OFB - Our Family Book

A program to create HTML-based Family Books, Ancestry Lists and Village Family Books.

Functionality

• 4 different types of OFB's resp. Family books as Detaillist, Family Report, Persons Report and Family & Persons Report.
• 3 different Ancestry lists as Ancestors List, Descendents List and Top Ancestors List. The latter is by design identical to the ancestors list and contains only the top ancestors (earliest known ancestor). In a special form also those ancestors with just one missing parent, are included. As numbering system  "Kekule", "Saragossa" or "d'Aboville" can be choosen.
• 2 Ancestors' lists for paternal lines and maternal lines, both as Ancestors and Descendants List.
• 15 Index Lists for first name, last name, family names, ancestries, place names, place of citizenship, occupations, birth dates, died dates, marrige / partnership dates, partnerships sorted by the names of the male and female, as well as male, female and all persons of the OFB as well as lists of sources, notes and repositories with direct link to the detailled data
• Beside a group of fixed data fields all others can be enabled or disabled by checkboxes, including media data and links to witnesses, godfathers/mothers, etc.
• 6 Date formats for the output (DD.MM.YYYY, MM.DD.YYYY, YYYY.MM.DD, DD.Mon.YYYY, Mon YYYY, YYYY) and 3 different separation characters ( . / - )
• 9 Names formats with and without name prefix and suffix
• Selection of persons to limit the output to the group of persons desired
• Selection of locations/places to limit the output to the desired locations
• Limitation of generations for the ancestors list
• For privacy protection suppressing or replacing of dates, first names and optional data fields for a defined span of years (Output of a definable text for the date and the first name or only 1st initial of first name)
• Variable naming and sorting of output of the data fields and the Gedcom-tags of the standard groups within a family resp. person per menu
• Variable sorting of the families resp. persons of the OFB per menu
• Numerous options to design screen and printer output, e.g. suppressing of line feeds for comments, adding line feeds between the data fields
• Selectable form, size, effects and color of output fonts for various aeras.
• Colored design of the output by menu and a css-Stylesheet controlled output allows an individual adjustment of the output
• Creation of single output files per person / family and a cum. file containing all single files. A preface may be added to the cum. file.
• Integration of a preface to the OFB, e.g. for a short history of the village or family
• Storage of output files as html-files, UTF-8 coded, to be viewed at the screen by modern browsers or to be printed on paper. They also can be used for storing and viewing via internet.
• Simple integration of the output files into an own homepage
• Storing of all selected options and settings in definition files for reuse. The last used file automatically will be loaded during startup of the OFB.
• By a supplied language file all text based data of the window forms, the output created by the program, all messages, tooltips and the genealogy signs can be adjusted to fit the personal needs. They also can be used to translate the data to other languages.
• Service Programs are supporting
  • the creation and management of Gedcom profiles. These allow a Genealogy program specific selection of standard tags and definitions of special Gedcom tags. Base profiles for various programs are available at the Download area.
  • the creation and management of the definitions for colors and fonts for the output lists.
  • and by the "Gedcom Service Programs"
    • the conversion of systematic errors in the ged-file for the DATE and other texts.
    • allows by selective extracting from any Gedcom file to build a new, reduced ged-file with the desired group of persons. 12.09
    • a re-sorting of the Gedcom datafile. Various methods for sorting are available.
    • an analysis of the structure of ged-files.
    • a validation of ged-files, checking duplicates, logical fails of dates and some other elements.
• An OFB Start center allows from a central point the start of all programs
• May run from an USB Stick

Report Examples

• Type 1 - Detaillist - colored, graphical genealogy signs, media, preface, list of sources, index lists in detail format, date lists incl. names, name lists incl family names
• Type 2 - Family Report - colored, graphical genealogy signs, date lists incl. names, name lists incl family names
• Type 3 - Persons Report - colored, graphical genealogy signs, index lists in comfort format, date lists incl. names, name lists incl family names
• Type 4 - Ancestors List - system colors, media, index lists in standard format
• Type 5 - Top Ancestors List - colored, genealogy signs bold print, index lists in standard format, only few index lists, ancestry lists incl. locations and nbr.-system
• Type 6 - Descendents List - colored, index lists in detail format, ancestry lists incl. locations and nbr.-system, date lists incl. names, name lists incl family names
• Type 7 - Paternal line - Ancestor List - colored, graphical genealogy signs, name lists incl family names, ancestry lists incl. locations, data fields one after another
• Type 8 - Maternal line - Descendant List - colored, graphical genealogy signs, ancestry lists nbr.-system, data fields among each other
• Type 9 - Family & Persons Report -colored, graphical genealogy signs, media, preface, multiple given names separated

Data Fields

System Requirements

The program has been written using "Microsoft Visual Basic.NET 2008". Therefor it is required, that the system software

• "Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0" for Win 98 and Win 2000
• "Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0, 3.0 or 3.5" for Win XP and Vista (should you have none of this versions, I recommend to use version 3.5)

By the following link "Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0" or "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5" may be downloaded for free from the Microsoft download Center. After download install it by double click on the filename.

Alternatively the software may be downloaded and installed by the Windows Update Function.

Installation & Update

• the OFB program itself
• the OFB Service Programs
• the Gedcom Service Programs
• and all further required files

General Remark

MS "Vista/Win7" Operating system handles the access rights to the Programm folder "C:\Program Files\..." more restrictive than "XP" and all previous systems. Only "administrators" have the right to write to the program folders. With this setup as Data folder for "XP" the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\[YourName]\ApplicationData\OFB\" and for "Vista/Win7" the folder "C:\User\[YourName]\AppData\Roaming\OFB\" (or a similar one) will be created. To this folder all ini files and license files will be written by the OFB. To this folder the user guides have to be copied manually.
In case you are not working as "Administrator", you should use as Program folder e.g. the folder "C:\OFB" or any other folder, but never "C:\Program Files\...". You also may do this as administrator. In this case no separate Data folder will be created, but the Program folder will be used as Data folder.
The actual path informations of the folders will be listed in a window after pushing the "Info" at the right top of the OFB Start Center.

Installation

1. Download the installation file "ofb-setup.exe" from the Download area to any folder
2. From this folder start the file "ofb-setup.exe".
3. The setup will check, if all requirements (see above) are met. Are all requirements met, first the language selection screen to define the language to be installed, then the welcome screen of the setup assistent shows up to guide the further installation.
4. Setup checks if you have the rights of an administrator. As administrator the installation folder "C:\Program Files\OFB" will be pre selected, as normal user "C:\OFB" will be preselected (a normal user has no rights to write to "C:\Program Files\...".
5. A choose component screen allows the selection of following groups:
   • Programs "OFB", the OFB Service Programs and all required graphic and the 4 language files (ofb-en.lng, ofbout-en.lng, ofb-de.lng, ofbout-de.lng) will always be installed on the PC, the graphic files in the subdirectory "\img" and the language files in "\lng"
   • Gedcom Service Programs
   • Desktop icons for "OFB" and "OFB-Start"
   • Quick launch icons for "OFB" and "OFB-Start"
   • Additional language files, to be installed in "\lng"
   It is recommended to select all components.
6. Shortcut for all programs installed will be created in the program menue.
7. A link between the program "OFB" and the file type *.ofd for the OFB Definition files, "OFB-GedcomProfil" and *.ogp for the Profile files, "OFB-ColorFont" and *.ocf for the Color/Font files, "GedcomConv" and *.gcsd for the Conversion Definition files, "GedcomRedu" and *.grsd for the Reduction Selection files and "GedcomValid" and *.gvsd for the Validation Definition files will be created. 12.09

Now the User Guides should be loaded by the "Update" function 10.09 of the start center from the server to your PC to be available when pushing the "Help" button of the programs. Prerequisite is to link the pdf-files to a pdf-reader.

In addition the Gedcom profile file matching your genealogy program should be loaded after initial installation from the Download area to the desired folder (e.g. "C:\Data\OFB\files\") and, if needed, customized.

USB Stick Installation

The programs may be executed, if all system requirements for the OFB are met on the PC connected to the USB stick.

Update 10.09

Note: An update from earlier versions to version 5 or higher is not possible. The current licenses are no longer useable and have been replaced !!

Getting a License

1. Send an email - addresses see menue item "Imprint" - to me with the information, which name for the license ownership you would like to get. This must be in the form "FirstName LastName, Location" and at least 10 chars long. Of course, middle initials, middle names and/or titles etc. may be included. Please note, that these information later will show up at the main window and at the end of each output file as "Name of the author".
   Please also inform me about your genealogy programm for storing and managing your data and the operating system of your PC. This allows me a faster and better support in case of questions.
2. I will send to you for Europe my Bank account data for the money transfer. "PayPal" may be used for non-European countries.
3. After receiving the license fees I will send to you by email a personal license file, storing the informations about "License owner" und "License key". The name of the license file will be "obf-YourName.lic", where "YourName" will be created from parts of your name. This file will be packed to a zip-file.
4. Store this file on your hard disk in a save folder. Extract your personal license file from the zip-file.

• 30 EUR  resp.  45 USD - for the OFB program and the "OFB Service Programs"
• 35 EUR  resp.  55 USD - for adding the "Gedcom Service Programs" as bundle

Activation of the license

1. Call from the OFB Start Center the license management by pressing the "License" key. Now the standard file load screen will show up. Load the personal license file from the save folder. This will transfer the information about license owner and license key to a central license file "ofb.lic" at the OFB program folder. An appropriate message will inform you about the results.
   In case of error messages you may just run a copy of the personal license file, rename the file to "ofb.lic", but only if this is the only OFB-license on the PC. Now move this file to the Data folder (see "Info" at the Start Center).
2. By storing your license data in the central file "ofb.lic", the OFB is enabled for you as license owner for unlimited usage.

 © 2005-2010, Diedrich Hesmer, Herrenberg (D), Saviese (CH)  -  last update