A Guide to Publishing Genealogy Web Pages with Legacy
Legacy has the most comprehensive
Personal Web Page Creation system of any family history program. It lets
you choose between five different styles of Web pages including:
Ancestor Book, Descendant Book, Pedigree, Family Group and Individual.
The Pedigree style creates a vertical pedigree chart that can be
navigated with the mouse. All styles include a Table of Contents, Name
Index and content pages that are extremely customizable. All individuals
are extensively cross-linked between all pages.
Legacy also allows custom HTML
embedding for advanced users who want to add buttons and other features.
Web pages can include links to other sites and downloadable GEDCOM
files.
The first step in getting your
genealogy on the Internet is to generate your family history Web pages.
The second step is to upload those pages to your Web site. This guide
will walk you through these steps using the Kennedy database
(sample.fdb) and uploading to the Internet using a utility called WS_FTP
Pro
Generating Web Pages • Forcing Lowercase File Names • Customize Legacy to Automatically View Web Pages
Uploading Your Genealogy Web Pages to the Internet • File Transfer Protocol Utilities
2. On the right side of screen you will see the Create Web Pages button (click this when you are ready to generate your Web) and the Close, Help and Privacy Options buttons. Click Privacy Options to
ensure personal information about you and other living individuals is not
included. Web page style options are self-explanatory. There are also button to Load and Save your option selections for use at a later time. The Reset button will put all the settings back to their defaults. It can also be used to correct formatting problems, such as lines and text overprinting issues.
3. Click the Project tab. The Project name is the name of the
folder where your Web pages will be saved. You can give your home page a
customized title as well as a title for each subsequent page. If you
have a street or e-mail address, include it on this tab. You can also
customize your introduction here.
4. Next click the Who tab. By default the starting person
is the current (highlighted) individual in Family or Pedigree View. The
options available vary with the Web page style you choose. If you are
creating Ancestor or Descendant style Web pages, you can choose a
different starting person by clicking the Change button and selecting a
new person from the Name List. You will also be able set the number of
generations to be included. If you are creating Pedigree, Family Group
or Individual stype Web pages, you can include everyone in your family
file by selecting the first radio button. To include specified
individuals, families, or lines, mark the "Selected Records in the Focus
Group" radio button, click the View/Select Focus Group button, and make
your choices.
5. Next click the What tab to select the pieces of information you want to include in your Web pages. Note that items that are grayed out are not available for the Web page style that you have selected. What is or is not grayed out will change according to the Web page style you select.
5. Next click the Other tab. If you wish to include a GEDCOM file, click the Select button and locate it on your drive. Check Pictures/Sound to include these items.
6. Next click the Graphics tab. Select the kind of background, buttons, arrows and dividers you want on your page.
7. Next click the Formatting tab and select the way you want names
and headings to appear on pages and in the index. Case for File Names:
It is strongly advised that you select the option to "Convert to lower
case letters" file names of your pages and graphics. This option, plus
the FTP utility option to force filenames to lower case at the time you
upload your completed web pages, will help make sure that all your links
work. This is important because some web servers are case sensitive
and any slight variation in case will result in broken links.
(See Forcing Lower Case Filenames.)
8. Next click the Title Page tab and select an image.
9. Next click the Links tab and add the address to your home page.
This tab lets advanced users customize the links on the top and bottom
of each page.
10. Next click the Misc. tab and add information that will help
Internet search engines, like Altavista and Yahoo, index your site.
Adding information here is important if you want others to be able to
find your Web pages. In the keywords box you may want to list all of the
surnames you are researching (e.g. Brown, Huffman, etc.).
11. The Wording tab will allow you to specify phrases when creating the narrative
paragraphs of the report.
12. On the Sources tab you can include where the information was found for individuals. Source pictures can also be included.
13. Now that you have selected who and what to include, the style, formatting and graphics, etc., you can store these options by clicking Save button. They can be reloaded later when updating your Web pages.
14. To generate your Web pages click the Create Web Pages button. If you have customized Legacy for your Internet browser, you can see what your Web pages look like as soon as they are created. At this point your new web pages exist only on your computer. The will not be public until you upload them to the Internet.
Uploading Your Genealogy Web Pages to the Internet
Probably the easiest way to get your Web pages up to the Internet so that others can view them is to use a web hosting service. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a a server owned or leased for use by clients, as well as providing Internet cconnectivity, The scope of Web hosting services varies greatly. The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. Do an Internet search to find the best Web hosting service for you. Also, some Internet Service Providers (ISP) might still offer web space, but this is becoming less common.
1. Before you try putting your Web pages on the Internet, contact your web host or ISP. They will make certain that you have server space for your pages and will tell you what directory to use.
2. If the service you pick does not have a Web interface for uploading, there are many utilities for transferring files over the Internet. One of the easiest to use is WS_FTP Pro which is available at www.wsftp.com on the Internet. (See File Transfer Protocol Utilities.)
3. Start WS_FTP. The initial screen will look similar to the sample below:
4. Click the New button. In the New Site/Folder dialog box select FTP Site and enter the name of Internet address. This can be the host name. Click the Next button.
5. Enter the host name in the Host Name dialog box. Check with your ISP if you are uncertain what to put here. Click the Next button.
6. In the Logon Information dialog box enter your User ID and Password. Click the Finish button.
7. You will be returned to first WS_FTP screen. Make sure the connection setup you just created appears in the list and is highlighted. Click the OK button.
8. In a few moments, you will connect to your Internet site. The left half of the WS_FTP window shows the folders on your computer. The right half of the WS_FTP shows the folders on your Web server.
In the left window you will need to browse to C:\LEGACY\WEB\ to find the pages you generated. The folder will have the project name you entered earlier. Web pages are the files the have a .htm extension. Pictures have either a .gif or .jpg extension.
9. Click the Options button and set WS FTP to force lower case file names. (See Forcing Lower Case Filenames Filenames.)
10. Highlight the files on your computer (left window) that you want to transfer to the
web server (right window). Click the right arrow button in the center.
11. When the transfer is complete close the WS_FTP Pro window. If you have difficulty,
contact your ISP.
Forcing Lower Case Filenames
1. Check with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) if you have questions about upper/lowercase filename requirements.
2. When selecting options for creating Web pages, make certain to uncheck the Uppercase All Filename References box (Internet, Create Web Pages..., Formatting tab,
Convert to Lower Case Letters option).
3. Most FTP utilities have an option to force lowercase filenames at time of transfer.
For example, with WS_FTP click the Options button, select Sessions Options, check the box to Force Lowercase Filenames, and click Save.)
Customize Legacy to Automatically View Your Web Pages
You can customize Legacy Family Tree to display your Web pages in your Web browser as soon as they are created. Here are the steps:
1. Start Legacy. From the menu bar select Options and from the Options Menu select
Customize… .
2. From the Customize dialog box, click the Launch tab.
3. The top line of the Launch tab asks "Which Web Browser would you like to use with
Legacy?" Click the Change button.
4. In the Default Browser dialog box, find the folder where your browser is located. Highlight the browser's executable file in the left window and click the OK button.
5. Click the Save button to exit the dialog box.
6. When you finish creating Web pages you will get a message box that asks you "Would you like to view the Web pages in your browser?" If you click the Yes button, you can immediately view what your pages will look like when uploaded to the Internet.
File Transfer Protocol Utilities
The following FTP utilities are available from the Internet by downloading. This list does not constitute an endorsement by Millennia Corporation and is provided only for your convenience. If you need more information, please contact the company that make them.
3D-ftp (www.3dftp.com)
Awesome program at a great price. This is our favorite and the one we
use to maintain our LegacyFamilyTree.com website. A 30 day evaluation
download is available so you can try it out.
CuteFTP (www.cuteftp.com)
Evaluation version of this popular Windows client with drag and drop, broken download resume and more. Some features disabled after 30 days.
WS-FTP (www.ipswitch.com)
Very popular FTP program for Windows. Download a free trial version from the producers.
Additional FTP programs can be found at www.thefreesite.com/Free_Software/FTP_freeware/ .
