New add on utility

[Phil Wright]

Hi

I am a professional programmer with an interest in geneaology. I want
to spend time working on a utility/application that will be really
useful in the geneaology community and so am looking for ideas. The
utility/application will be free and will be a spare time activity
only.

So far I have noticed that none of the well known geneaology
applications has really top notch tree drawing capabilites. They are
ok but nothing special or particularly professional. Would a utility
that imported GEDCOM, PAF and produced professional pictures be of use
to people? Are there cool features that would make your life easier
that you would like to see?

Any ideas/discussion welcome...
Phil Wright

[Doug McDonald]

Phil Wright wrote:

Hi

I am a professional programmer with an interest in geneaology. I want
to spend time working on a utility/application that will be really
useful in the geneaology community and so am looking for ideas. The
utility/application will be free and will be a spare time activity
only.

So far I have noticed that none of the well known geneaology
applications has really top notch tree drawing capabilites. They are
ok but nothing special or particularly professional. Would a utility
that imported GEDCOM, PAF and produced professional pictures be of use
to people? Are there cool features that would make your life easier
that you would like to see?

Any ideas/discussion welcome...
Phil Wright

FTM has tree drawings are just fine for what they are.

What else do you want?

I wrote a program that draws an ancestor tree similar
to the one FTM does, but colors the boxes of multiple instances
of the same person the same color scheme, and optionally connects
them with colored lines. If you have medieval ancestors,
the result is an amazing ratsnest.

Doug McDonald