Compare the tree diagrams for yourself:

MacFamilyTree 5 beta

Microsoft’s Family.Show

The latest updates to genealogy software appear to have at least a graphic designer (if not a user experience designer) on the team.

Are there any genealogy Rich Internet Applications today? The answer is yes. At least a few. Currently, they all are created using Adobe Flash.

It might surprise you that FamilySearch Labs is on th leading edge of genealogy Rich Internet Applications with these prototype applications:

Pedigree Viewer
panning, zooming
direct-line highlighting
ancestor/descendant view
search
GEDCOM import

Life Browser
add artifact (photo, record)
edit details
associate artifact as evidence
image representing potential timeline feature

Other genealogy sites using RIAs include:

Geni
panning, zooming
enter details, support for single birth, marriage, death date
intuitive interface for adding parents, spouse, siblings, and children
appealing design

MyHeritage
2D/3D perspective, animation to help flow through tree
enter details, support for multiple facts (birth, marriage, death, many more)
intuitive interface for adding parents, spouse, siblings, and children
appealing design

Desktop or Web Applications

Through my years as a software developer and architect, I have developed both desktop and web applications. When I started my career more than 13 years ago, I had the choice of working on mainframe systems or on Windows desktops. I chose Windows. Many years later, web applications were all the rage. One reason for this was their ease of deployment. After a few years of doing web development, there was a backlash of sorts as the types of applications that my team was building were too complicated for the web. The users complained of slow performance and were unsatisfied with the user experience. So the pendulum swung back in favor of desktop applications that (this time) were connected to a server to get the data.

Other developers have continued to build for the web and have employed techniques such as Ajax to build more interactive web applications. Users have always had a choice of web browsers (Netscape, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, etc.) which has caused developers extra work as the browsers don’t function the same. As web applications become more interactive, these differences in browsers continues to cause difficulties.

One advantage of desktop applications is that they can take advantage of the processing power of the computer that runs them. On the other hand, one issue you get with desktop applications is which operating system (or platform) to target: Windows, Mac, or Linux. Some developers have been seeking for the solution that would give them the “hat trick” of running on all three.

Rich Internet Applications

The development world is changing with the concept of the Rich Internet Application (RIA) which mixes the best of web applications and desktop software. You get the ease of deployment of the web with the better user experience and performance of the desktop. Although not a tenet of RIA-development itself, some of the technologies used to develop RIAs also solve the cross-platform problem. These technologies include:

• Adobe – Flash/Flex/AIR
• Microsoft – Silverlight
• Sun Microsystem – JavaFX

At this point Adobe is leading the pack due to the large number of computers that have the Flash player installed. In a weekly column in June 2007, Robert X. Cringely talks about RIA technologies and specifically why Flash comes out ahead of Java:

The folks at Macromedia (now Adobe) saw some amazing shortcomings in other web-based execution systems and simply did it right. Java applets were fantastic with major shortcomings (huge Java runtime, poor performance, clunky and ugly interface, etc). Flash fixed all or most of those. And Flash does cross-platform so much better than Java ever did.

RIAs built with Adobe tools can be run inside any browser that supports the Flash player or even outside the browser using the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) to support cross-platform deployment. I am very excited about what is currently available from Adobe.

Microsoft’s Silverlight is in the early stages with version 1.0 that was released on September 4, 2007. I can see good things ahead for this technology as I have been using its sibling-technology Windows Presentation Foundation for almost a year now.

I have to admit that I haven’t looked closely at JavaFX. Any discussion of RIAs wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t at least acknowledge that Sun Microsystems sees this technology as important. I will be keeping an eye on this technology as well.

Here are links to sites that include sample Rich Internet Applications:

• Adobe Labs – AIR Showcase
• Adobe Flex Developer Center – Samples
• Microsoft Silverlight Gallery
• Tim Sneath blog – 50+ Silverlight-based applications

Conclusion

Over the next few years we will see less distinction between desktop applications and web applications and more focus on the applications themselves. More application developers will choose to create Rich Internet Applications and this will also apply to genealogy software. The technologies will become more mature and their capabilities will increase. When this happens there will be more applications available across operating systems. Imagine your favorite genealogy application available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Smartphones, PDAs, and other devices will likely support RIAs furthering the reach of your applications. This trend is exciting to me both as a software developer who wants to create genealogy software as well as a family historian who uses it.

In the sample data included for the Windsor family the number for each range was:

• 0-19: 3
• 20-39: 13
• 40-64: 17
• 65+: 16

The graph doesn’t include the additonal 32 individuals that didn’t have a birth and/or death date.  I am not certain why the ages were grouped as they were.

This graph also acts as a filter for the people list.  Clicking on each bar shows those individuals in that age range.

It is interesting how they chose to include both statistics and navigation in the same control.

A few weeks ago when I installed Family Tree Maker 2008 RC1, imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was built with the same frameworks that I use at work.  I can run the software and understand how it is composed at the same time.  I find myself thinking, this is the Shell, and these are Workspaces and the SmartParts. 

The following CAB terms are useful for this discussion:

• Shell – the main window of the application that contains menus, toolbars, and Workspaces
• Workspace – a user interface container that holds SmartParts
• SmartPart – a section of the user interface devoted to a specific task
• Module – a deployable unit of code that can contain SmartParts or business logic; the Shell loads one or more Modules

Some of the benefits of building an application with CAB/SCSF are:

• Separation of Concerns – one team can build the Shell and many teams or developers can simultaneously build the business logic and SmartParts and later put them together.  Also developers can focus on their strengths which results in more productive software development.
• Modularity – user interface components and business logic can be packaged is a deployable unit called a Module.  To extend the software, just add another Module.
• Extensibility – there are many extensibility points built into CAB/SCSF besides the Module which allow better evolution of software over time.

Because the Shell is loosely coupled (connected) to its contents (SmartParts) and SmartParts are loosely coupled to each other, then the software is built to evolve with less development cost and less chance of breaking existing code.

What this means for those who use Family Tree Maker is that the software has been refreshed and will continue its long life.  In fact, I am hopeful that the development team can deliver many enhancements in the future because of their decision to build on these frameworks provided by Microsoft.

I am also excited with the prospect of having genealogy software that I can customize.  Besides the extensibility features built into CAB\SCSF, Family Tree Maker also has a Plugins menu which indicates that they plan to offer extensibility through additional companies or maybe a plugin community.

In Family Tree Maker 2008 RC1, there are no Plugins listed. 

I am awaiting news from The Generations Network about guidelines for Plugin development.  I will share them as I am able.

Links for Developers and Architects:

• Overview of the Composite UI Application Block
• Architecting Composite Smart Clients Using CAB and SCSF
• CABPedia

When you click on a name in the surname cloud, then the person list is filtered to only show those that have that last name.

I have yet to see a surname cloud in any other genealogy software.

The selected person is marked with a star and includes name, birth year, death year, and age.  Any spouse is marked blue and is joined with a solid green line that shows the marriage year.  If the couple is divorced then the line is dashed and includes the divorce date.  This image shows that Charles and Diana were married in 1981 and divorced in 1992 with Charles’ marriage to Camilla occuring in 2005. 

 I like how this family tree contains a lot of information but is still easy to understand.  If the person is deceased, then the figure is outlined instead of solid.  If a person has one or more children entered then an arc with small figures indicates this.  Following the lines from a person shows ancestors and descendants.  All direct-line ancestors and descendents are shown in red while siblings and collateral lines show in yellow.  You can move the diagram around with the mouse and use the zoom slider in the bottom right to change the diagram’s size. 

One of the most innovative features is the Time Explorer. This simple slider controls the year that the diagram uses to show the family tree.  Moving the slider changes the age of people and dims marriages and births that haven’t yet occurred.

These are the main features of the family tree included in Family.Show.  There are still more innovations in the application to explore.

At the beginning of this year, the company I work for hired Vertigo Software to do a prototype application using WPF.  Part of the portfolio that Vertigo shared with us during the pre-hiring phase was an end-to-end reference sample that they did for Microsoft. The exciting thing about this sample is that it is a genealogy application. Family.Show version 1 was released in April in preparation for the MIX 07 conference and version 2 was released in July.

This is not a full-fledged application and it wasn’t designed by experts in the genealogy community. But don’t dismiss it too quickly. This sample shows the imagination and innovation that can come when user interaction experts, software developers, and graphics designers work together. I especially like the different visualizations used in the application and will talk about them specifically in a future post.

Here is the feature list published by Vertigo:

• Quickly build your family tree
• Add photos easily via drag-and-drop
• Create advanced family tree visualizations with pan and zoom support
• See what your family tree looked like years ago using the Time Explorer
• Tell your family members’ story using rich editing and formatting controls
• Mine your family data with statistical filtering and sorting
• Import and export family trees to GEDCOM 5.5, a standard genealogy format
• Change the look of the entire application by choosing a different skin

Some limitations of the application are:

• Supports single birth, marriage, and death events
• No other events supported
• Doesn’t support approximate dates (Abt. 1815, Bet. Jan 1707/08 – Jan 1708/09, Bef. 1931)

Links:

• For those who want to see screen shots/videos or who want to install it, go to the Vertigo Family.Show site.
• For software developers who want access to the source code, go to the CodePlex site.