)

      Diagram Designer could be just what you need. Fast and simple, exports as a GIF. 

[whitstabubble]

thanks JennyB.  Had failed to download this before but your link worked fine and it's looking good.  Thanks
hh

[f0dder]

Might be more than you need, but perhaps it's worth to take a look at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com - afaik there's a free version.

[whitstabubble]

Thanks F0dder.  I had trawled through lots of proper genogram makers -including Legacy.  It is indeed a sophisticated Genogram builder but specifically for family tree hobbyists.  I've tried complex genogram and flowchart stuff on our range of team members and they don't have time or dexterity -eg - sizeable boxes start to go awry - so I was looking for something that was dirt simple to construct - Jens Diagram suggestion is close.  Anybody with a palm might know about 'ideapad' - it's the business - a simple heirachical tree that switches to a flowchart and vice-versa but the developer does not have time to do a windows version.  Many many thanks -appreciate all ideas.
hh